Just moved to a new area? Feel like you’re getting short shrift from your current mechanic? Finding a new one can be tricky.

We all want someone honest and reliable, who gets the job done with no fuss. We also worry about getting stuck with a cowboy or, even worse, paying an arm and a leg with a national chain of garages.

Here are our top tips for finding a good new mechanic.

Ask for a recommendation

Word-of-mouth recommendations can still be worth their weight in gold when searching for an honest mechanic. Ask your friends who they use, then figure out whose judgment you trust and give them a call.

Remember, some mechanics won’t treat all their customers equally. Your friends might be getting ‘mates rates’ or the mechanic might treat them favourably because they have been loyal customers for a long time. It is probably worth doing your own research to support any recommendations.

Research online

Make sure you do your homework. Your next mechanic could be your mechanic for the next ten years. Put the time in now to make sure they are right for you.

There are all sorts of car websites and local forums where people discuss garages and mechanics that they have used. You can also check a garage’s Facebook and Twitter profiles to see what customers say about them on there.

Five-star garages

You can get a snapshot of how trustworthy a garage is by looking at online reviews of the company. There are lots of different places where customers leave reviews, including on the Good Garage Scheme, on Google and on Facebook.

It is always worth drilling down into the reviews to see if they are genuine. It is also worth reading some of the comments to find out some of the context behind the review.

Convenient for you

Even if a mechanic is highly recommended and has dozens of five-star reviews, they won’t be much use if you have to drive miles out of your way sit and wait while they work on your motor.

At Duffy Motors, many of our customers like to bring their cars into our city centre garage on a weekday morning before completing the last mile of their journey to work by taxi, public transport or bike. They leave their cars with us all day while they are fixed and then collect them on the way home from work.

Have a chat

Sometimes the best way to get a measure of a new mechanic is to phone up or head down and have a chat with them. Most reputable mechanics will be happy to talk about the condition of your car and what work needs doing.

You can also speak to the mechanic about what work you are happy for them to carry out without your permission and what work you want a say on first.

And if you head down to the garage, it also gives you an opportunity to check out if the garage is tidy and clean. It’s a bit of a myth that garages are untidy and a clean and well-organised site is often the sign of a well-run garage.

Eagle-eyed website visitors might have noticed that a new section has appeared on the website. On Duffy Cars website visitors can browse nice and reliable motors on sale from Duffy Motors.

Lee Atkinson and the rest of the Duffy Motors team, have decades of experience fixing, maintaining and buying in Manchester.

In that time they have developed dozens of industry contacts and learned to spot good deals on cars that are in good condition.

And it is these cars that Duffy Motors will sell through the website.

There will be no clapped-up old bangers, no tired engines that fail their MOT after a few months of wear and nothing that is going to depreciate through the market floor.

In short, if you buy a car through Duffy Motors, you’ll get a good running car, with a good spec and a reliable service history. Oh, and you’ll get a great price too.

You’ll also benefit from our top-rated garage service, and you can drop in at our city centre garage to view the cars whenever you like.

Shopping for a car can be stressful. You can look online and compare all of the specifications under the sun, but putting money down for a new motor is still unnerving – especially if you aren’t really a car person.

At Duffy Motors, we have built our reputation on good customer service. Our garage has the top-rated service record in Greater Manchester on the Good Garage Scheme, and you can read feedback from more than 500 happy customers on our website.

We have always been happy to help our loyal customers pick out a new car.

If you don’t know that much about cars, you can trust us to spot things you might miss. And after so long dealing with car dealers and agents in and around the city, we know how to spot the red flags that can spell motoring disaster.

After decades in the industry, Lee regularly gets phone calls from friends and clients asking for his latest car recommendation and sometimes he even gets asked to take a look at the organs of a car before any money changes hands. Just to make sure.

With Duffy Cars, the team is trying to take the hassle and stress out of shopping around. You know it is a motor that you can rely on.

Manchester city centre car sales

With the launch of Duffy Cars, we also want to make it easier than ever to buy a car. If you work in the city, there’s no need to take the day off work, or waste your Saturday car shopping – just pop into our garage on your lunch break or on your way back from the office. We’re conveniently located just behind the Hilton Tower.

