I have worked in Milton Keynes for 4 years now and have paid (I think) £235 per year to park my car in a public car park outside of my office. This year it has gone up to £270 (more if you live outside of Milton Keynes). For that I am not guaranteed a parking place and there have been times where I have not been able to get one within a 5 minute walk of my office.

I have been fined £30 on each of these occasions:

• They wrote my car registration wrong on my ticket (got 2 letters the wrong way around). This was not noticed for 6 months, then one day I got fined
  • I wrote 2 letters of complaint but did not hear anything back by post/e-mail/telephone (is it illegal to ignore challenges to appeals?)
• I took my car in to get serviced and had a hire car. Out of habit I walked from my hire car to the office without paying for a parking ticket
  • I wrote them a letter and they replied to say ‘tough’
• I have twice forgotten to renew (they don’t send reminders). My fault I know, but I think they should give a reminder or warning first (with 5 days to pay)
  • I appealed once but they said ‘tough’

The really bad things are:

• The parking ticket does not say that you can pay on-line, but you can
• They do not always reply to letters or e-mails
• You can’t order a new parking permit on-line
• You can order a parking permit via the post, but it takes up to 10 days – and they still have to phone you for the credit card payment
• To get a parking permit quickly, you have to visit their office in Central Milton Keynes (which is only open from 0900 – 1700) and in the past it has generally taken 1 hour (queueing)

So tomorrow I will have to:

• Pay for a parking ticket so that I can park outside my office. I will have to do this by mobile phone as I haven’t got change available
• Walk to the council office and buy a 1 year parking permit at £270…

Next time you see a car parking attendant, ask them: What are you? Some bottom-feeding, scum sucking algae eater?

So I queried the price with the guy at reception of National. At this point he said that there were actually 2 sets of parts – one at £370 and another at just £80 (including fitting – which seemed far too cheap to me). He explained that the 2 parts are different sizes and he couldn’t tell me which was needed until they were delivered – sounds like rubbish to me.

Then I told them that I wasn’t interested, so they rolled my car off of the lift I walked towards it, ready to drive away. As I was walking away, the guy at reception followed me and told me 2-3 times that he could probably do it for me at £80. I just got into my car and walked off…

Then I went to another back-street garage and they quoted me £175 for Lucas branded parts – result! That was at around 10:30 so I booked the job to be done at 12:30 – which is in 20 mins, so I’ll go there now!

I’m so glad I checked the prices myself on the Internet, walked away from National and got a far better quote from another garage. I won’t be using National again!

…update

I took it to New City Motors who did a good job – and for £200 less than National quoted!

Paul's car on a ramp