Hi Guys,

Took the 110 to Frog Island 4 x 4 in Oxford a couple of weeks ago (think it was the 2nd or something), asking them to investigate a noise coming from the back of the vehicle.

They took the rear axle apart as they suspected that was the problem, then their guy went off sick and they weren't able to put it back together until yesterday (13th August). As it turns out there wasn't 'too' much wrong with it, just some pitting.

The time frame is fine - I even said to them that I wasn't driving it as an everyday car so there's no rush. What did bug me though is that I told them not to do any other work on the car because I wanted to do it myself (I'm learnding) and they've gone ahead and replaced some wheel bearings. In addition to that, the problem still isn't fixed.

So now I have a £300 bill for something I didn't want and I'm still £900 away from a solution...

Is it OK if I post the e-mails on here to clarify the situation?

Anyway...long story short, what do you guys think I should do?

• Argue over the bearings or no? No permission was sought for these
• Get a reconditioned LT230 box fitted or try to replace/repair the box myself (I'm a complete novice)

Any opinions/advice appreciated. I feel pretty hard done by

Argue over the bearings £300

The £300 includes labor taking diff apart and putting it back together plus diff carrier bearing.

fair price ,genuine bearings arent cheap, salisbury axle is heavy work and removing old bearings isnt easy even with special tools sometimes

What was the "noise coming from the back"??? If you can be a bit more specific peeps might be able to help with that.

I think if you're stripping down an axle like they have done for you, changing the bearings is an obvious thing to do whilst you've got it apart. Fair play that you didn't ask for it as such, but I wouldn't get shirty with them just because you've missed an opportunity to learn to do it yourself. It could be that they took it apart and realised the bearing were completely fooked, and you'd need them replacing before you could drive it home again.

As the £300 is for the whole stripping down work, and not just the bearings, I'd say that's a fair price. I'm not a mechanic and haven't stripped a landy diff, but I once paid £400 quid to have an axle off my pickup stripped just for him to tell me its completely fooked and I needed to junk it.

So, why do you think you're £900 from a fix? Where did that figure come from?

taint worth delving into gearboxes, choice is used or recon , pay for fitting or struggle with heavy lumps of metal under yer landy.
personally id pay someone with the proper gear to to it, its just so much easier with the car up on a ramp with the proper lifting gear for the box.,

The price isn't the issue so much. For the work it seems fair. What doesn't seem fair is that I didn't have a choice. Even if they were so ****ed I couldn't drive it home (which seems very unlikely). I don't see how it's OK to arbitrarily carry out any work.There's a ****load of work to do on the landy and if they just said>oh we decided tk do this and this etc I'd be looking at a huge bill...

I suppose that the bearings are en route so I'm less mad now. Still a bit cheeky. Rant over. I'll just have to cough up and learn from this...