Auto Repair Rip-Off Horror Stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, reading this thread reminded me of some times that I was almost ripped off when dealing with car repair places. I’ve been a single mom for over ten years, so by now you better believe I have had some doozies, because I swear I have a stamp on my forehead that can only be seen by mechanics that says “Fuck me over!” I have been fortunate enough to have good friends and good mechanics, though, that I can count on to give me good second opinions, so I haven’t been raped too horribly bad (yet). Here are some highlights:

I was getting ready to buy a car several years ago and I took it to a well-known, national brake shop for an inspection. They came out and told me that I needed an all new brake system, plus some “gold touring struts” (for a Ford Escort?), and all together it would be over $800. I then took it to an independent family-owned shop, and he told me the car was fine and didn’t need anything. I was so confused about why the first place would have lied to me, that the guy took me back and showed me how the brakes had plenty of …whatever… left and didn’t need new struts either, and I bought the car and didn’t need new brakes for another 2 years.

Once I was visiting a friend in Phoenix (a couple of hours away) in the middle of the summer, and my car was acting weird, so we took it to a shop there in the city. The guy came out and told me that I needed new engine mounts, over $300, and if I didn’t have the work done, there was a good chance that my engine would fall out on the freeway back to Tucson. Didn’t get it done, came back to Tucson, where my good mechanic from the story above told me it was all a lie.

I, unfortunately lost my good mechanic a couple of years ago when he insisted we have an affair and I didn’t comply, so now I am again at the mercy of the jackals. And not looking forward to the next time my car breaks down (as if I ever have).

Do you have any horror stories re car repairs, or is it just me?

2

A friend has a VERY rare Corvette*. It cannot pass emissions. The Corvette shop has had the car for nearly 9 months and he’s just learned today they’re not capable of performing the work.
(Callaway Aerobody ZR-1 with custom cams and enginework)

3

You may not have intended it, but this is your worst horror story! :eek:

4

But did they charge him? In my world, they would’ve kept if for 9 months, told me they changed out the muffler belt, the carpensation valves, and the dooferensurator, and charged me $1300.

5

I know, huh?

6

When I was 16, my first car developed a loud exhaust leak. I took it a Midas/Meinekie and they told me I needed a new catalytic converter. Ponied up the big bucks and everything was grand. For about 2 months, when I heard another loud exhaust leak. Took it back to the same place and they told me the catalytic converter was shot. I showed them the receipt, and they told me that “this car has 2 catalytic converters, we replaced the first one, now your other is bad”

I didn’t doubt them at the time, but I also couldn’t afford the repair, so I drove home, put it on ramps and got underneath. To see 1 single catylitic converter, and a bad gasket from where they botched the job last time. Fixed the gasket myself for $2, and began doing 95% of my own auto repair work and learning as much as I could from then on.

7

Back in about 1992, I was driving a 1984 Ford Escort. It had barely 80K miles on it, but it was a piece of crap, and I went through a 4 month period where it broke down every month, leaving me stranded in very inconvenient places.

After the fourth time, I said “enough!” and went car shopping while the Escort was in the shop being fixed. I talked to the mechanic - a guy who’d fixed it several times and who I liked a lot - and he told me the issue was a belt of some sort or other (I forget exactly what.)

I found another vehicle that I wanted to buy at a Toyota dealer. It was a used Mazda pickup. I explained the situation that I had a trade in, but it was currently being fixed, and told them the details on the issue. They sent a guy to the repair shop where my Escort was, he took a look, and came back and said “OK, we’ll give you <$x> for the trade in value.” It wasn’t much - like $400 - so we’re not talking a huge amount of money.

We did the deal, I signed the papers for the new car, and signed the old car over to them.

3 or 4 days later, I get a call from my mechanic. He explains that while they were fixing the belt, they found that there was an issue with the water pump (I think… this was a long time ago, I don’t recall the details exactly) that made it so that if the pump wasn’t replaced, it would almost surely break the newly-replaced belt within 5 or 10 miles of driving.

At this point, the car was the Toyota dealer’s, not mine. The papers were signed. The dealer was a mile or so from the mechanic’s place. It would have easily made it over to the dealer without the belt breaking. But I’m honest, I wanted to do the right thing, so I called the Toyota dealer and explained the issue.

They flipped out on me, demanded that I fix the problem. When I countered and said “hey, the papers are signed, if I had a problem with the truck I just bought, it’s my problem. I’m sorry this happened, but I honestly didn’t know about it when I signed the car over to you.” They yelled & screamed, and finally threatened to not sign the title to my new truck over to me (apparently that hadn’t been done yet.)

I called mechanic, who told me he’d be glad to tell the Toyota dealer that neither he nor I knew about the water pump issue until well after the deal had been done. No dice, the Toyota dealer more or less told him to screw off when he called.

We went back and forth a few more times, but I was young and dumb and ended up paying for the repair.

I still wonder if I should have refused and seen if they really would have not released the title to my new truck. Had they dealt with the issue without the yells and the threats, I probably wouldn’t remember it so clearly now, almost 20 years later. As it is, I felt ripped off then, and still do now.

