Car repairs

We are an independent garage that started in diagnostics and moved outward. That order matters more than it sounds, because it decides how a repair actually goes: we find out what is wrong first, and then we fix that. It is not how the trade always works.

Below is every system we repair, and what the work starts at. Whatever the fault turns out to be, it stays here. You are not sent somewhere else halfway through the job.

Two exceptions worth knowing before you book, because they are the two most reasonable things to assume a garage offers.

We do not do wheel alignment or four-wheel geometry, and we do not supply or fit tyres. Suspension repairs, bearings, driveshafts, springs and dampers are all done here; but where a repair changes the car's geometry, such as a wishbone, a control arm or a track rod end, we tell you before you book so the alignment can be arranged as part of the plan rather than discovered at the end. We also do not carry out MOT testing.

A garage that claims everything is easier to write and harder to believe.

This is the single most useful thing we can tell you about modern car repair, so we will be blunt about it.

When a warning light comes on, the car stores a code. That code tells you which circuit or which sensor reported something outside its expected range. It does not tell you why. A code that reads "oxygen sensor, bank 1" can be a failed sensor — or a wiring fault, an air leak, a fuelling problem, or a perfectly good sensor honestly reporting a genuine issue somewhere else entirely.

Plug in a cheap code reader, read the description, order the part it names, fit it. If the light goes out, that looks like a repair. If it comes back in a fortnight, the next part gets fitted. Two or three parts in, the customer has spent several hundred pounds and the car still is not right.

We test before we replace. That means live data, an oscilloscope on the circuit where it matters, and checking the wiring and the connectors, which on an intermittent fault is where the problem usually turns out to be. It sometimes takes longer at the start. It is almost always cheaper by the end.

We cannot put a full price list on a repair page and be honest about it, because two cars with identical symptoms routinely need different work. What we can do is show you where the common jobs start.

Every figure in that table is a starting price, not a fixed one, and the honest reason is that two cars with the same symptom routinely need different parts. Brake discs for a family hatchback and for a large four-wheel-drive are not comparable money; a clutch that comes out in half a day and one that fights for a full day are not the same labour either.

The diagnostic charge is time on the ramp with proper equipment rather than a guess. Once we know what is actually wrong, the repair is quoted against your car and agreed with you before anything begins. The exact number is the one you get after we have looked at the car, and it can move in either direction: something we expected to need doing may turn out to have life left in it and come off the quote, and something we could not see from the outside may need adding.

Either way, nothing is added without a phone call. If we find something outside what you booked in for, we stop and ring you. Nothing gets done, and nothing gets charged for, until you have said yes.

"Advanced diagnostic equipment" is a phrase on every garage website in the country. Here is the actual list.

Manufacturer software, not a generic code reader. ODIS and VCDS for VW, Audi, Skoda and SEAT. ISTA for BMW and Mini. XENTRY for Mercedes-Benz. Pathfinder for Land Rover and Jaguar. Techstream for Toyota and Lexus. That is the difference between reading a code and seeing what the car's own engineers designed you to see.

A Picoscope 4425A, and two more scopes beside it. An oscilloscope is how you find a fault that a scan tool cannot: a failing sensor signal, a broken wire that only breaks when it is warm, an injector that is out of step with the others. Most workshops do not own one. Fewer still know what to do with it.

Alongside those: Snap-on, Launch, Bosch, Autocom and Autologic for multi-brand work, a smoke machine for vacuum and boost leaks, a borescope for looking inside an engine without stripping it, and current clamp loggers for tracing a parasitic drain.

Approved parts and oil. There is a very big difference between an oil that "meets the grade" and one approved by the vehicle manufacturer. Meeting the grade is essentially self-certified by the oil company. Brands like Fuchs, Shell and Castrol have been tested by the actual vehicle manufacturer. Our filtration comes from OEM suppliers: Mann, Hengst and Mahle are regularly on our shopping list.

Every repair we carry out is guaranteed for a minimum of 12 months or 12,000 miles, parts and labour.

That number is worth comparing. "Guaranteed work" on its own says nothing at all, and a great many garages do not put a figure on it because they would rather not be held to one. Ours is the same length of cover a main dealer gives, from a workshop that charges considerably less to do the job.

We also have 44 five-star Google reviews, six ramps, and a courtesy car available if you book it in advance.

Once a car is outside its warranty period you can have it repaired wherever you like, and the question becomes who has the equipment and the experience, at a price that reflects the work rather than the showroom.

We cover that comparison properly on our independent garage page, including what changes on parts, records and cost.

Most garages can change oil and filters. Far fewer can tell you why a warning light keeps coming back after the fault has supposedly been fixed. A good proportion of our work arrives after somewhere else has run out of ideas — and that is not a boast, it is simply what a workshop built on diagnostics ends up doing.

A Peugeot RCZ. Two years, more than one garage, and nobody had got to the bottom of it. Diagnosed and repaired here.

A BMW M4. Dead for over a year at another workshop. It turned out to be several separate failures across several different circuits, which is exactly why it had defeated a parts-swapping approach. Traced one at a time, and fixed.

If a garage has already had a go at your car, bring whatever you have: previous invoices, and the parts that have been fitted. They are genuinely useful, because they rule things out.

One thing we will turn down

We generally decline diagnostic work on cars more than about twenty years old. Wiring diagrams for them are hard or impossible to get hold of, which means the work becomes guesswork billed by the hour — and the owner of a twenty-year-old car is rarely willing to pay for the hours it would honestly take. We would rather say so than take the booking and disappoint you.

1. You book — by phone or through the contact form. Give us the registration and describe the symptom: when it happens, whether the car is hot or cold, whether a light is on.

2. We diagnose — the car goes on the ramp and gets tested, not guessed at. On an intermittent fault this is the part that takes the time.

3. We quote — a plain explanation of what is wrong, what it takes to put right, and what it costs, before any work starts.

4. We repair — with approved parts and OEM filtration, and nothing outside the agreed job without a phone call first.

5. You get it in writing — what was done, what was checked, and anything worth keeping an eye on.

Technical Vehicle Solutions Ltd 10a The Moor, Melbourn, Royston SG8 6ED

Telephone: 07535 919 160 · 01763 230 411

Six ramps, a courtesy car, and 44 five-star Google reviews. We are on The Moor in Melbourn, a few minutes from Royston and within easy reach of Cambridge and north Hertfordshire. For the towns and villages we cover, see our locations page.

If you take one thing from this page, take this: on a modern car, the expensive mistake is almost never the repair. It is the repair that was not needed. A code names a circuit, not a cause, and every part fitted on the strength of a code alone is a coin toss you paid for.

So the useful order is simple. If you already know what is wrong, go straight to the system: brakes, suspension, engine, gearbox, auto electrical, exhaust, cooling or air conditioning, each with its starting price above. If you do not know, and most people do not, then a diagnostic investigation from £145 is the cheaper of the two routes even though it looks like the more expensive one, because it is the only one that ends with the right part being fitted once.

And if somebody else has already had a go, bring what you have. Previous invoices and the old parts rule things out, and ruling things out is most of the job.