We aren’t salesmen. We won’t turn the screw to try and make you buy. We’ll just show you the most important stats and let the quality of the car sell it for us.

In time, we hope to get lots of cars up on the website for sale on the website. For now, there’s only one car up there for sale, but we think its a pretty useful example of what we hope to sell in the future.

The car is a high-spec Audi Q3 Quattro, which we believe is one of the best examples of a Q3 that you will find. Check out the premium vehicle’s full range of specs on the new Duffy Cars section, and let us know if you would like to come and take a look at it.

Many car owners are still unaware that they can take their new vehicle to get serviced at an independent garage, even if it is still under the dealership warranty.

This means that thousands of people who own cars less than three years old are paying a lot more than they should to have their cars serviced.

Since 2003, EU competition law has stopped car manufacturers from forcing owners to only use them for servicing and repair work.

This should have stopped the big manufacturers from abusing their market position. But often, dealers still warn buyers that their warranty will be void if they use another garage for their servicing. This is incorrect and in some cases is illegal.

If your vehicle is under warranty (new warranties usually last for three years) then it can still be serviced at an independent garage like Duffy Motors, without invalidating the conditions of the dealership warranty.

As long as the service is carried out to the manufacturers specifications, using approved parts and techniques, then the vehicle’s warranty will remain valid.

Along with other good independent garages (find one close to you by using the Good Garage Scheme), Duffy Motors works within all the main manufacturer service specifications. And we have never had any issues with manufacturers refusing to honour the warranty on a vehicle after we have worked on it.

We will only use parts and fluids approved by your vehicles manufacturer, and we will update your service record is in line with the industry standard and can stand up to dealership scrutiny.

Five big reasons to go to your independent garage instead of a dealership

Better price

The biggest reason to choose an independent garage over a dealer service is because you get a better price. One of the major reasons that many of our new car warranty customers choose Duffy Motors is because they know we offer a much better price than most of the dealers in the area.

How much these customers save depends on the type and specification of their vehicle. On high performance cars like Audis, Mercedes and BMWs we can generally offer a discount of 30-40% of what a local dealership would charge.

For smaller cars the discounts are lower, but still significant. On a Ford KA, for example, we estimate that we are 20% cheaper than the local dealers.

Better service

Good service is important to our customers. We put a lot of effort into our customer relationships, and we live and die by the loyalty of our clients.

You shouldn’t take our word for it though. We have over 400 independent reviews on the Good Garage Scheme website, and a 99+% positive feedback score.

More convenient locations

Independent garages like Duffy Motors are more likely to be in a convenient location for their customers. Unlike dealers, that often choose to locate in cheaper premises on the very outskirts of towns and cities, independent garages choose to set up in more convenient locations where their customers can see them and get to them easily.

At Duffy Motors, we are very proud of our Manchester city centre location. We are close to major transport routes, and popular business districts like Spinningfields.  Located in the shadow of the Beetham Tower, we are also close to Deansgate rail and tram stations so it is easy for our customers to drop their vehicles off on the way to the office and collect them at the end of the working day.

Support local businesses

Using independent garages is also a fantastic way of supporting local businesses. A lot of the main dealers hold lucrative contracts with some of the world’s largest motor manufacturers. Independent garages are still family-owned and often have deep routes within their communities.

Duffy Motors has been established for over 50 years. We initially had a site in Salford before moving into the city centre in the 1980s. We wholeheartedly believe in supporting local businesses and the local economy.

Honest advice

Dealerships and some of the bigger garages are renowned for offering bad advice and trying to upsell wherever possible. Customer relationships don’t mean as much to them and they don’t think much about trying to squeeze a few hundred extra pounds out of a deal.

At Duffy Motors, we subscribe to a different model. We always try to offer the best advice wherever possible. Whether its advice on what oil to use for your vehicle, or how to change a tyre – we are always happy to help.

We have even had loyal customers phone up for suggestions on what car to buy next.

Some of our feedback on the Good Garage Scheme