Gripe of the day - What is yours?

[embee]

Car insurance up for renewal. Quote from existing (LV) was way too high so shopped round as usual and got something sensible (Aviva, existing customer so some discount). All OK.
Go onto LV site to make sure it won't auto renew. Total PITA, as is common these days. Trying to find where to see auto-renew status is convoluted. Eventually find a tick-box but when ticked you don't get any sort of confirmation so not sure if it has been registered or not.
OK, so decide to phone, 10mins hold (not too bad I suppose), get through to UK call centre, great. Girl on line has one of the strongest regional accents I've heard recently and gabbles at warp speed, have to keep asking her to slow down and repeat (embarrassingly so). Eventually I think she confirmed it wouldn't renew, but not 100% sure because she said it so quickly and with such a strong accent and I'd lost the will to live by this tme.
Does no-one say to call centre folk that they need to speak clearly and slowly?
At least the Aviva site uses a simple "do not renew" tick box, why can't all companies be sensible?

[admin]

I was on the phone to LV today to cancel the breakdown cover on my bike. They answered quickly and I've had an email confirmation since.

I also cancelled membership to Boundless (was CSMA) as they've raised their prices again. I only joined years ago for discounted LV car and breakdown cover but they don't want to cover my son's car as he no longer lives at my address and my bike is now covered by Honda (AA).

I got breakdown cover for my son with https://www.startrescue.co.uk/breakdown-cover for less money and better cover. It's Which recommended.

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[Kenzie]

I had a haggle with AA for Gold cover as it had crept up. Managed to get it down from £27 to £19.99 for their Gold cover with nationwide recovery for two people (any vehicle). My insurance is due for renewal end of October and despite not having any issues for over twenty years of driving I've had two no fault incidents in the last four months. Hopefully it won't affect things too much.

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[embee]

GOTD - the feeling that "they" have tried to take the mick.

A couple of years ago my regular MOT chap (cars and bikes) retired, he was the only reason I traveled 10mls to get MOTs, so found another local place. I've taken a couple of cars there a couple of times, absolutely no porblems.
Took my little toy car in today, it's done about 600mls this year, 25k in total in 27yrs, always garaged, pretty much spotless. It once failed on a wiper blade which had started to split at one end and I hadn't noticed, fine, otherwise no issues ever.

Call from garage, failed on dip beam alignment, both too low. Now as far as I recall they've never been touched, and I carefully checked everything over this morning before taking it in, including the headlights against the garage door and everything "looked" fine. OK I know beam alignment equipment isn't a garage door at the end of the drive, but I was still surprised and said so. "We can adjust them now if you want, ...... £9 +VAT ......... each".
My reaction was that it was literally a 2min job (if that), and was a retest free if I took it away and adjusted them and brought it back?
"Oh OK then, we'll do it for free, just come and get the car". (slightly abrupt tone).
Me - "No, if it needs doing then do it but the price sounds too much, how about charge me the price for one?"
"No, just come and get the car, take it away".

I go and get the car, apologised for sounding a bit awkward, didn't mean to be, but I was genuinely surprised. OK they say, no problem.

Got car home, let's just see what the lights look like against the garage door. Dip beams fine (separate main/dip), one main is correct, the other is about a foot too high. Now it definitely wasn't like that earlier this morning when I got the car out. Checked that the lamp was fitted fully home and the clip was on, that can throw them out, but all fine. It took 6 full turns on the adjuster to get it back to where it should be.

Now, what would you think?

Hmmm, maybe off somewhere else next year.

[admin]

It does sound iffy. I'd Google the garage and see if there are comments from other customers.

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[Sir Trev]

Sounds incredibly iffy. Things can go out of whack if you go over a rough pothole but you'd certainly notice that!

[embee]

Interestingly, the tester told me verbally that both headlights were too low, the MOT report online says both too high and too far to the right. Doesn't mean much but just another oddity.
The emission test has the time on it, unfortunately the MOT cert doesn't have a time so I can't compare when the cert was filed and when they phoned me but it was almost 40mins after the emission test. The emission test is usually done near the end of the MOT in my experience.

My mind is made up, next year all my cars go to the local Council MOT station, they don't do repairs so no vested interests.

[Seeker]

I have been emailing my (Tory) MP endlessly - I didn't really count them but I was looking for a URL in my sent emails folder and noticed there were (several) hundreds. He never responds but I find it cathartic.
I was discussing this with my friend and we both thought that the MP (Vickers) had a filter for my email account.

Today I sent an email to Vickers from an account that doesn't have my name in the address - I got a response the same day from the casework manager.

So I guess we proved that theory, this is the first response I have had in over 2 years.

I have several email accounts so I guess I need to keep switching between them and/or create more.

[Kenzie]

What on earth are you emailing them about?

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[Seeker]

Originally Posted by Kenzie

What on earth are you emailing them about?

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Well, it has been over a 10 year period. Austerity, covid, BoZo, brexit, collapsing infrastructure, the constant changing of policy over onshore wind turbines, unethical behaviour, privatisation failures, lack of investment, immigration, building aircraft carriers when we don't have planes and the need for them anyway, HS2, east/west rail links, NHS, Cameron, Osborne, Truss, Sunak, Hunt (as health minister),broken promises, hostile takeover of GKN (he agreed with me on that and then voted to let it go through: hypocrite). Age limits and term limits for MPs (he's in his 70s). The constant infighting in their party at the expense of the country, relaxation of environmental rules including pesticides. One recurrent theme is asking him to name anything that is better since Tories came to power (except MPs bank balances), etc, etc.


I think a better question is why everyone isn't writing to their MPs. We are up sh*t creek with no paddle.