A few weeks back I went out to buy a auto primary chain adjuster. Got a price from the states at around $130 delivered. Went to dealer "A" & was quoted $430.00 which was rediculous as there couldn't be that much difference between the states & Aus. Then I went to dealer "B" & was quoted $150 delivered to my place. I then rang dealer "A" to check part numbers & dealer "A" told me what it was. It turned out that it was the earlier part number . I said to dealer "A" that the part had been superseded  & asked for a price on the later number. Dealer "A" said they would not quote me on the new part number until they sold the old stock. I then bought the tensioner from dealer "B".

The moral to the story is be very very careful & do your homework before parting with your hard earned.

Yep, walking into some of the dealers is like riding in peak hr traffic, you have to have both eyes open

And the same goes for Anybody purchasing in the Building game , EG ,, plumbers , concreters , chippys , sparkys, Go and look at there work , are they recomended , Do they clean up , so on & so on , Unlike parts , THE quality of the job is well remembered long after the price is forgotten ,

Pays to shop around thanks for the heads up.

Well i'm in the building industry and can tell you this . i don't know how many times people ESPECIALLY elderly have said to me , but you come recommended and every one says never take the cheapest and your the cheapest , i don't know what to do .

I will then quietly laugh and explain , Look i'm a qualified tradesmen , i've been doing this for 39 years ,and NEVER been out of work, I KNOW MY JOB , and i charge for the hours the job will take not the day , so therefore if i think 10 hours i QUOTE 10 hours , at my hourly rate , i am not quoting 2
5 hour days for which i want paying 2 full days .

On top of that i am a qualified tradesmen who knows what he's doing . NOT a guy who has done a govt course and does'nt know what he's doing , so

If you want to pay a HANDYMAN 24 hours to do a job a tradesman can do in 16 hours go ahead . but i charge 50 a hour and give you a fair hourly rate , the rest is up to you , I have subbies who contract of me and they charge 50-60 dollars a hour and want 20 hours for 8 hours work . they come to me when they have no work and i give them 40 and only allow the hours it should take not what they want . On top of that i supevise there work and make sure its done correctly after all its my name at stake a.

And it never ceases to amaze me that these guys would'nt need me if they were fair and honest , they would have plenty of work .

In a way its like taking your car to a big workshop , I remember taking my car for some work one sat morning , and he said about 3 hours , i wandered over the road to the pub , the workshop was right in front of me , and i watched him stop work every 5 minuits to wander out and look at another customers car , stop for a chat , with a customer and actually fack off for a test ride in another car .
I sat watching and got mesmerized by the amount of time he WAS'NT working on my car .

Never a truer word spoken

Boxa, I had a similar experience a few years ago with dealer and a company car. The quoted time for the service was 2 hours, and so I allowed that it would be 3 hours. Told the boss, he said to wait for the car. So I got out the laptop, sat in the customer lounge and worked from there for the day . No big deal as my actual location , as long as I had net access, was not critical.

Anyway, I got to watch the car being serviced. The whole job was done by an apprentice ( if he held any qualification at all!), the only time a (probably) qualified mechanic touched the car was the guy that put the car on the hoist. With the chit chat, stuffing around, time away to get parts and oil, plus a trip to REPCO (wtf?) for a drain plug gasket, I got the car back  4hours later, and was charged for 4 hours work at a qualified mechanics rate. No one but the apprentice went near the car the whole time it was in the bay.  It wasnt my money so I said ok and went to check the car before signing for it ( company policy, and the dealer guys knew of it) . Ok, bonus dirty rags in the passenger foot well, oily plastic seat covers still on the seats, no oil in the engine and air filter cover unclipped.  I told the guy behind the counter of what I found, wouldn't sign for the car and caused a stink about an unsupervised apprentice doing the job.

Enough noise ( I had fun, I pretended to crack and blow up) and the service manager appears, and then the dealer principal ( top boss). I rang my boss and let him know what was going on.  End result, I drove an LTD for two days, received a serviced car that had been detailed and we NEVER used that dealer again. On a recommendation we started using a guy just down the road from where  Blacktown HD is now,  and got great service, a loan car each time and fair pricing. And the cars always felt like they had been serviced. All the little squeaks and groans were gone, the steering felt tight etc . Basically they would go and give every bolt a check tighten on the chassis. Funny how that made such a difference and made it fell like you got what you paid for.