Negotiating with garages about additional work that's needed on your vehicle after an MOT or service can feel like a hassle.
That's why when you book an MOT or service through Smart Care, we make things simple with our process for managing additional work.
What's additional work?
Additional work is any work identified by an AA approved garage after they’ve serviced your vehicle or carried out an MOT test. There are 2 types of additional work: essential and recommended.
Essential work is any work that's needed to make your car roadworthy and legal to drive.
If essential work is identified after an MOT test, you'll need to have this work done for your vehicle to pass its MOT. For example:
- Fixing broken headlights, brake lights, hazard lights or indicators.
- Replacing tyres that have a tread depth of less than 1.6mm in a continuous band around the central 3/4 of the tyre.
- Repairing or replacing your car horn if it's found to be broken or not loud enough.
Find out more about what’s checked during an MOT.
Recommended work is any work that the garage thinks you should have done to keep your vehicle in good working order. If you've had an MOT test, you might see this kind of work noted as "minor faults". For example:
- Replacing windscreen wiper blades.
- Replacing tyres that are worn but are not below the minimum tread depth of 1.6mm.
It won't affect your MOT test result if you choose not to have recommended work done, but it's usually strongly advised as the problem might get worse in the future.
How do we take care of additional work?
1. We deal with the garage
If a garage has identified that additional work is needed on your vehicle, they’ll let us know and we'll be in touch straightaway. We check the work the garage has outlined and build a quote for you. Our quotes always take advantage of our negotiated parts and labour rates, so you can be sure you're getting the best possible deal.
2. We’ll keep you in the loop
Depending on the work that’s identified, we’ll either contact you by phone, text or email.
If you hear from us by phone, our advisor will talk through and explain the identified work explain and give you a cost for having it done.
You can approve or decline this work with our advisor and if approved, we can take payment over the phone. We then give the garage the green light to go ahead with the work you've approved.
If you get a text or email from us, you’ll need to log in to Smart Care to see the details and the cost breakdown of the additional work. Here, you’ll also be able to approve and pay for the work quickly and easily. The garage will then start the work you’ve approved.
If there are any delays to the work, we’ll let you know straightaway. We’ll be in contact again as soon as your vehicle is ready to be picked up, or returned to you (if you selected our handy collect and return service when you booked).
3. We’re flexible
If you need to add a different payment card to your account to pay for the additional work, you can do this easily over the phone or when you log in to Smart Care.
Why use AA Smart Care for your car's service or MOT?
Every garage in our network is AA approved and audited annually to ensure it fully meets our quality, service and training standards. This means you can be confident that that any additional work needed for your vehicle will be done to the highest standards.
Find out more about our AA approved garage network.
When you book through Smart Care, you also get:
- Fair, transparent pricing.
- Free vehicle collection and return.
- Quick and easy online booking and payment.
- 12-month guarantee on all parts and labour.