Arnel Service Centre - Arnel Service Centre 750 Victoria Street

Unreliable and unprofessional service. Being a visitor to New Zealand and not knowing any local services I picked Arnell Service Centre from the reviews online and visiting the workshop to have a chat to Tony the owner. Needed to service my daughter’s car that I was using. She moved here recently and had not used a garage in Hamilton. The first standard service went okay in November. I was then advised in writing on the invoice that the next 100K service needed more work done with a list of items. So when we returned from a trip around New Zealand having clocked 10K I booked it in with a couple of days’ notice for the 100K service on Thursday 13th Feb. At the time I told Tony we were going away for the weekend the next day and I was also leaving New Zealand on the Monday after (17th Feb) so I wanted to get it done for my daughter before we left as she was overseas. Took it in early at 7.30 am and didn’t plan anything else for the rest of the day as I knew it was a major service. Waited for the call to say when it was ready which never came. Finally I rang at 5 pm to inquire and was told it was ready for pickup. When I got there the lady at the desk informs me that the spark plugs need to be changed at the earliest opportunity adding that they were too busy in the workshop that day to do it. When I got home and looked at the invoice for the previous service and what was listed to be done for a 100K service I was stunned to see that none of the extra work listed had been done. This included replacement of the air filter and spark plugs as well as the automatic transmission service. I rang Tony quite annoyed having left the car in his care all day and not even having had the courtesy of a call to say all the work listed could not be done or even when it was ready for pick up. He apologized saying he had let me down and he wasn’t in the workshop that day and it probably didn’t get on the job list. It was just a standard service in the end but when I looked at the labour cost it had risen from $ 80 to $ 95 almost a 20% increase in 3 months. When I queried this with the lady at the desk she said it was because they now calculated the GST differently! She then printed me another invoice for the last service done in November 2019 which then showed the labour cost increased to $ 92 (from the previous $ 80) with the total cost remaining the same! I took her word for this strange adjustment but overall I had lost trust and confidence in Arnell’s Motors so have advised my daughter not to return. Also there were some nice touches at the first service such as tyre black, some polish on the console and washer water with soap. None of that happened on the second service either. Very disappointing especially when you believe you’ve found a good place to service your vehicle and then find otherwise.