8

Another Midas story. Took my car in. Their first question was, “Have you been here before?” I think they meant, “Have you been to Midas before?” but I took it to mean “Have you ever been to this particular location?” So I answered no.

Lo and behold, they put the car up on the rack and told me I needed new struts all around. I said, “OK,” and whipped out my Midas warranty for the existing struts. This was not what they were expecting based on my earlier answer. And whaddya know? It turns out that only one of the struts needed to be replaced and the other three only needed adjustment. :dubious:

9

Not yet. Jury’s still out. :confused:

10

In the late 70s, I was driving a '76 Datsun B210 - my first new car, financed thru Daddy National Bank. :smiley: I was away at college, and I had some problem, so I took it to a local shop. Paid 'em a lot of money. A week or so later, I was back at the same shop with another expensive problem. Shortly thereafter, I went to another shop for a quick and cheap repair. Now, the first guy didn’t necessarily cheat me or rip me off, but I’m thinking a single college girl 500 miles from home had to be a tempting target…

I remember thinking at the time that it was mighty suspicious, but I was a wuss back then. Today, I wouldn’t put up with that crap. Lucky for me, I’ve got a great mechanic now, plus I’m smarter about cars.

Oh yeah, there was also the guy in the quick oil change place who tried to sell me something to extend the life of my catalytic converter. I was driving a diesel car and I’m pretty sure they don’t have catalytic converters…

Oh, and the time I was driving through a small town in Alabama on my way to Florida. I decided to drive thru the carwash to get the road crud off my car. As I exited, the kindly owner of the carwash pointed out that my tire was flat and his good buddy next door could sell me a new tire post-haste. I pulled over to an empty parking lot, emptied my trunk, changed the tire, reloaded my car, and left. When I got where I was going, I spent $7 getting a big ol’ nail removed from my tire and having it plugged. Yeah, probably just a coincidence. :rolleyes:

11

Back in the early 80s, my 1972 AMC Gremlin had a problem shifting. I took it to a local transmission repair shop for an estimate.

Shop guy calls me at work and tells me that I need a new clutch. I don’t remember the exact price he quoted, but it was something like $2000. I think I said something terribly intelligent like “wow, really”.

Then he chuckled and told me he was just kidding, it was really only $800.

He about had a cow when I told him not to do any work, that my roommate would be by to pick the car up shortly. The entire car was going to be ruined if I drove it any longer!

Dude, I’m young, not stupid!

Astoundingly enough, when I took it to my dad’s mechanic (where I should have gone to start with, but they were in a different town and I didn’t want to take the time), there was absolutely nothing wrong with the clutch. When I asked what a clutch replacement would be, just for curiousity, it was about $80.

IIRC, it was actually the synchronizer in the transmission, which I think I eventually got fixed a few years later. I just double-clutched until then.

12

FairyChatMom, you reminded me of another story. Mid 90s, the spousal unit and I stopped to check on a distressed girl standing next to her Mercedes convertible. This was in town, but pre-cellphone days. She was very blonde, very cute, very young, obviously a sorority girl.

Her car was running, but wouldn’t go! It would poke along at idle, but when she pressed the accelerator nothing happened. So we pushed it into a parking space and took a look.

She had tried to open the hood, but couldn’t get the inside hood latch to work. My only guess is that her nails were too long to get a grip on the handle, as it popped open quite easily when I tried it. Not that it did any good - it was fuel-injected rather than a conventional carb and I still don’t know anything about those.

Nonetheless, we explained that it sounded like her accelerator cable was broken or detached and that she’d need to take it to a mechanic. She got upset - turns out she just bought the car a couple of days before, over daddy’s protests. He’d picked out a nice, sensible car in good running order - but she’d insisted she had to have the Benz because it was so pretty.

When she started asking about what would be needed and how much it would cost, we had to plead ignorance, not having ever needed to get engine work done on a Mercedes. She’d never had a car before and wasn’t about to call Daddy for help. I gave her the best advice I could come up with - which was to take her boyfriend along when she took it in. She just looked like a crooked mechanic’s dream come true. :stuck_out_tongue:

Funniest part was a week or so later, when we saw her toodling along the road (evidently she’d gotten the problem fixed). Our semi-hippie selves waved at her from our late 70s VW Beetle. She got all offended at being accosted by the weirdos, until she realized that we were the same freaky people that had stopped and helped her one day. (The Greeks don’t much like the freaks in my town.)

But I still don’t know how much it costs to get your Mercedes convertible accelerator cable fixed.

13

Not sure this really qualifies as a “horror story”, but I believe it was definitely an example of them trying to rip me off.

Back in the mid 90s, I had an older Honda CRX. The fuel pump went, and when I took it in, they wanted something obscene to fix it – I don’t remember the exact number, but it was in the neighborhood of $1000.

I searched around, and found a brand new fuel pump for $60. Bought a Chilton’s repair manual for under $20. Within an hour, I’d replaced it myself, and the car ran fine for another few years.

If I, someone who knows very little about car repair, could do it myself that easily, for a grand total of around $75 in parts (including the damn manual), there’s absolutely no way an honest garage should have been charging me anywhere near that much.

