County / Country: Essex UK
Town: Greatleighs
Name: Tom Bell Racing
Services: Mechanical/ Road and Race Engine Builder
Address: Greatleighs, Essex
Link to Map or website :?
Rating: very Good
Phone No.07894838536
Testimony has had cylinder head work carried out by him and engine set up but he doesn’t have a rolling road!
he has worked for ford rally team building enginesand other well know performance companies locally,he also is very big on the grass track scene supporting many class 1 mini's ,he not only does moddified mini engines but Cosworth,BMW,vauxhal 8v engine rebuilds for racing !
He is a really nice guy and very helpful, price is very reasonable for his top quality of workmanship!

County / Country :Kent England
Town : Maidstone
Name :Britannia mot & repair center
Services :mots servicing & repairs
Address :Britannia business pk Mills road Quarry wood ind est Aylesford ME20 7NT
Link to Map or website :
Rating:10/10 for mots
Testimony:This garage has moted both my cars now and passed! The mini was running to rich (12.50 co2 ) and the tester ajusted it to pass with no charge . Very friendley garage will get my custom again

County / Country :Kent England
Town :Sittingbourne
Name :Staplehurst Road Garage ltd
Services :mot, serivcing Address :Staplehurst road Sittingbourne Kent ME10 1SE
Link to Map or website :
Rating:0/10
Testimony:Had my mini moted there last year and failed on a cople of silley things, got it retested and passed the bloke said "its quite clean for its year(87)" this year another bloke tested it and went to town on it, the car wasent any worse than it was last year yet it needed 5 different places welding Not only that his whole attatude stunk will never go back there again!

County / Country : West Midlands

Town : Willenhall

Name : Dereks Minis

Services : Resto/rebuild, bodywork, paintwork, maintenance, MOT etc... (apparently)

Address :Ashmore Lake Way, Willenhall

Rating: Not Impressed

Testimony: Responsible for skinning me out to the tune of £4k for a half-assed resto on Monty.
They claim to do 'show standard' work, which is why I have ODD doors from two entirely different Minis - one's red, one's white all they've done is reskin & respray them. They didn't bother finishing them properly either - Heritage panels? I don't think so. They also forgot to tighten the wheel nuts which resulted in Monty's R.L wheel falling off in action and a whopping great scrape along the underside. Paintwork is more orangepeel than mirror-shine on lower parts of panels. Heater packed up 8 weeks after they apparently replaced it, costing £120 to get fixed by someone else. Brakes seized a few weeks ago despite the calipers being 'new' according to their receipt - calipers last longer than 18mths, right? There are also numerous areas where panels haven't been sealed properly which is going to cost me another £300 to get stripped and resprayed elsewhere. They also painted over my engine no.... the list goes on...

County / Country : Berkshire

Town : Reading/Henley

Name : The Berkshire Mini Centre

Services : service to a full rebuild

Address :
Unit 5, Greys Green Farm,
Rotherfield Greys,
Henley-on-Thames,
Oxon, RG9 4QG

Link to Map or website : http://www.minicentreberkshire.com/
Rating: Good
Testimony:

Alan's a nice chap that's helpful and enthusiastic. He picked up my mini from home, fitted my new cam and got it through it's MOT. Super job.

Strange....we have had several cars restored by Dereks and they have all been lovely, including my husband's show standard orange 1275GT which still looks good after 9 years and won Mini of the year (2007).

County / Country : Lancashire
Town : Longridge
Name : Belmont Garage
Services : Everything apart from body includes MOT
Address : Unit 2 Inglewhite road PR3 2DB
Link to Map or website : phone no. 01772 785598
Rating: Superb - Excellent!!!!!!!!!!!
Testimony: Awesome garage a couple of blokes who actually know minis which is always a bonus! Will do call outs (have done with me) Will always ring with what work needs doing and give you a rough guide price! Have had cars serviced and MOT'D by them for years never put a foot wrong! Will not let a car go if they think it is unsafe to drive and off you drive! Very helpful, very good at everything can't think of any more superlatives to describe how good they are! Oh also charged me half of the labour hours when my mini had a massive overhaul a few months ago! Know another mini owner who takes his mini there and he has nothing but good things to say about them!

