Hell no you’re not being the jerk here.
I have to take my car 100 miles to get it serviced, and usually turn around and drive back home. I want to NO that they are going to start on it as soon as I bring it in and schedule it as such.
Thinking about this again, for an oil change and a headlight, it’s probably easiest to go to a drive through oil change place. You’ll be in and out in 20 minutes.
Well, the oil change, anyway. Changing a headlight bulb on many late-model cars involves a huge amount of disassembly/reassembly. Like, a couple of hours for a trained mechanic.
You’re not being a jerk here. Two weeks ago, I called my garage to schedule changing tires for the summer. He stores them for me and needs notice to get them out of storage. He told me to bring it between 8:30 and 9:00 today. Once upon a time I lived about a km from the garage and would walk and when he called to tell me it was ready, I would walk back. Now I live about 3km away and he knows it so he expects to wait. So I brought it in around 8:20 and was out by 9:30. He tries to accommodate his customers as any good businessman should.
Given what you’ve written, I’d say the mechanic is being a jerk. Making an appointment to wait for simple/routine service should be an everyday thing at a repair shop.
Maybe you’re approaching this the wrong way, can you just tell him you don’t have a ride and want to wait on the van, and ask what the best way to do that is?
Maybe he isn’t managing his time properly and taking walk-ins. This sounds like a mechanic I used to go to that did the office work and the mechanic work. Does he have office staff answering phones and doing scheduling and stuff?
But the difference is that mechanic told you when to bring your car in. The OP is telling the mechanic when he’s going to show up and when he expects work to begin (but allowed the shop to choose the day).
Even if the shop is open at 8, maybe he doesn’t have a crew until later on. Maybe mornings are reserved for something (or someone) else. I don’t think OP or the mechanic is being a jerk, I think they’re talking past each other. I think the OP is missing the fact that the mechanic won’t or can’t rearrange his schedule around the OPs.
Also, we don’t have any idea of the relationship between the OP and the mechanic. So there could be more to the story. And, unrelated to the OP, maybe the mechanic has been burned too many times by people saying “I’ll drop it off at 2 and pick it up at 3”. If the person is a half hour late, it can cause problems for the rest of the day, plus the cost of a mechanic doing nothing for a half hour (and/or arguing with the person when they finally show up trying to get them to understand the mechanics are working on the next car and they’ll have to make a new appointment).
But the OP is demanding a specific time that the mechanic can’t or won’t give him.
The way I see it, the mechanic’s method for running their business (presumably) works for them. If it doesn’t work for the OP, he needs to find a different mechanic or find a way to work with this one.
I keep thinking about this like a doctor’s appointment. If you call to make an appointment, you can say ‘any Monday or Thursday works for me’ or ‘any day after 3 works for me’. But if you tell them that you have to be in 8 and expect to be in an exam room by 8:10, for a variety of reasons, it might not work for them. No amount of arguing is going to change the fact that the first slot of the day is reserved for emergencies or that even though they open at 8, your doctor doesn’t arrive until 10 or any other number of reasons.
Many places are hesitant to make the kind of guarantees you’re asking. Perhaps if you offered to grease the palm with an extra tip or something, they might be more willing to consider special arrangements.
That being said, if you want an oil change at a guaranteed time, you can go to a place that does only that, such as Jiffy Lube, and be out of there in 15-60 minutes.
Why is declining to see someone at the time they demand, the mechanic’s fault?
That sounds like people that get royally pissed off that our store isn’t open when they arrive. Many of the times that someone shows up 5 minutes after closing, I can expect them to knock on the doors, bang on windows, yell into the store that we should open back up for them because it’s only ‘7:05’ and they ‘just need a few things’ and sometimes even go behind the building and walk in the back door (and act like we’re the assholes for telling them to leave). That behavior is often followed up by an angry phone call, an angry email or a negative facebook/google/yelp review.
Think about that, they showed up at a random time and they feel it’s my fault that I’m not open outside of my posted business hours.
I can’t understand how this is the business not managing their time properly. In fact, I’d say it’s the opposite. They know that the OP’s expectations simply don’t work with their schedule and they’re telling him, so there’s no surprises, that he’s not getting in and out in an hour or two.
