VISIT #1: Took my 99 Astra to Ballan Holden to ; (1) have a service done, and (2) have a fuel leak fixed (as the last few L of petol were being added it would pour out from underneath the car - this was from an area they insisted on "fixing" the previous visit). Walked out with a $3300 bill, mostly for items that my husband said were not needed to be upgraded for another year (4 tyres) or were not giving me signs of trouble (brakes, radiator) ... AND NO THEY DIDN'T EVEN LOOK AT THE FUEL LEAK PROBLEM !!! It is too easy as a woman to be persuaded to have unnecessary items replaced - especially when the hubby is away and not able to give expedient advice and the salesman is insistant. Amongst many other things, they convinced me that the radiator had to be replaced - so I let them ... at a price I knew would be higher than elsewhere, but I was "time-poor" at the time ... and you do assume that by going to an approved dealer that you get "quality" service.

VISIT #2: Within a week/two of visit #1 returned to Ballan after; (1) I realised that the car was over-heating within ~500 m of home (NEVER happened before, even befor the radiator was fixed), and (2) fuel was still peeing out from underneath the car at the service station - THEY HADN'T EVEN CHECKED THIS PROBLEM IN THE 1ST VISIT ! Durin visit #2 they fixed the fuel leak and replaced the thermostat. Should they have checked the thermostat when they replaced the radiator ? - I would have thought that this would have been reasonable. This visit cost me another $400.

... and after that visit I realised that the air-conditioner (cooling) did not work. I took the car to a specialist and he said that the gas was right, the system was integral (seals & valves OK) ... but maybe something needed to be reset in the computer (he has recently seen this issue in a few cases of this in Astra's the same age as mine). Because of my previous experinces with over-servicing and over-charging I am not taking it back to Ballan Holden just so they can charge me 100's of hard-earned dollars for 5 mins work. I did talk to Ballan service dept about the probelm but they couldn't believe that anything could be solved by doing anything with the computer. The air-cond expert has referred me to a local mechanic that can do the computer thing (even though he's not a Holden dealer) - I have to wait 3-6 weeks before I can get the car in (he's on hols and he is already heaviliy booked for 2008), but I would rather get him to do the job than give anymore money to Ballan.

Approximate cost: $4000