Finding a good garage for your car is a bit like going to the doctor or dentist. You have a problem or you know it’s time for that yearly check-up, and if you haven’t already got a good ‘dochanic’ you have the stress of finding one. You ask your Dad/Partner/Brother/Friend for a recommendation; search the all-seeing Google, or even look at a copy of the Yellow Pages (do we still have those?). Not all businesses have a slick website, so you cannot always use the web as a judge (or can you?). When you do find a place, how do you judge it’? Cleanliness and manner of the receptionist? Knowledge or charm of the dochanic? Price? Area and Environment?

I use all of these aspects to choose.  Price should be important, but it doesn’t affect my choice initially because it’s pretty hard to know what you should be paying.

When you do find and arrange your first appointment, you have that familiar feeling of the dochanic knowing what is wrong and also knowing that you do not know. You feel powerless while he gives you an estimate of what’s wrong and tells you what it will cost to fix.  It’s not a very informed decision that you make when you tell him to go ahead and operate and most of the time you cross your fingers and hope it will all be alright.
Does it have to be this way? And what do you do if you are not totally satisfied?

I recently found myself in the position of having to look for a garage to service and repair my cherished but slightly old car. My usual garage (found via an RAC recommendation) was fully booked up for a month. The electronic Bible; Google, came up with the Good Garage Scheme Website (GGS) and I found two garages. Had an instinct about one of them and thought it sounded good, but it looked like a bit of a back-street garage, so I found myself bowled over by a more glittery and corporate looking centre.

Well, you know what’s coming next don’t you? The snazzy garage turned out to be expensive, a bit sniffy about my old car, and gave me a dealer-style list of expensive and ‘important’ repairs that ‘needed’ doing. The service was expensive and they could not find the problem that I had asked them to investigate.

I decided to try the other garage for these repairs. When I called them to ask for a quote for this work, I was instantly put at ease when the guy said “I can quote you on all of that, no problem, but I would prefer to have a good look at the car and check all of these things myself. You may find that they do not all need to be done.”
When I turned up, the guy was easygoing, spoke to me as if I was an equal, and arranged the courtesy car. He located the original niggly problem, checked the other ‘repairs’ and informed me in detail about what it was and checked that I wanted him to go ahead. Everything was done within a day and the car felt instantly better when I drove it home. It was a reassuring, pleasant, affordable and trustworthy service. I wanted to fill out a goodgaragescheme feedback form for them, and will certainly recommend and return to this garage.

Here’s a pic from their website:

The moral of this story is ‘don’t judge a book by its cover”, but it also highlights the difficulty in choosing a good garage. However this struggle is made easier if you have a website such as the GGS which not only provides a good search facility, but also a helpful real review section where you can read exactly what customers have thought of the service. This is a big incentive to garages to ensure you do have a good experience, and also makes you feel a bit less powerless as a customer.

I don’t know who owns the GGS or who runs it, but my experience with it has been a positive one so far.

I can’t help wondering though, are garages and car service centres due for a bit of a makeover? Do they all have to be so unattractive and dirty?

What would the ideal female car service centre/garage look like?

Could we have a Good Doctor Scheme website!