It started with a dealer who trusted one mechanic.
One of us is a car dealer who has spent his working life buying and selling cars, which also means a working life of finding out what’s really wrong with them. The other is a mechanic with close to a decade under the bonnet. For years the dealer sent every car he handled to the same mechanic, because he was the only one he trusted not to cut corners, and neither of us thought much of it beyond an arrangement that worked.
Between the two of us we’d seen the industry from both sides of the counter, and neither view was flattering. Overcharging was normal, and so was quoting for repairs a car didn’t need. Worse than either was that uncomfortable feeling customers drove away with, the one where you can’t quite tell if you’ve been taken for a ride. All of it was just how things were done.
When the chance came to open our own place, we took it. The idea was never complicated: build the workshop we’d want as customers ourselves. Here that means a written scope and an itemised quote before any work starts, and photos of the worn parts whenever we say something needs replacing.
A daily Altis gets the same standard of work here as a weekend Bentley. Half the job, it turns out, is people. Our regulars come back service after service, and by now we know their cars by heart.
That’s the whole pitch. The Right Workshop.
