they break. It is almost inevitable. After a while, time gets to them. But when they do go wrong, you would expect a national garage to be able to repair them in a timely fashion. So, for my incompetence watch, I give you Nationwide Autocentres (Stockport).

I drive an Eunos Roadster (an MX-5 variant). The car itself is 15 years old so I was expecting a few minor problems with it, so when the clutch started playing up, I was half expecting it. So I booked the car in with nationwide Autocentres to have it looked at. Apparently, the slave cylinder was leaking and the clutch needed replacing. I gave them a couple of days to get the parts and then fit them.

At this point I should point out I had arranged for the car to be dropped off with them on Monday, and the parts were due to arrive on Wednesday, so I could have them fitted by Wednesday night. With this in mind, the other car I was using was booked in to the centre in Manchester to have an MOT.

On Wednesday night, I get a call. They had fitted the parts but… they couldn’t get the gearbox back in the car. Ok, so I had to take the bus and tram in to work the following day. No biggy, just inconvient. When I had it collected, the drivers door was firmly shut… and wouldn’t open.

I managed to repair the door, and took the car out to the pub quiz. A guess what… the clutch wasn’t fixed either.

So, I book the car in for the following Tuesday. This time, they told me the fault was with the master cylinder and they needed to order the parts in (they only charged me for the parts this time). Skip a couple of days and the car was ready for collection. The clutch was perfect… it went like a dream. Shame about the 2 dents that had appeared in the front passenger side wing, oh, a black scrape mark.

I booked the car in again to have the dents taken out (at no charge). Except, they straighted out the wheel arch and touched up the chip (I supplied the touch-up paint, since they would have to order that in…) and missed the dents. So now, I’m just going to sort the car out myself. At least I stand a fighting chance of the car not coming back in a worse condition than when it went in.

The next time I need work done, I’ll be looking elsewhere.

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