Needs advice in London Area

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1989w124

Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2010
Messages
31
Location
London
Car
W124 300D
Hi everybody,

This is my first post to the MBClub forum; I have followed many threads on here, finding some really interesting info, but i've never felt the need to post... until now.

A brief history of my car: I own a 1989 w124 300D. It's my pride and joy... it's been in the family for 21 years, and is still going strong. It was originally my father's- he wanted to sell/scrap it some time ago, which I thought was insane, so I bought it off him.

It needed a lot of work, after a few years of neglect.... it's now back to how it should be, and i've spent a shed load on it, including a full body respray. I love my car (Jenny) and want to take care of her.

SO..... the question. I have a mechanic who I've known for years, but am starting to think I might like to start aiming my car towards an indie MB specialist....

I need to have the car serviced. I called a Richmond based MB specialist and was quoted £ 600 for a full service. I last serviced the car 10,000 miles ago. (147,000 on clock)

This seems a lot to me. My usual garage charges £ 250.

Is this normal? If not, does anyone have any experience with other MB specialists in the Chiswick, Richmond, Brentford or Acton area? I also need to do some body work to the car... any ideas?

much appreciated,

1989w124
 
If you are in Chiswick/Richmond it is an easy (and enjoyable run) down to Olly at Prestige Car Services (he is very active here under the name of BlackC55 and is a MBCLub recommended supplier - discounts for those over 100 posts) at Horndean, just off the A3 before Portsmouth. He looks after my W124 (I am in Kensington) and many many others here. From my experience he is extremely competent, fair and reasonable with costs (and nice with it too). Highly recommended and worth the journey.

Welcome btw too and hope to see your W124 at a get together at some point!
 
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The other option for the service would be a nice drive to Olly PCS who is a well respected member here[/QUOTE]

I am a fairly new member,but I have noticed that some of you guys go down to Olly from London,and even further.


I too live in London-Kensington,and was wondering how it works when you take your cars to him.

Does he do the work while you wait ? If you do have to leave the car with him is it easy to travel back to London from his place,is there a nearby station and so on.



Mike.
 
Mike - depends on the work involved, but for the service I just went for a long walk and killed some time in Portsmouth, which is easy enough if you able to work remotely, otherwise, for longer work, caught the train back from Petersfield, which is 10 minutes away and travels into Waterloo.
 
Thanks for the swift reply.From what I have read on he he must be pretty good.


Mike.
 
Is this normal? If not, does anyone have any experience with other MB specialists in the Chiswick, Richmond, Brentford or Acton area? I also need to do some body work to the car... any ideas?

Go and see Andy at Andy's Autobarn:

http://www.andysautobarn.com/contact_us.php

He does bodywork and now mechanical repairs and comes highly recommended from a number of regulars to this forum.
 
Thanks for the swift reply.From what I have read on he he must be pretty good.


Mike.

Give me a call if I can help with your 124. You are more than welcome to wait while we service your car.
 
hi,

thanks to everyone for the advice. :)

looks like a trip down the A3 may be in order!!!

But the question still remains- is it normal to be quoted £ 600 for a full service? :eek::eek::eek:

the body work that needs doing is relatively simple; i want to refit an under tray which went missing some years ago, then i wanted to replace the black bumper lips with colour coded ones to match the grey of the lower half of the car...

as requested, here's some photos of Jenny... taken this evening.
 

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sorry... should've resized the photos... oops.:wallbash:
 
sorry... should've resized the photos... oops.:wallbash:

Thnx for the pictures,she looks very good.For the under tray,gat one and Olly can fit it for you when you go down
 
Welcome to the forum.

Fine looking 124 you have there. Well done for rescuing Jenny.
 
Nice car. As long as they don't have a blue interior, white W124s are really growing on me. Good to see Jenny is a fair German maiden!
 
Does he do the work while you wait ? If you do have to leave the car with him is it easy to travel back to London from his place,is there a nearby station and so on.

Some advice on what to do if you wait - there's isn't much to do in the village of Horndean itself. There's the Ship and Bell pub which serves breakfast from 8a.m. to 10.a.m., and there's also a Table Table pub attached to a Premier Inn around the corner, for a good value lunch.

There's a few shops around, but probably best to take a bus into Portsmouth if work is required to your car for at least half a day, takes about 45 mins.

I also notice that there's a National Express coach service which stops in the village, once a day - at 8.15a.m. which goes into London.
 
Or, very politely ask Olly, to meet/drop you at a nearby train station so that you can go to Portsmouth. Plenty of shopping and stuff to do. As it takes considerably less time than the bus.
 
Thanks for the info guys. Not needing any work to be done on the car now,but will useful to know for the future.



Mike.
 
What kind of service were you going to get for £600?
I would guess that that's for a 36000m service plus coolant, brake fluid etc but it would be interesting to find out exactly what you were being quoted for.
 

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