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lgch25

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  1. Hi Very sorry everyone, I thought I had posted an update on this ages ago when I had my car looked at, but clearly not! It was my front offside wheel bearing, which only cost me £45 to fix (phew). Although at the same time as fixing it the garage noticed a fault with my seat belt.... only £145 to replace! Gaaarr! Thanks very much for your advice, very helpful as ever!! Laura xx
  2. Hi Conniff Yeah I know I will have to get it looked at, my thought was that if I go in saying "I have been advised it might be X or Y" then they might be slightly less inclined to try to fob me off with unneccesary repairs. (I think I have found a good garage now but I've only been there once). The noise isn't continous, it tends to happen at a certain point during turning and only when the turn is more than about 75 degrees. I haven't noticed it on gentle corners or when I'm turning right. Sometimes I wonder if I'm being paranoid and imagining it because it doesn't happen all the time(!). But I guess better to be paranoid and get it checked out than leave it and end up with my wheel falling off or something! I might get my Dad to drive it this weekend and see if he notices anything. Laura
  3. Hi I know this isn't necessarily a "consumer question" but two years ago I got some really good car maintenance advice on here and I'm hoping someone may be able to help me again! I am having a problem with Citroen Saxo Desire 1.1 Petrol engine Hatchback 2003 53,000 miles on the clock When I turn a corner to the left at a slow speed 5 - 20 mph I occasionally hear a kind of crunching / grinding noise which sounds like it is coming from the front right hand side (driver side). It doesn't happen every time and only seems to happen when turning at a certain speed or angle. If I'm very slow and gentle around a corner it mostly won't happen! Now I had a problem with the CV joint gaitor 2 years ago and its definitely not the same noise I had then. That was a clunking / knocking noise and this is definitely more of a one off-crunch or knock. In the last two years I have had new CV joint, brakes, calipers and pads and new tyres. (The car is 7 years old and this work was done over two services / Mot a year apart, and is otherwise doing well.) I also had the two back sections of my exhaust replaced about 2 months ago when the back box fell off due to excessive corrosion. Looking online something was mentioned about steering linkage and it could be that it needs lubricating or replacing? Does this sound right? (Only I'm a young blonde girl and I know when I go into a garage it could be tempting for them to take me for a ride, so to speak, and I reckon it has happened before. So I would like to go in saying what I think it is and hopefully avoid being completely taken to the cleaners!) Any advice on what it might be (and if you can, an indication of likely repair costs i.e. more or less than £100) would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much! Laura
  4. Word of warning, I went to Leeds Stduent dental Practice and whilst I can't fault the treatment I was given (just a check up, I didn't need any work), the place itself was horrible. An open plan dentists practice with open plan office style dividers in between the chairs, and lots of student smilling around waiting for someone who needs treatment! And after seeing the amount that dentistry students drink on a night out I wouldn't want any of them anywhere near me with a drill!!!
  5. Perhpas playing devil's advocate slightly here, I do agree it is unfair that they have forced your daughter to do this, however it may be partially due to the fact that in the final month of their tenancy the student will probably be looking to rent somewhere else, which would involve paying a deposit and rent in advance, so not having to pay rent in their final month in their current house might be quite a help to some in covering the costs of the deposit on a new place... Just speaking from experience when I moved between student houses, coming up with the deposit and rent for the new place was quite a struggle, espeically as you don't get the deposit back from the previous proeprty for a while (or unfortunately, never - in my case! An ongoing battle with an infamous Leeds based agency!)
  6. Hi Many of you may have already seen this company mentioned on BBC News and Watchdog. I rented a student house through a company called Providence Properties from July 2007 - June 2008 with four friends. We each paid a £300 deposit in january 2007 (pre tenancy deposit scheme), with cheques made payable to Providence Lets. We moved into the house and it was not in a great state, it was dirty and the fridge was broken, there were door handles missing and it was your typical student house. We documented all breakages etc when we moved in. (I should add we also repainted a lot of the walls in the house in Magnolia, so the house was definitely in a somehwat better condition when we moved out a year later, although we didn't take photos.) We moved out at the end of our tenancy (June) and cleaned the property from top to bottom, despite the fact that there were builders in the basement who seemed to love treading dirt everywhere! I sent Providence proof of payment of all bills (September), as required. I then received a letter (in October) with a set of pictures of 'damages' and cleaning issues to the house, and notification that we would be charged for professional cleaning services and asking us to confirm who to charge which rooms to. Firstly it was hard to tell from most of the pictures what the 'issue' in the picture was. Some of them could quite easily not have been our house at all. They also did not tell us how much they were planning on charging. So I wrote back asking for a written breakdown of the damages/cleaning issues and what they intended on charging us for these. I have not heard anything else since, despite sending numerous letters and trying to call them. When you call you are told that all correspondence regrading deposits must be made in writing. The address they give you to write to is a garage. Providence Properties have mored premises and a new company, with exactly the same staff, as in the old office. We spoke to the new tenants who have told us that NO PROFESSIONAL CLEANING was done when they moved in to the house. We are getting them to sign a letter to confirm this. So my question is, what do I do now? I was thinking of writing one final letter to Providence, enclosing a photocopy of the new tenants statement, and basically acuse them of fraud, and tell them I will take legal action unless they retrun our deposits. But if they do not respond what should I do next? Do I report them to Trading Standards or the Police? Or do I go Small Claims Court? (They have been taken to court before and the tenants have won, but they just don't pay up even when told to, and the owner of the company has NOTHING in his name for bailiffs to seize, very clever!) I am just at my wits end about this and I don't know what I should do next! The Student Union are involved and trying to help but it just feels like we are not getting anywhere! Sorry for the long message but any advice will be greatly appreciated!
