A heads up to anyone who has an Iveco Daily motor home. In August my Iveco had a warning light come up on the dashboard showing an Automatic Transmission failure. The vehicle was towed to Prestige Iveco Truck Centre on the Princes Highway, Dandenong.
They had the vehicle for 10 days before they looked at it to see what was wrong. They advised that there was an ECU failure and the cost would be $7000 for a replacement, and up to 7hrs labour to program it. Then the news came about other repairs required. But to assist we will drop the price of the ECU. The Invoice showed $6850 for the part and $1870 labour. I had a new radio put in and then they said we need to fix up the head unit which controls the radio and we also need to put in a new speed sensor. Cost to fix this $1663 (parts and labour). Then they said "we have tried the new speed sensor and it is not connecting with the head unit. We will give you 4 hrs FREE LABOUR to see what is wrong." WHO EVER HEARD OF A MECHANIC GIVING YOU 4 HRS FREE LABOUR.
During the period of all this, 1 of the office staff rang me and said, "the gas has leaked out of the air conditioner. Do you want us to fix it." I told them no, because I had just had the air conditioner regassed and I would return the vehicle to them to see what was wrong. Then came the last cash grab. We need to replace the tachometer speedo unit as it is not working. Another $1170.
Then they wanted me to give a recommendation on their service. They gave me an estimation quote prior to picking up the vehicle and when I picked the vehicle up they gave me a Tax Invoice, Reprint No.5 which was completely different to the estimation, relative to the labour costs. I tried to argue with the manager about the invoice but he would not listen.
I left and returned home. I showed the invoice to my grandson who is a fully qualified mechanic and does RACV roadside assist. He advised me that their fault finding procedure should have been different. He started the vehicle and turned on the air conditioner and the gas was working as it should. I reported the labour costs to the Consumer Affairs and I found that 3 hrs of the FREE labour had been included in another part of the Tax Invoice. I received a $480 refund of labour much to their protestations.
From my experiece dealer repairers will replace every thing that code refers to rather than indentifying the actual fault. A mate got a dealer quote on engine light on a Suzuki for $15,000. Was done by a independent mechanical place for just over $400 of which the sensor cost very $300.
