I should have written this review sometime in February 2017 but I kept on procrastinating because I just wanted to forget about this garage because of the experience I had with them. However, I have always felt that other people need to know my experiences with Prestige Performance (PP) because my review might just help someone who is reading this. After all, that is what reviews are for.
Here is how it all started. I have a low mileage E38 740i which was built in the year 2000. That's a V8 and at the time it had done just under 55K miles on the clock.
Late in December 2016 the car blew the radiator while I was away from home, so I called the AA to come and rescue me. The nice AA guy who came did a DIY job by covering the hole with some special glue and let it set in so that I could drive it home. He topped it up with water as well and he spent about two hours bleeding the engine to get rid of all the trapped air. He kept on telling me that these kind of cars need to be bled thoroughly or they would wreak havoc on you. So the plan was that I would drive the car home and then take it to the garage for a radiator replacement.
Unfortunately I pushed my luck a bit and drove the car a few days without taking it to the garage. A few days later the temporary glue came off and the radiator raptured again on the motorway. The AA came and rescued me again. I asked them to tow the car to PP since that was the nearest garage from my house. I had only ever used PP once before for my wife's MOT and they seemed OK. We had only been living in the area for about two years, having moved from London.
The AA guy who towed me to PP had warned me that there had been no damage to any part of the engine since it had not overheated in any way, and therefore, I should be weary of anyone who told me otherwise. So PP replaced the radiator and I did not have to pay a penny because the fix was covered under my AA Breakdown Cover. The car was fine for a few days until the dreaded "CHECK COOLANT LEVEL" message started appearing on the dashboard. I was confused since there was plenty of coolant in the car.
I took the car back to PP and surprise surprise they told me that it had failed a head gasket test. Reading from the invoice I got back from them the amount I was charged for the investigation was £88 and the job was "Investigate cause of cooling system leaking and traced to cylinder head gasket failure". Further the workshop notes read: "Cylinder head gasket failed £2900 inc VAT to replace both cylinder head gaskets including skimming cylinder heads". Yes, they were going to charge me a whooping £2,900 to fix a problem that never existed! My heart was broken because my wife told me to get rid of the car - she does not have the emotional attachment that I have to it;)
Remembering the warning from the AA guy I decided that I would take the car back to my normal garage in Hendon where the car has been serviced since about the year 2006.
They investigated and found that the car had not been bled properly after the radiator had been replaced, hence the coolant level message on the display. They charged me less than £100 to fix the problem. I went back and told PP what had happened and all they told me was that they scanned the car with their machine and that was the result they got. Fair enough! I bet that even if I had the money and foolish enough they would have done the job and fail to bleed the car properly again. Imagine that a single AA guy could bleed the car whilst operating alone on the side of the road and PP could not do it whilst operating in a garage. Case closed!
My car has done about 60K miles now and it's had no head gasket problems. read more