  7. Ok that also makes sense, but if this is the case should I still get it looked at and possibly repaired? Or is it just a case of it isn't dangerous and I just have to put up with the odd noise? I assume eventually it would need replacing so is it better to do that sooner rather than later?
  8. That all makes sense, at my MOT the car initially failed ona worn CV joint o/s, but they replaced the seal and the car passed so should the car still be making that noise? Its a Citroen Saxo, 1.1 petrol engine, 3 door hatchback. 6 years old but only done 43,000miles, about 6,000 of which in this year, so really its in pretty good condition. I'm away on holiday next week but will take it in to the garage the week after and get them to take a look.
  9. Hi I've gathered there are a lot of very clever mechanically minded people on this site so wanted some advice. When turning corners in my car in second or third gear (i.e. roundabouts) I can hear a knocking sound, sounds like it is coming from the front of the car. Its not particuarly loud and does seem to speed up / slow down depending on the speed I am going, and also seems worse when I am turning in one direction than turning in the other, although it can be heard when doing either. My car was MOT'd last week and passed so I'm not worried that it is necessarily anything serious, and the car was making the moise before the MOT. I'm thinking of taking it to the garage for them to have a look but I'm just wondering what people think it might be?
  10. Riget, thanks that is very helpful and certainly could explain the situation with the brakes. I'll certainly bear that in mind when the garage contact me and will consider taking the car to a garage to get the brakes checked and, if necessary, replaced. Although I was under the impression that with a service and MOT booked together, the car should be serviced to the extent that it would pass the MOT on all serviced points. So surely if on the service they find the brake pads are worn to that extent they should have contacted me anyway to say that they were worn and recommend replacing them before the MOT, as the car could fail on brakes without it? (This has been my previous arrangement with this garage). But thanks very much for that info, I will definitely consider asking for the brakes to be serviced.
  11. ooh what a debate I have started! Thanks for all the advice, I have written to the original garage asking for their response to what has happened. I don't live near enough to go in and talk to them personally. (The original garage is near where my parents live, and where I was staying when my service and MOT was due). In repsonse to Scaniaman's post about the garage 'advising' brake repairs, they first garage actually failed my car at the MOT on the brakes, they weren't advising repair they were saying it was essential for the car to pass MOT. But the brake test at the second garage the car passed first time. JonCris your comment about the screwdriver hole in the cv rubber gaitor rings alarm bells. The first garage said that this was loose and because it was loose it was also worn (or vice versa). But the second garage said the cv gaitor was loose but that the rubber seal just needed replacing. I had previously been a customer at the first garage for four years, the thing that made me wonder about their credibility was that at my MOT last year they told me my indicator switch needed replacing (to a cost of £120) but that the car *might* pass MOT without replacing it this time. I opted to give it a go and see as I was a student at the time and really didn't have the money for that replacement to go ahead, and fortunately the car passed. So this year I was expecting that obviously the indicator switch would need replacing...but it didn't come up at all! Which was why I started questioning the garage's reliability, and good job I did! Incidentally it did not come up on the second garage's MOT either. Thanks for everyone's advice, I'll let you know what the first garage say about it.
  12. Hi (First apologies if this is a really obvious question, but I will freely admit to being a bit of a 'dumb blonde' when it comes to cars!) I took my Citroen Saxo (03 reg, 43000miles, petrol engine) to be serviced and MOT at the usual Citroen garage/dealership that I have gone to for the last three years. They serviced that car fine but it failed the MOT on three points (one to do with something being loose, then because it was loose it was worn, and apparnetly the brake pads and caliphers needed replacing). They quoted me close to £700 for the repairs but I had doubts that this was all correct as the car is in brilliant condition and had only done 6000miles since the last MOT. So I took it to another garage, again a reputable Citroen dealership. They MOT'd the car and although it failed first time (on something the 1st garage picked up on, that something was loose) rather than replacing the whole unit they replaced the seal around it. The car passed on everything else including brakes and repairs cost me £13 in total! So I'm guessing the first garage were having me on? I mean I showed the 2nd garage the original MOT failure and the guy said anything like that would have been picked up on their MOT. The first garage I went to is a small citoren dealership, the second is a huge company that also deals with Volvo and another make of car. So should I report the first garage to someone? And do I have any grounds to claim back money for the first MOT at the original garage? Advice please!
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