Getting The Car Repaired in France

Car ownership in France can be a pleasant experience, with well maintained roads and about half the traffic you would find on an English road. If you decide to live in France permanently then you will inevitably think very carefully about the choice of car which may well be determined by your house location,i.e. rural or town.

It is fair to say that a lot of ex-pats bring their English cars with them, whether this is due to undying love or the insecurity fears of their new life in France and the possibility of a return to the homeland. Whatever the choice of car at some stage you will need to find a garage to either maintain or carry out essential repairs, unless of course you are one of those few people who have the skills and knowledge to undertake you own reparations.

If you purchased a new car in France then you will be secure in the knowledge that the agent will  undertake the maintenance and repair work. This will usually include the loan of a small car whilst the work is carried out. For those who choose to buy from a second hand car sales agent, privately or have brought their own UK car over then the situation is somewhat different.

Unfortunately we fall into the second group who made the mistake of bringing their own car over to France some 8 years ago. It was a new car that my wife had vowed she would not be parted from regardless of the bureaucracy involved in transferring the registration and the cost. So we have ended up with a Saab in Brittany, which has served us well despite being totally unsuitable for  rural roads and a magnet for manure.

It is inevitable that eventually mechanical problems will occur and you are faced with the decision as to which mechanical surgeon you can trust to replace the diseased part. It would have been easy to take the car direct to an agent for the particular make, in this case Saab, but that was St Brieuc or Rennes, some 2 hrs from our location. Consultations with our French friends enabled a short list of potential garages to be identified based on positive feedback.

So it was that we arrived a the first garage on the list to obtain a diagnosis and hopefully remedial repairs. In hindsight a quick appraisal of the amount of cars triple parked in the surrounding grounds awaiting attention should have set off  alarm bells, but regrettably the thought of an imminent repair temporarily blinded me. I opened the Saab bonnet to allow Guy access to the engine. He raised his eyebrows gave a short exhalation of air and said "Ahgh! très,très compliqué"

This was clearly the stage at which I should have got back in the car and left, however in my wife's words, "He is such a nice man"

So it was that I entrusted the car to Guy for the first time and set forth a train of long periods of being without a car in a rural area. It is apparent that having diagnosed the problem the garagiste, faced with a non French car has to set off on a voyage of discovery to obtain the replacement parts which in our case often come from Paris, or is it Sweden! On more than one occasion I have stepped in  to obtain the part from the UK in 2 days as opposed to the statutory 2 weeks from a French supplier.

If you are mad enough to entrust you car to a local garage then you will find that the loan of a courtesy car is rare and has to be balanced against the low cost of the repair. I am fortunate that one of my friends has a cheap second car which he uses on the farm and insists that I use it when the car is in for repair. It is a great little vehicle that seems to run on thin air and has things living in it! at least I think that is what accounts for the smell.

I think if there is a moral to this story it is to make sure you find a good garage you can rely on to maintain and repair you car and if you intend to stay in France buy a French Car or a good Bicycle

Comments

[Martin Jarvis]

Our trusty UK-registered VW Passatt broke down one Saturday afternoon whilst we were driving through St Joachim in the Parc de la Brière in Pays de la Loire. One of the few shops open in the town was a florists. The owner was more than happy to let us use her phone books and telephone to contact Renault Assistance (we didn't have European Breakdown Cover as the car had always been so reliable - we do now!). Renault charged (from memory) an 80 Euro call out fee and took us to their nearest garage. The part (a brake fluid pipe which had split) needed to be sourced from Germany as French dealers did not stock right-hand drive parts (fair enough), but this was likely to take about 5 days.

Recognising the dilema we found ourselves in - abroad, rural location, no car - the garage offered to loan us an old Renault 25 for our use until our car was fixed.

When we turned up to collect our repaired car we found that not only was the price of the repair about half what it would have been in the UK, but that they did not want to charge us for the loan of the car. What great service and a distinct lack of profiteering. I know that not all experiences are as good as ours, but it's worth reporting if only to show that things are never all good or all bad.

...In addition, when picking up the car we were invited into the garden of the neighbour of the garage to share some chestnuts they were roasting. Only in France!