Again, for a similar example…during the height of the pandemic, we started doing curbside orders. There was a number of times that someone would call in an order, I’d tell them we’d have it ready in about two hours and they’d get angry because they were ‘already in the parking lot’. They didn’t seem to understand that we had other things to do (like put together orders for people that called in earlier) before we could get to their order.
Somehow I was the asshole for not putting together their order right now even though that would mean the next few people that showed up would have to wait since we’d be running behind.
Which may be able to do the headlight as well. Yes, I know, if it’s a newer car they might not. But we don’t have that info. If it’s easy and they stock the bulb, it shouldn’t be a problem. And you don’t even have to get out of your car.
May I ask why you simply don’t go to a place like “Jiffy Lube” and get a drive through oil change in 15 minutes? The headlight could wait until you have more time.
I said maybe he isn’t managing his time properly. We don’t know.
If the mechanic told OP the job took 2 hours it doesn’t seem unreasonable to drop your car off at 8AM, be the first job of the day, and wait on it. OP wasn’t demanding a specific day, just asking for a day that would work for that. Every shop is different but I’ve never had a problem scheduling work and waiting on it.
To me it sounds like the mechanic is just doing work randomly and can’t say “I will work on X car at Y time.” Which I’ve only seen at a shop that works almost purely on first-come-first-serve walk-ins and has no office staff.
Have you seen a mechanic’s palm?
I’ll repeat, no mechanic can guarantee how long work will take. Just an oil change could result in a leak where the oil filter mounts, or maybe they just sent him the wrong filter. He can order a headlight ahead of time but maybe that one won’t work when he connects it and then he has to get another one which could easily put him over on your time limit.
I don’t understand how you can expect any business to serve your specific needs in such circumstances. I once asked a barber if he could take me in late since I was coming in on a flight in the afternoon and needed to look good for a meeting early the next morning. He said if I got there by 6PM, his regular weekday closing time he’d stay open and cut my hair, but he said he was usually out the door by 6:15 and couldn’t hang around waiting for me if I got there later than that. I made it there a little before 6 and everything worked out. But what if I was late? He wouldn’t be a jerk if he closed up and went home and I would be a jerk if I complained about it.
You’re both being reasonable, however, you are requesting a service the mechanic is unwilling to provide.
It’s also reasonable for you to be very disappointed in his unwillingness to provide the service. Sometimes reasonable people can’t come to a reasonable agreement, and nobody has to be a jerk.
It depends. If he’s the only garage that does oil changes in your town, (which is so small that Uber and Lyft don’t operate there), then he has the leverage to dictate when he takes customer and when he doesn’t.
But if there’s a number of garages you can take your car to for these minor repairs, then find someone else that will meet your expectations.
First, I’d like to thank everyone who responded. It seems I’m not being needlessly jerkish but I do seem to have an unhelpfully rigid and unrealistic view of the realities of actually running a repair shop. I’ll own that and try to keep it in mind for my future dealing with this shop.
I do need to clarify a couple of issues though. The oil change I wanted was a secondary goal. Getting the headlight repaired was the important issue. And it was an actual repair, not merely a bulb replacement. Something was broken in the mechanism that allows the bulb’s aim to adjusted. The light was canted at an extremely sharp angle and noticeably wobbled when you stepped down sharply on the bumper. I demonstrated this wobble to the mechanic when I scheduled the appointment. He nodded knowledgeably at this and said that it wasn’t a big deal. It was only after I demonstrated the looseness of the headlight that he offered the <2 hour time estimate and I’d hope he had a decent idea of what parts would be needed to repair it. Even if I trusted the quick-lube type of operations, this isn’t the kind of thing I’d take to them.
Second, I understand that things happen and some delays in the repair process are understandable and even necessary. My (possibly faulty) thinking is that by getting to the shop just before they open, actually getting eyes and hands on the repair first thing and patiently making myself available in their waiting room if issues arise, I can hopefully keep this process as quick and smooth as possible. If the <2 hour time estimate holds, wonderful. I’ll be sure to express gratitude for their efforts. If there are delays, at least I know what’s happening and am available if my input is requested. I’m not demanding that they adhere to that projected time span come Hell or high water. It’s just simply unacceptable to me for them to tell me to drop it off in the morning and then they don’t even look at it until the afternoon at which point they find out that it’s going to be another two hours to get the parts.