County / Country : North Yorkshire
Town : Scarborough
Name : Pavilion Garage
Services : Mainly sales, also repairs, servicing.
Address : The Crescent, Scarborough.
Link to Map or website : N/A
Rating: Terrible, conman!
Testimony: Bought a mini from them last year, with full MOT (done by another garage which the guy assured me "covers us both" - him because if anything is wrong it isn't his fault, and me because it's not him doing it so they're not likely to fail just to sell the car. How wrong could I have been to assume that a garage with 46 years of experience was a safe place to buy my first mini from! After noticing rust in a few places, I took the Mini to a reputable, local mini garage (see my further testimony below) for a quick "once-over". Turned out the car NEEDED sills, doorsteps, major repairs to the crossmembers & floorpans, subframes, everything basically. At least £1,000 of work. The doorsteps were absolutely shot, and had been filled in. I took a screwdriver to them, and didn't even use any strength to make massive 3cm long holes. After taking the car back, he assured me "I can have it sorted within 4 hours". 4 hours to do major structural restoration and respraying? I don't think so! I ended up getting my money back thankfully... and guess what? The same car was up for sale, weeks later, and the holes in the doorsteps had been filled in with filler and painted over! Please DO NOT USE THIS GARAGE! I'm not the only one to tell a story about them on here!





County / Country : West Yorkshire
Town : Leeds
Name : Minifixit
Services : Welding, repairs, servicing, crypton tunes, MOT work, etc.
Address : 5 Lupton Avenue, Leeds, LS9. Tucked away behind the "Gulf" petrol station at the top of the avenue.
Link to Map or website : 0113 248 46 44
Rating: Very good.
Testimony: I have spent a lot of money at Minifixit, and every time the job has been very good and reasonably priced. I've had welding done to floors and a rear subframe, work done on my clutch, bolts rethreaded, tracking, etc done. Top quality at reasonable prices. This is backed up by the fact Steve is almost always busy! He is usually more than happy to keep the car in overnight at your convenience providing he has space for it. This is the only place I use and I highly recommend it!

County / Country: Lincoln, UK

Town: North Hykeham

Name: The Mini Centre

Services: Anything Mini/Metro related including kits (Midas, Scamp, Magenta etc) from a service to a full restoration, competition prep, engine and gearbox rebuilds, hydro pump-ups.........

Address: Unit 1c, Nash Lane, North Hykeham, Lincoln, LN6 9BD

Rating: Excellent

Phone No: 01522 509480

Testimony : One man Mini specialist with 18 years experience in the Lincoln area. I've known and used Dave for over 13 years for all my mini needs including routine servicing, bodywork, MoT welding, parts etc and he has been the guiding light behind my trackday special mini I've been building for 3 years...........

Work previously carried out for various members of Trent Valley and the Lincoln Mini Owners Club, Dave has customers who bring their cars from as far afield as Birmingham and Sheffield for him to work on.

As well as the general servicing, mechanical and MoT work past experience includes complete restorations of Minis and Coopers of all ages from early to late, competition preparation including grass-track, post-historic rally and circuit racers; roll-cage fitting, adjustable suspension setting, fitting glass and carbon-fibre body panels, engine and gearbox rebuilds to your specification, general bodywork repairs and paint; sills and floors, wings, scuttle and front end, door repairs and reskinning, subframe replacement etc.

Honest, good quality workmanship, realistic pricing, helpfull advice given.

Phil.

