The AA has carried out a mystery shopping exercise which showed significant short-comings in the quality of car servicing carried out by garages.
The AA had five separate services carried out by five providers in Dublin city. In all cases the cars had been pre-prepared by AA and had minor faults installed – faults that should be picked up in any routine service.
Three of the five garages failed to ask when the timing belt had last been changed. This is important for the customer because timing belts must be changed at specified intervals or they can fail and cause very expensive damage.
The AA is concerned that in the current climate pressure on margins and pressure on price is leading to garages allowing standards to slip.