And to those suggesting that the shop is entirely within their rights to set their scheduling standards as they deems appropriate, I agree. Again, I’m not trying dictate how they run the shop and if they want to tell me they can’t agree to my terms, that’s just my too bad. What matters is that I know as precisely as possible what time frame I need to block out to deal with this. If they’re not able to meet me on this then I need to know going in.
Which is why I off handitly said he should have gotten you out by noon. I’ve been in this same situation and would only go to a mechanic that would agree before hand (after seeing the car like you did) that they would try and honor my request. If not I’d take somewhere else.
Do you not have other mechanics near you? I had a good one near my home who would do so until they got sold to Pep Boys by the retiring owner. Tried doing the same with old manager who stayed on and he told me that it sucked working for Pep Boys and they would not let him honor such request.
I do but for a few reasons, this shop is my preferred choice. First, it’s right on the cusp of what I consider walking distance from my home and they have a decent waiting area. There are also four different restaurants less than a block from the shop if I need to step away for a while and hunker down with a cup of coffee. If I want to wait in the area while they service my vehicle, I have options. Alternatively, walking home is viable for me. No other shop is close enough to provide this option.
Second, I trust this shop and they’ve always been very fair with me. They have a good reputation in the community. It’s also a fairly large shop by local standards with 4-6 full time mechanics plus a couple of lower skill techs doing simpler tasks. This is on top of the attached body shop with who knows how many people working there. They also run a side service doing in-field repairs on engines for irrigation systems and I promise you, right now, the farmers are pushing them hard. In spite of the size of this crew, it’s a minimum two week wait to get a vehicle in to have them look at it. It’s a great shop as long as you can be a little patient and flexible on scheduling. For a variety of reason I won’t discuss here, I didn’t have much flexibility. They meet my requirements or not as they see fit but I didn’t want surprises.
I could have taken my van to the dealership right next to my employer as a backup choice. For something as simple as this repair the I’d roll those dice on the quality of their work. There’s a reason they take walk-in customers though and it’s not one that inspires confidence.
Yesterday after doing some mowing, I took my gf’s farm truck to the mechanic I’ve been using. The truck had a minor problem and I didn’t want to buy the tool I’d need to fix it. I arrived around closing time and the mechanic took care of the situation in a few minutes.
When I pulled out my wallet he chuckled and said there was no charge. I said I owed him a beer and he said that would be great. Prior to taking the truck to him I’d picked up a mixed six-pack. I offered, he accepted and we sat around finishing off the six.
Here’s the thing - nearly every mechanic I’ve used* would actually do this if I was going to wait but I don’t think any of them would have promised it, simply because they couldn’t guarantee it. Maybe someone will be out sick, maybe there will be a repair in progress left over from the day before. And even if your car is in the bay, it may not be ready in 2 hours - maybe they will run into a problem with your repair , maybe that problem requires a part that it takes them 2 hours to get.
I understand why you want to avoid the places that take walk-ins - I mostly do too. But I think in general, I prefer a place that will not give me a guarantee days ahead of time over one that will tell me today “Bring it in on May 24, we will do it first thing and you’ll be out by 10” and then when I get there on May 24, I find out that something has happened and it will not in fact be done by 10. If I were running a business, I’d avoid making promises that I’m not sure I can keep - and it sounds to me like that’s what you want , a promise, nor their “best effort”.
I expect that they can probably give you a better estimate when you actually bring it in - at that point, they will know whether there are unfinished jobs from the day before etc.
* The newest one ( recommended by the last one, who retired) didn’t take appointments at all. Your just bring your car in, and it’s ready when it’s ready. They probably prioritize people who are waiting for the repair to be done over those who drop off, but they don’t even make appointments for a specific day , much less a time.
As a former owner and employee of auto repair shops, I probably would have done the same thing. The problem with scheduling appointments generally means delaying the finishing other cars that are not completed. When it was just me and another mechanic, we tried to get any jobs started that day completed on that day. A few times this meant working well past my normal closing time. In most cases, we would close up at closing time and finish those uncompleted jobs the next day. If I blocked out an appointment, especially first thing in the morning, this would mean pushing the still uncompleted car out of the shop and delaying that customer from getting his/her vehicle. Any delays in finishing the vehicle for the customer with an appointment means delays for other customers that have vehicles in the queue. I would rather have one grumpy customer than a bunch of them. I later worked for another auto repair shop, everything was first come, first serve.