County / Country :Kent England
Town : ashford
Name :bill richards racing
Services :anything from fire breathing engines to suspension ,welding,and most things they will do
Address :
Link to Map or website :
Rating:10/10 bill and lee both know everything about the mini and bill can build the top engine whilst lee builds the top car.
Testimony:

i have heard about these from several mini enthusiasts around peterborough area and i havent heard much good about them


County / Country : CAMBS, england
Town : Peterborough
Name : stanground motor services
Services : mechanical, mot, servicing, and repairs
Address : Peterborough, stanground
Link to Map or website :
Rating: bloody good i hope

i work here as an apprentice and hate it sometimes because the work has to be at such a high level, we aint a mini specialist but owen (1340_clubby_estate) knows his stuff when it comes to them

County / Country : Berkshire

Town : Reading/Henley

Name : The Berkshire Mini Centre

Services : service to a full rebuild

Address :
Unit 5, Greys Green Farm,
Rotherfield Greys,
Henley-on-Thames,
Oxon, RG9 4QG

Link to Map or website : http://www.minicentreberkshire.com/
Rating: Good
Testimony:

Great little mini center if a wee bit expensive but then again you have to pay for quality, highly reccomended!

County / Country : Lancs, UK
Town : Bolton/Bury
Name : Wellington Garage
Services : MOT, repair work
Address : A58 between Bolton and Bury
Link to Map or website :
Rating: Good
Testimony:
Me and my dad have used these guys since about 1991 for MOT and repair work on a huge selection of cars from my '69 Alfa Guilia through to my dad's 2003 MG ZT, they've always been good. Really helpful, if you're car fails on somethings they'll ring you straight away and ask if you want them to do it. If you do they'll do it at a pretty good cost and if you want to do it yourself they'll give you 24 hours grace to get it done and back for retest for free. They're also realistic when dealing with classics. Not a mini specialist but seem to be good with all cars.

If its not a review it doesn't stay in this topic.

County / Country : Powys / Wales
Town : Machynlleth
Name : Old Station Yard Repairs (Merv Edwards)
Services : Everything!
Address : Old station yard, machynlleth, powys, SY208 (just before BP petrol station (soon to be Harry tuffins))
Telephone No: 01654702895 / 07815706945
Rating: Excellent
Testimony: Ex ford mechanic but the ford garage has now closed so he has started up on his own, We take our minis to him as he knows his way around them due to owning and racing his own minis. Great prices. Great set up of a mini. Highly reconmended.

County / Country - Liskeard, Cornwall
Name : MPH motor panels
Services : panel beaters
Address : Station road, liskeard
Rating: UGLY!
Testimony: Very very very slow (well over a year), used heaps of filler, I never saw them work on my car- quick jobs had priorty, their spray painting is just terrible (a year on- car hasn't seen rain- garaged) already bubbling leads me to suspect poor priming and no rust proofing and cost over 4k. Their work on jags, astons are appeared top notch, but looked upon my mini as a piece of pooh. NOT IMPRESSED!

County / Country - Gloucestershire
Name : Maynard Motorsport
Services : Apparentley experienced rolling road tuners, auto grass preperation and some other bllocks
Address : Merrets Mills, Nailsworth, Gloucestershire
Rating: -0
Testimony: Words don't explain how bad! Just dont go there!

County / Country - Gloucestershire
Name : Turner Race Developments - www.tuner-race-developments.co.uk
Services : Race car prep, general servicing, suspension and brake set-ups, high performance engines, superchips agent.
Address : Stroud enterprise centre, lightpill, stroud, gloucestershire (along the a46)
Rating: Very very very good.
Testimony: Excellent work, put the car right. Very experienced in VAG cars. High standard of work everytime.

County / Country : Cheshire
Town : Chester
Name : Peacock Garage
Services : MOT
Address : Peacock Garage, Christleton Road
Link to Map or website :
Rating:
Testimony: Took my otherhalfs mint 850 for an MOT ( local garage.... better than giving the work to a faceless dealer)..... MOT 'engineer's first words..... " oh god not another one of these, scrapped one already this morning".... the proceeded to hit the sills with a BALL PIEN hammer!!!! As and MOT tester myself I took umbridge at this and asked him to refrain from Tw@ting my car, ended up telling him to stop the MOT and to park the car back outside.....needless to say i took it up with the owner and took the car elsewhere, where it passed with no advisories.

