Iridium Engineering, Southampton

Clutch went on my VW, it was Tuesday, I was told £750 and will be done by Thursday. Thursday I tried calling several times with no answer, had a call late on Thursday letting me know it will be ready Friday, again no contact and I called several times without any answer, so I walked round to Iridium only to find all the technicians sat in the office alongside the ringing phone, when I walked in they all scurried off like guilty kids. I was told it will be ready Monday, I was called on Monday to say it will be ready last thing Monday, not the case, I finally got the call late morning Tuesday. The cost had risen to £1220 for extra items some of which were not cleared in advance. I paid the ransom to get my car back, that evening when I went to use my micro torch on my car keys, it was no longer on the keyring, just salt in the wounds, do yourself a massive favour and go somewhere more honest.

Good to talk to people who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the cars they service. They were very efficient and better value than the main dealer while offering at least as good a service. Clearly the main dealers have the coffee lounges and surroundings that an independant cannot compete with; however as Iridium Engineering collected and delived my 7 series from my house coffee would not really worth paying 35%+ more for! In future I will be using Iridium...

First time I went there I had a superb service the owner couldn’t be more helpful, but the second visit was v poor, I had an issue with the work they carried out, the owner wasn’t there so I spoke to the guy on the counter about the problem, he went off and spoke to the technician who couldn’t even be bothered to come out and speak to me in person, I could hear him in the back ground saying there was nothing he could do and basically I had to live with it, it felt very un professional and rude, the guy took my number and promised they would ring me back, a week later and still no phone call! Lots of glowing reports on the net about this place but sadly I won’t be using them again, I`m now stuck with a car that has an issue directly related to the work they carried out. AVOID..

I have driven my E36 M3 and E28 M535 halfway across the country for major servicing and complex remedial work many times. The owner Sean is a genius and the quality of his work is sublime. The word on many of the specialist internet forums is that many of the main dealers send the problems they cannot diagnose to this guy. If you have a problem with a vanos unit then this is the man to see. I'm happy to get my oil changes and little jobs done by someone locally, but Iridium Engineering are the only ones I trust with anything complicated. If I lived closer I would get all my work done here because the fixed price servicing is very reasonable and only the best quality lubricants and products are on the shelf (and naturally the shelves are spotless and all the products labels are stacked the right way - the sign of a quality auto engineer!!!!).