North West Specialist - Manor Garage Chester

[Anonymous]

Hi all. Just has the 5 year belt service done (painful on an 11,000 mile car but...) by the guys at Manor Garage in Chester. They are a Renault specialist and really know their stuff. Called around to the Renault dealers (Ha!) including Preston who were not at all interested in doing a deal on the costs and were considerably more expensive than Crewe Renault or Manor as I wanted to stay with full OE parts to keep my car "authentic".

Manor did the full belts change, airbox/filter, water pump and an oil change and new plugs for a little over £1100 which was the best price I found within a sensible distance (and only matched by Four Ashes in Wolverhampton who also seemed pretty knowledgable). Paul and the team have looked after a couple of Vees in the past and have done belt changes on a lot of V6's both Clios and Lagunas. They are certainly worth considering if like me you want to stay with all Renault parts. I'd certainly take the car in their for standard Renault issues: they must have had 20 clios in when I was there.

And...to put everyone minds at rest a little on cambelt changes and the five year deadline - Manor have only ever seen wear on high mileage cars and when they showed me my old belts I couldn't tell them apart from new ones.

Andy

 

[Robv6]

Yeah i have seen their advert in the Chester Chronicle....is it near Hoole?

 

[Anonymous]

Thats the one Rob.

 

[Anonymous]

Found my notes on dealers and prices today in an old notebook and thought you may be interested. Most expensive quote was £1928 (that does include VAT said the nice Renault service manager laughingly) with around £1500 being the average from Renault with the discounted labour rate for cars over 5 years old. SG Motorsport were an almost identical £1125 but they are 160 miles away so not really convenient.

 

[Robv6]

Andy,

I use a guy up the road in Ledsham called Andrew Walker. He has extensive Renault experience and has always sorted me out the last few visits. I was down there on Tuesday last week as it happens for a service. Martin (K1ANO) has also dealt with him before and may have some additional thoughts.

Rob

 

[scrabble]

Rentech in Portsmouth do a Cambelt/Water pump and Aux belt change in 4 hours. Charge £35 an hour labour plus cost of parts.

Cheap as!

 

[Anonymous]

They clearly know something everyone else doesn't as everyone else takes a day at least - including SG and the guys who did the GB. Labour isn't really the big issue at independents though - OE parts are riotously expensive simple as that. The cambelt kit is £300+ on its own.