County / Country :Loughborough, Leicestershire
Name : Central Motors- speak to Dave
Services : Insurance work, MOTs, welding, tyres, spanner-work
Address : 8 Fennel Street. Loughborough, Leicestershire, LE11 1UQ
Link to Map or website :
Rating: AMAZING- really cant fault them.
Had an MOT on a 200quid rustbucket there today. They welded 4 holes in the arches and bootfloor, fitted 2 new tyres, clutch slave cylinder, wheel cylinder, carb clean and adjustment AND an MOT. Came to £320. I thought that was damned reasonable!!! The guy knows his stuff too- he has an Austin Healey 3000 and a Jenson Interceptor, but only charges £25/hour+vat for labour!

County : East Sussex
Town : Near Uckfield
Name : Classic cars of Kent & Sussex
Services : Rolling Road
Address : Rosehill Farm, Burntoak Road, Uckfield, East Sussex, TN22 4AE
Link to Map or website :
Rating: 1/10
Testimony: Took my mini for a tune up after fitting a stage 1 kit and cylinder head. They sanded down the needle which came with the carbs (twin HS2 of E-bay originally from a 1971 midget). Power Graph (bhp) hand written on to graph paper, recieved no torque graph or figure. As soon as i drove it on to the road backfired lots every time i accelerated. When i checked the plugs after 2 days they were bright white. Also when i checked the static timing with a strobe light it was set at 20 degrees advanced instead of 8 degrees.

County / Country : Northamptonshire
Town : Northampton
Name : Northampton Motorsport
Services : Rolling Road/Engineering
Address : Rothersthorpe ave., Northampton
Link to Map or website : http://www.northamptonmotorsport.com/default.asp?id=1
Rating: BRILLIANT
Testimony: They set up my mini on the rolling road. All the staff are experts in their area, generally with lots of motorsport experience. Also carry lots of spare parts for SU's and Webers.

County / Country : Cardiff
Town : Cathays, Cardiff
Name : Cardiff Autocare
Services : General garage
Address : Basil Place, CF24 4DD
Link to Map or website : N/A
Rating: POOR
Testimony: They stripped my engine and outsourced the head for skimming, followed by a mis-diagnosis of a cracked block. I had to get the car recovered from their garage to my house. Inspection by myself (back at my garage I had all my tools, hence it had to go to a garage at uni) found all four cylinders to be washed out completly. Looks like they had tried to set the timing up with a flushing oil in, not the usual 20/50. That mistake, plus the huge mis-diagnosis has really cost me money and put me off.

County / Country : Berkshire
Town : Wokingham
Name : CP Minis
Services : All things mini, appart from adavnced setup
Address : Wokingham, you'll have to search the web lol can't remember off the top of my head
Link to Map or website : none at the moment
Rating: BRILLIANT
Testimony: Great guys and friendly services. Had a number of things done including a couple of panels sprayed up and the quality of that was superb. Would highly recommend to anyone.

County / Country: London
Town : Bexleyheath
Name :The Mini Centre
Services : All mechanical work, services, panel replacements, engine installations, tyres, new and second spares inc many rare stuff and cars for sale.
Address :Rear of 174 The Broadway, Bexleyheath, London, DA6 7BT (020 8303 1441)
Link to Map or website :
Rating:10/10
Testimony: I have been using the Mini Centre since the late 90s and have always had excellent service and great work carried out, from welding and MOT repairs to having 7.5 brakes fitted to one of my cars.
Alan the owner is a good chap, always up for a laugh and has a real passion for any mini as he owns a few himself which are in various states of restoration including a pickup and estate.
I would recommend them to anyone.

County: Hertfordshire
Town: Chorleywood
Name: DK Engineering
Services: Restoration, repairs, rolling road tuning, dealership. Specialise in Ferraris but cater to all classics.
Address: Little Green Street Farm, Green Street, Chenies, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire WD3 6EA, 01923 287 687
Rating: 9/10

