Longyear
New member
Front St Garage (& MOT Station)
Front St
Shotton Colliery
County Durham
DH6
(0191) 526 0777
A family business that have been looking after my cars for 8 years now. Firstly, when you ring, the first person you'll talk to is the lady of he family! .... don't assume she doesn't know her coils from her plugs because she has excellent knowledge, and only very rarely needs to "go and check with him...".
There are 3 main good things about the service offered by this garage:-
- They are truly amazingly cheap on most things. I've had a few MOTs here on cars that I knew were ropey. When you get that phone call with a list of 6 things that need doing, ie suspension bushes, brake pads, this that the other, (you know those calls!), well I stupidly used Kwikfit a few times (many years ago) and those calls were always quoting about £300+..... well at front st, if they call and say "I'm afraid it needs quite a bit of work".... the quote will usually be something like £81...! They reall are cheap, unless of course we're dealing with expensive parts.
- Just because value is good, that doesn't mean service is bad.... they know there cars, I took my Volvo V70 in for a Oil / Oil Filter / Fuel Filter change and before I could mention it myself, the guy straight away asked me whether I knew if mine had the steel or the plastic fuel filter housing (they take diff. filters, but are fitted randomly to the same model year cars).... they just know their cars. I took a Peugeot 307 in with what appeared to be a serious ABS fault
(sold cheap by the last owner as 'probably needed major ABS work' ..... they cleaned a sensor at a cost of £15 to me, and guess what... ABS light off, juddering stopped, and that car ran for 2 years without problems after that.
I took anther car in that I had just bought, that had been SORN with the previous owner and had sat for 4 months without moving. I'd been told it needed new discs & pads by the seller and we negotiated a £200 discount for this. I took it to Front St and asked for new discs & pads... 30 mins later I got a call "...can I ask, what made you think it needed new discs & pads?".
Anyway, it turned out the discs & pads were just covered in crap. Front St stripped & cleaned them, charged me £22 and the car stopped on a sixpence!
- They are really friendly, but honest. Don't expect fluff and pink clouds but they're polite, they ring you back when they say you will, and the work has never been anything other than high quality. I didn't get my Puma 1.7 Cam Kit changed their, because I don't think they'd done a 1.7 engine before, but all types of general work, brakes, suspension, servicing, etc, I'd get done here, and I have had then do cambelt changes on three VAG PD TDI cars I've had, with no issues and again, great value.
Front St
Shotton Colliery
County Durham
DH6
(0191) 526 0777
A family business that have been looking after my cars for 8 years now. Firstly, when you ring, the first person you'll talk to is the lady of he family! .... don't assume she doesn't know her coils from her plugs because she has excellent knowledge, and only very rarely needs to "go and check with him...".
There are 3 main good things about the service offered by this garage:-
- They are truly amazingly cheap on most things. I've had a few MOTs here on cars that I knew were ropey. When you get that phone call with a list of 6 things that need doing, ie suspension bushes, brake pads, this that the other, (you know those calls!), well I stupidly used Kwikfit a few times (many years ago) and those calls were always quoting about £300+..... well at front st, if they call and say "I'm afraid it needs quite a bit of work".... the quote will usually be something like £81...! They reall are cheap, unless of course we're dealing with expensive parts.
- Just because value is good, that doesn't mean service is bad.... they know there cars, I took my Volvo V70 in for a Oil / Oil Filter / Fuel Filter change and before I could mention it myself, the guy straight away asked me whether I knew if mine had the steel or the plastic fuel filter housing (they take diff. filters, but are fitted randomly to the same model year cars).... they just know their cars. I took a Peugeot 307 in with what appeared to be a serious ABS fault
(sold cheap by the last owner as 'probably needed major ABS work' ..... they cleaned a sensor at a cost of £15 to me, and guess what... ABS light off, juddering stopped, and that car ran for 2 years without problems after that.
I took anther car in that I had just bought, that had been SORN with the previous owner and had sat for 4 months without moving. I'd been told it needed new discs & pads by the seller and we negotiated a £200 discount for this. I took it to Front St and asked for new discs & pads... 30 mins later I got a call "...can I ask, what made you think it needed new discs & pads?".
Anyway, it turned out the discs & pads were just covered in crap. Front St stripped & cleaned them, charged me £22 and the car stopped on a sixpence!
- They are really friendly, but honest. Don't expect fluff and pink clouds but they're polite, they ring you back when they say you will, and the work has never been anything other than high quality. I didn't get my Puma 1.7 Cam Kit changed their, because I don't think they'd done a 1.7 engine before, but all types of general work, brakes, suspension, servicing, etc, I'd get done here, and I have had then do cambelt changes on three VAG PD TDI cars I've had, with no issues and again, great value.
