Garage & MOT — Alnwick, Northumberland
Bilton Yard. Alnwick. Older cars, looked at properly.
MOT testing, servicing and car repairs in Alnwick since 1978 — including the older cars nobody else will touch. You'll see the old part before you pay, and the price we quote is the one you pay.
4.8 from 431 opinions Est. 1978 Recovery within 20 miles
The old part on the counter
The worn part goes on the counter before the bill does.
Every job here ends the same way. Whatever came off your car — the bearing, the pads, the snapped spring — is kept and laid on the counter next to the paperwork. You can pick it up, turn it over, and see the wear for yourself before you pay a penny.
Nobody has to take our word for anything. That's rather the point, and it's how it's been done here since 1978. The shelf below isn't a portfolio — it's evidence.
Kept & shown — every job, since 1978
The parts shelf
What "older cars nobody else will touch" looks like up close.
Three pieces off the shelf, photographed where they were laid. What each one was, the noise it was making, and how the job ended. Being the older car specialist for this corner of Northumberland isn't a slogan — it's the stock-in-trade, and the shelf is where we keep the proof.
Wheel bearing, nearside front
- The noise
- A drone like a taxiing aircraft, worse on right-hand bends.
- The price
- Agreed before the wheel came off. It didn't move.
- Since
- Back on the school run the next morning. Quiet as new.
Clutch plate, glazed
- The noise
- No noise — a smell, and revs climbing with nothing to show for it on the hill out of town.
- The price
- Quoted before the gearbox came down. The quote held.
- Since
- Pulls like it should. The old plate sat on this counter first.
Coil spring, snapped
- The noise
- A bang on a cattle grid, then a lean like a ship taking water.
- The price
- Both springs on the axle, priced as one job, agreed first.
- Since
- Farm lanes daily, laden most days. Sits level.
The shelf changes as the work does. If you want the part off your own car kept back, say so at the desk — most people do, once they've seen it done. See what a job costs.
The job card
Written down the way we'd write yours.
Everything below is agreed before we start — out loud, in plain figures, written down. MOT testing, servicing, brake repairs and car diagnostics in Alnwick; clutch and cambelt work done properly or not at all. If the plan changes, the conversation happens before the work does.
MOT testing & preparation
The test, and if it needs work first, an honest list — what must be done now, and what can safely wait a year.
Priced when you book
Servicing
Oil, filters, fluids and a proper look round underneath. Older engines get older-engine judgement, not a franchise checklist.
Agreed before we start
Brakes & suspension
Discs, pads, drums, springs and dampers. The old parts come back to the counter with the keys.
Agreed before we start
Diagnostics
We plug in where it helps and listen where it doesn't. Forty-eight years of knowing what a noise means.
Agreed before we start
Clutches & cambelts
The two jobs that decide whether an old car gets its one more year. Done properly or not at all.
Quoted before the box comes down
Tyres & punctures
Fitted and balanced, punctures plugged where it's safe — and told straight when it isn't.
Priced by size, agreed first
Recovery within twenty miles
Cars, farm and estate vehicles, twenty miles round Alnwick. If you're stuck, you go to the front of the queue.
Agreed before we set off
The price we quote is the price you pay. Agreed before work starts, written down, and it does not move. Anything extra gets agreed the same way — before, not after.
A note from the desk
Sometimes it isn't worth fixing. We'll say so.
More often than you'd think, somebody drives in braced for a big bill and we send them home without one. If the welding will cost more than the car will ever be worth, we say so before a spanner comes out. If it'll scrape through this MOT but not the next, we say that too.
We'd rather lose a job than sell you one. That honest no is why the yeses keep coming back — cars kept going one more year, and then another, because the arithmetic here is done on your side of the counter.
Forty-eight years in the trade
The same doors since 1978.
Forty-eight years doesn't live on a plaque here. It lives in hands — hands that have kept the same families' vehicles going three generations deep, from farm pickups off the estate lanes to the little cars that do the town run. Most faults get recognised before the bonnet's fully up. The rest get the ramp, the daylight, and however long it honestly takes.
- 1978 The doors open on the edge of Alnwick. Same doors ever since.
- 48 Years in the trade. Nothing on this page is guessed at.
- 3 Generations deep with some families — we look after the grandchildren's cars now.
- 4.8 / 431 The Google record, for what strangers make of us. We'd rather show you the shelf.
- THE DOG Asleep under the desk since breakfast. Handles morale, not brakes.
Breakdown recovery — within 20 miles of Alnwick
Stuck on the road? You go first.
Whoever's on the verge jumps the queue — ahead of the bookings, ahead of the paperwork, ahead of the tea. That's been the rule here since 1978. Farm lane or the A1, mud or tarmac, we come out to anywhere within twenty miles of the yard.
Reach the yard Tell the desk where you are — you jump the queueCover — 20 miles radius of Alnwick · Cars, farm & estate vehicles · Whoever's stuck goes first
Find the yard
Where we are, and when the gate's open.
Alnwick, Northumberland
Hours on the gate
- Monday
- 07:30–17:00
- Tuesday
- 07:30–17:00
- Wednesday
- 07:30–17:00
- Thursday
- 07:30–17:00
- Friday
- 07:30–16:00
- Saturday
- 08:00–12:30
Bring it in. We'll have a look.