Testimony: A very well recommended garage. A beautiful building complex full of amazingly rare cars on display, friendly and well spoken staff, with highly organised and learned mechanics. When i took my car for a rolling road tune they explained everything to me in layman's terms, even pointing out places that needed repair that i hadn't noticed, like my cracking fuel lines. For a place that usually caters to the very wealthy, they were surprisingly helpful, considering my car looked like near scrap compared to the amazing machines also getting tuned. The mechanic assigned to my car had called in sick on the day, and so i had to wait 45 minutes for another mechanic, but in return they gave me two hours worth of tuning for the price of one! The only thing that would stop them getting 10/10 is only because restoration/repair work carried out there is very expensive. But because they're dealing with million pound classics and supercars all the time, it's obvious their quality of work and service is incredible. For a rolling road tune, it's highly recommended

County: Suffolk
Town: Mildenhall
Name: Cooper's Garage
Services: They pretty much offer everything for the Classic Mini as well as other cars except a Rolling Road/Dyno. Lots of great examples sitting in the shop.
Address: Mildenhall.....they are on the net. I didn't commit the addy to memory.
Rating: Well normally it would be high but read on.

I took Dexter down to Cooper's Garage initially to have an estimate done and hopefully have work started to build him up the way I imagined him. I had an appointment with the owner and when I showed up he wasn't there. Myself, my wife and our 4 year old Son waited there for nearly an hour! This was about six weeks ago so I don't remember the exact time of the appointment but I want to say 10:30AM. Finally roughly an hour later he showed up with a trailer load of old parts someone he knew was going to give him. So, we stood around waiting again for him to unload the trailer till we talked business. In my opinion....an appointment is an appointment and I was a customer.

Once we did finally get down to business it seemed like it was "doom and gloom" when we looked over my Mini together. Basically scared the crap out of me by telling me stuff that I knew was solid would need replaced. Before I knew it I was looking at a car that would need a new Passenger door jamb step, new scuttle ends, complete new front end, new half boot floor (which I already expected) and a few other bits. Shocking....this is a solid little car by everything I have seen on it. It had been completely restored in 2007 by another reputable garage.....the only thing that had started to rust majorly on it was the boot floor. I asked the owner during a casual conversation "Do you charge for the car sitting here?" (Remember, this was going to be a somewhat extensive build with both repairs/mods) his reply was "As long as it's not going to be sitting around for something crazy, like six months.....then no". My response was "No, nothing like that!"

Anyhow, that same day the family and I left to go to the base's "Mayfaire Bazaar". The whole time I could only think of the cost of all of this and how it may just be too much. I don't have the time/money to chase down rust on a Mini all the time. It'll be even harder once we move back to the states. I saw one of the new 2010 Mustang GTs on the base at the Exchange New Car Sales and LOVED IT. I talked to the salesman and decided it might just be due time to reconsider the Mini hobby. By the time we finished up at the bazaar and started home I decided to give it good think.

A few days later my decision was concrete. I was going to sell the Mini. I stopped down to Cooper's and saw the owner. I told him that the plans have changed and unfortunately for me....I was just going to sell. I still wanted the car to go through an MOT though so I left it there, I told him if he knew anyone that would be interested then he could sell it on in the meantime. That is all that was said. I didn't ask him to spend time with the car, I didn't ask him to actively "show" the car but that is what he did. I only expected he would slap a for sale sign on it and if anyone asked then he'd sell it. Instead, he wiped it down....put 6x10" aluminum wheels on it, jacked it up once for a prospective buyer and in all says he spent over 6 "man hours" dedicated to selling my Mini! Again, I didn't ask him to do this and he never told me he would. In fact the words out of his mouth were "I can put a sign on it". Remember he also previously told me it would be fine sitting there (his dedicated Mini shop is HUGE and nearly empty) as long as it wasn't 6 months. Keep in mind I'm a part of the US Air Force family and thought he might have been burned once before by someone that may have brought a car to him then deployed to the desert for 6 months or more. I thought he was referring to something such as this. If somebody tells you in ENGLISH "It is fine sitting here as long as its not going to be 6 months" then how can that be bad communication? It cannot, it is quite a literal description even IF spoken "casually".

