Dodgy Mechanics

[beep beep sri]

well it must be an ultra tune thing. my parents car got stuffed a few years ago by ultratune near me. ultratune are just like midas. big company dodgy work MOST of the time. midas did a sports exhaust for my barina i asked them if it would cause any dash lights to come on "no no definatly not". 2 days latter dash warning lights on so back to midas. go over the car and the front o2 sensor is busted they blaim holden. back to holden they put a new o2 sensor in. the next day lights on again back to midas. they say its not there fault. fight with them call head office they agree to fix it. midas go to put an aftermarket o2 sensor in so i hit the roof. after 3 hours of fighting they put the genuine 1 in. a month latter flex pipe packs it in take it to another midas they fix that. then the rear muffler mounts tear off (not welded on properly) new rear muffler at another midas (again) while there under the car they say the whole exhaust is stuffed and they will do it again. i spit it say i want my money back ofcourse they say no i call the head office everything under the sun still said no so i leave with a full new exhaust. the reason behind the busted o2 sensors was the driveshaft hiting the o2 sensor. the idiots put it in the wrong spot and when i gave it a bit the mottor moved back a bit and bang good by o2 sensor

[Kimme]

When I was buying my GSi, the guy was friends with the Ultratune mechanic next to his work. They did a pinkslip on the car. Didn't think much of it at all, until I got familiar with the car, and realised they must have just gone crazy ticking things and not checking them.

For instance, they said that both the tyres and seatbelts were fine. When in fact the front 2 tyres are nearly bald, and the drivers side pre-tensioner is borked.

The guy fixing my car atm.. (although he's an asshole, he's good at what he does) says all ultratunes are dodgy.

[btm]

sounds like ultratune is getting a pretty bad rap here...

[tmov81]

hahaha midas are knobs... never had anywork done by them but when i was looking at exhaust, just cat back, they said because the calibra was a rare car they would have to do a custom setup and it would probably cost around $1800...

I ended up paying around $700 and most of that ($350) was for the magnaflow muffler (for the $1800 midas quoted maybe they were planning on fitting an 18ct gold exhaust?).

[tmov81]

What a joke extended warranties really are !

I bought an Astra SRi in September 2002 and was enticed to take up the extended warranty which would take the warranty up until September 2008.

I have just sold the car, and when I advertised the car I included that the car was under warranty until Sept 2008. It wan't until when I checked with the dealer about selling the car and transferring the warranty that I was informed that the warranty was void once I sold the car.

Not bad, 2 1/2 years remaining on the warranty that is not worth the paper that it is printed on.

extended warranties are rubbish...

I would never buy one... and I am tempted to drive to melbourne and pay a little visit to the offices of Australian Dealer Insurance and jam my old synchros down the throats of each and every a$$hole working in that building.

in short the warranties are full of loopholes and pretty much leave repairs at their discretion...

[JohnBu]

What a joke extended warranties really are !

I bought an Astra SRi in September 2002 and was enticed to take up the extended warranty which would take the warranty up until September 2008.

I have just sold the car, and when I advertised the car I included that the car was under warranty until Sept 2008. It wan't until when I checked with the dealer about selling the car and transferring the warranty that I was informed that the warranty was void once I sold the car.

Not bad, 2 1/2 years remaining on the warranty that is not worth the paper that it is printed on.

well it is worth alittle.. just tell the next buyer that the car has no problems, becauses its still under warantee and if any problems have arisen they would have been fixed. i.e. not selling car because its having problems

[JohnBu]

extended warranties are rubbish...

I would never buy one... and I am tempted to drive to melbourne and pay a little visit to the offices of Australian Dealer Insurance and jam my old synchros down the throats of each and every a$$hole working in that building.

in short the warranties are full of loopholes and pretty much leave repairs at their discretion...

bad experience?

[lowey22]

haven't had a bad experience yet. I have used 3 differnent Ultra Tunes and they were all great. I don't think you can really say a whole company is bad, there are dodgy mechanics everywhere, just got to try to avoid them...

[beep beep sri]

hmm me thinks maybe 1 in every 100 ultra tunes are ok and 1 in every 30000 midas stores are ok. just going on what people have been saying on here

[tmov81]

i bought my cally with extended warranty which should have carried me to january 07...

i send all the stuff in... they say they will process it (this is in Oct 05)...
After about 2-3 phone calls a week and constantly being told their computer system is down, by Jan 06 they tell me they cant process it without service history. So I fax that and send it off. They tell me in late Feb 06 that they wont cover it because it was serviced at Shell Autoserv and not a Holden Dealer.

I wrote an extensive letter telling them that Holden does not make the car, and mentioned about previous bad experiences, overcharging etc etc. I also mentioned that when I phoned initially and enquired as to what it meant in the book when it stated "duly authorised repairer" and if they had a list of these people. I was told there was no such thing and anyone who was a licensed mechanic with a workshop was okay.

I didnt hear back so contacted consumer affairs. They told consumer affairs it wasnt because I had it serviced at Shell but because the previous owner made a claim, and warranty transfer is at the discretion of ADI.

Consumer affairs did nothing because the extended warranty wasnt worth the paper it was written on.


So I got stuck footing the bill for $3500 worth of gearbox and $500 worth of crank angle sensor...

This is why i would take much pleasure in filleting the mother f$%kers from ADI alive