14

Someone tried to pull the tire scam on us in Georgia in 1978. It didn’t involve a nail, just someone trying to convince us our tires would fall apart on I-75 so we needed a new set. My father did not take him up on the offer. The tires held up just fine.

Then in the '80’s we were visiting Red River, NM and we asked the owners of the motel we were staying at where we could see a scenic overlook or wild animals. They directed us down some lonely road littered with rocks and we took it. Pretty soon the car was bouncing around over the rocks and we realized that the road didn’t seem to be leading anywhere.

We turned and headed back, but not before a wire that was essential for the car’s air conditioning had been destroyed. My mother was furious and my father went to the motel owners to ask where he could find an auto shop to fix the wire. They recommended the only auto shop in town.

It turned out they owned it. Yeah, I think someone gave us the the shaft that day.

15

Six years ago someone scratched up the left side of my bumper. Seeing as how the car was still fairly new (two years old) I wanted to get it taken care of. The first body shop I took it to wanted to charge me $800. Apparently there was a slight nick on the very bottom of the quarter panel, and they said they would need to take the whole thing off. Not having $800 to burn I checked around and found a place that would fix it for $250.
Anyway, I eventually decided to just buy a $10 tube of touch up paint. I figured the damage was only cosmetic, and I wasn’t planning on selling or trading the car anytime soon so resale value wasn’t much of a worry.

16

Does it count when nearly every dealer service shop constantly tries to sell me various flushes/cleanouts? Egads that drives me nuts!

Took my Civic in last week for an oil change at 34K. Recommended - power steering flush $100 (second recommendation for that - first was at 20K), brake fluid flush $100, fuel injection service $160.

Oh yeah, and they can’t rotate my tires and fix the slow leak because it would be illegal for them to do so because I need new tires immediately. I’m not sure what kind of crap tires Honda put on this car that are done at 40K miles, but whatever.

That’ll only be $460, or $580 if I want the good tires. Please note that they didn’t include any actual information about the tires in their quote, so I guess it’s whatever they happen to have lying around.

Yeah, the tread’s getting low and I’ll be needing some new tires in the next few months. But I"m pretty sure that any tire shop in town would have at least fixed the leak (for free, usually), and then tried to sell me new tires. The dealer couldn’t even be bothered to fill the damn thing up with air, once again failing to complete the checklist that they’re supposed to do with each oil change.

Every friggin’ time at every friggin’ dealer.

Guys, I hope you’re making money selling that crap to idjits. Because I wouldn’t trust you if you told me the sun would rise tomorrow. I sure as hell won’t trust you to do any real work on my cars if I have to pay for it.

17

My brother in law lives in France. One day he took his car to the garage to be taken out back and shot and then crushed humanely into a cube, as it was old and fractious and beyond repair. Oui, said le mechanic, pas de problème. Merci, said Neil, paying the facture and heading home for vin.

… And all was well until a month later, when Neil received a speeding ticket for his cube, apparently still making its merry way around the countryside at some considerable speed.

I’m not sure how this panned out, but Neil’s French is not dainty and he is not diplomatic when riled. I think I’ll drop him a line and investigate.

18

1st ripoff:
I once took a car to the dealer for some fix of some sort. I know next to nothing about cars and repairs, but when I got the bill and looked over the parts list I figured I’d recognize hoses or thermostats or whatever. There were some parts I didn’t recognize so I asked. Turns out the same part was listed twice under two different part numbers and two different names. It wasn’t something like a hose which could be different parts, but it was a water pump or some such thing. They did credit me back the cost of the duplicate part, but I still wonder how many of the parts were double billed.

(almost) 2nd ripoff:
1st Mechanic: $600+ to repair the AC
2nd mechanic: Blown fuse. That will be $0.35 and $40 for labor.

19

Still- $40 to replace a fuse? I could probably get a random dude walking down the street to do it for free. I think I need to become a mechanic, with rates like that.

20

Well, there’s your mistake… you shoulda just given it up for the mechanic. A trustworthy car-fixer is WORTH IT! ;).

1981… my first “car”, a Fiat 128 wagon, bought secondhand by my parents from “friends” of theirs. Was in the shop for something major pretty much every month during the 2 years I was owned by it.

In at the Fiat dialership for problem X. Dealer called and said “Y is a problem on that axle as well, if we fix it at the same time it’ll be 30 dollars, otherwise it’ll be 45”.

A couple of months later, I had it in for diagnostics / repair again. Called by dealer, “Problem Y both rear axles, 45/axle”. I thought that sounded familiar but wasn’t sure so I authorized the repair.

Sure enough, I checked the service records and saw they’d just ripped me off. Too months to get my money back for the re-do of the one axle, and even then they gave me only 30, not 45.

Not auto, but HVAC: The people we have a service contract for, for our home A/C and furnace, always try to upsell during the annual inspection. Last year it was “the heat exchanger is getting thin, it’s about to crack, maybe you oughta replace the whole furnace”. A second opinion from another contractor says there’s no evidence of that, but then the new contractor is newer/smaller so I don’t know who to trust. This year it’s “the motor is about to die, you need to replace that part of the A/C”. Dunno if this is real or not.