About a week after telling him I wanted to sell it I got in contact with a good friend of mine. I asked him if he was interested in buying it. He said "Yes".....but that he wouldn't be able to do anything till he got back from the desert. So, I figured I'd just let the Mini stay where it was cause I was under the previous verbal agreement (these types of agreements are legally binding in many places you know!) and I figured it would have a "for sale" sign on it because he told me it would. I wanted it to remain "on the market" cause my friend was ok with the idea of it selling before he got home. There was no point in telling the owner of the garage I asked my friend if he wanted to buy it cause that information didn't matter. It was "first come first serve".

Moving on, I have been pretty busy around here since the Mini has been down to his garage (in fact it is still there scheduled to take it's MOT next week) so I sent him an email recently assuring him I haven't forgot about the car and have been busy around here (I had told him I would be busy the day we talked about the "storage") as we are preparing for a Government move into a new house. There is sensitive equipment that I have that I must pack and move on my own. If you don't prepare for one of these moves then you WILL get nice things broken....I have done these moves 3 times already. They (the movers) are ROUGH on your items. So, his email in response? Pay me for storage. I was quite confused per our initial agreement. Where did the monetary value come from? To me, it seemed like he saw an angle and took it. So I replied and tried to reconcile and make the situation pleasant. I hate petty squabbles.....they are so childish. He replied that my proposal sounded good. That night I stewed about the previous message. I wrote him back quite frankly expressing my confusion over the compensation he had requested. I was pretty angry. He responded rudely and called me "aggressive" because I used words like "Bummed", "Peeved" and "Confused". He sent me this email at nearly 2AM! So, I called him as it was quite lit up. I feel I handled the situation better even though I was wanting to reach through the phone. I could hear him huffing and puffing too so he must have felt wronged in some way. During the phone call I even offered numerous times to compensate him for the storage as my way of "extending an olive branch" he refused each time I mentioned it. He refused then proceeded to complain about the situation. So my whole point???

He told me he was joking when he said it would be fine sitting there as long as it wasn't six months or longer. How was I supposed to know that? I took him literally.....anyone would. So how am I at fault in his eyes? He is otherwise a very nice guy and he does do good work, I just feel that he hides things sometimes. During our phone conversation he slipped and said he was selling my car for 2000 quid. I was only asking 1800 so he was looking to make profit off MY car just because it was sitting in his garage even after he told me "no charge". Can you see the shadyness here? He replaced my wheels without my consent. He did extra stuff to sell it, I didn't ask him to. So how does this make ME the bad guy? Then he complained about it taking up space! Is he MAD! It's a Mini!!!!! It's the size of a golf cart. He has roughly 22 Minis in his "Mini Shop" and the shop is the size of a small airplane hangar......you could fit a Leer Jet in this thing.

So my point is be wary of strange dealings like this even with reputable shops. Everyone has an ugly side, my only question is why do they show it to me?

OK COMPLETE CHANGE THE GUY IS A F'ING ARSEHOLE AND HAS COST ME OVER £5000. COWBOY.STEER CLEAR.

How? Let us have the story.

County : Northamptonshire
Town : Finedon - close to Wellingborough, Rushden and Kettering

Name : Tim Offen Motors
Services : Servicing, repairs, welding, MOTs arranged
Address : 1 Mulso Road, Finedon, next to Andy's Tyres
Tel: 07850 666913
Link to Map or website : www.timoffenmotors.co.uk
Rating: Great!

Testimony:
I've been taking my cars to Tim for a few years now. He's a small one-man outfit now, after stopping the recovery side of his business and selling his larger garage in Irthlingborough - so now he's concentrating on servicing and repairs etc.

Being in the business for decades, he really knows his stuff and actually likes to see an old-school car come in - he does deal with modern cars too, but I think he much prefers carbs to injectors!
As he's owned several Minis in the past - including Cooper S's and Mini vans, he was really enthusiastic when I picked up my Cooper last year.

He's helped me to find a few hidden 'nasties' and he's been great in showing them to me and discussing the best course of action - not just cracking on and presenting me with a long list on an invoice after! He's also shown enthusiasm in the bits I've been able to do myself, rather than criticising me for it as some garages might.

I can't fault the quality of his work and the prices are pretty reasonable too. Highly recommended.