Auto Mechanic Scams

In My Humble Opinion
21

This didn’t happen to me, but to the Hammer-babe:

She bought a truck, and after a year, the blower for the heating/AC went out (during the summer), not an enjoyable thing in SC summers. The AC was obviously working, because you could feel cool air creeping out of the vents–it just wasn’t being forced out.

She took it to the place where she bought it, and they called her back telling her that the compressor was bad. Replacement cost: $800 (about ten years ago).

She told them, “Well, let me think about it.”

Well, guess what? When she got the truck back, the cooling situation was completely reversed: The blower was just a-blowin’ away–but only hot air.

I said, “Let’s get a second opinion.”

We then took it to a place where I have had repairs done for many years. They called back and said, “It was out of coolant, so we replace it. Oh, and by the way, there’s a new [some part that I don’t recall the name of] that doesn’t look like original equipment. Have you had that replaced recently?”

So. . .

Apparently, the mechanic at the first place did:
a) repaired the blower, the original problem
b) accidentally or deliberately leaked out the coolant
c) tried to sell a new compressor, instead of replacing the coolant.

Since then, she and I have opted not to go to them for repairs.

22

This is something I have seen over and over again, and I still can’t get my mind around. Customers will know of an honest reputable shop. They don’t take their car there, but they take it to someone else who fucks them. Then they bring it to the reputable shop. Why didn’t they go there first?

23

I’d like to put in a plug for Cartalk’s “Mechan-X Files.” If you’re looking for a more reliable mechanic, go look there. If you’ve had a good experience, write a review there.

Good mechanics deserve to have the good news about them made public.

Their website is at cartalk.cars.com

24

Rick,
In answer to your question of why don’t you go to the “reputable” place you know of instead of the place that screws you first. The answer is, many of us feel there is no such thing as a “reputable” place. There are only places that charge more or less. I am always blown away by how much any car repair costs, and I have to say that even when I have a good experience at a place, I will often return the next time and feel like I am being screwed.

I fully admit that much of this may be my own perception (which is why I started this topic in IMHO) but I don’t know a lot about cars beyond very basic maintenance and changing brake pads. So when I get the old “Your (fill in the blank) is cracked or leaking or vibrating”, I never know what to do. Do I really need the repair, or does this part have 20,000 miles of life left on it and it is just the policy of the shop to ALWAYS recommend replacement of any part that is less than brand new because they can?

Then you hear from a friend about how some new shop you’ve heard of gave them great service, was cheap, etc. and you go there, but you get screwed worse by them.

As a consumer, I have to say that I think they spin a big wheel when they tell me how much it costs to do any repair on my car, but in this case, Pat Sajack’s wheel STARTS at $500 and goes upwards. When I look at a Mitchell guide which tells me how much the part costs and how long it should take to do, it NEVER matches up with reality, even accounting for a hefty profit margin. And if I can’t use that guide, tell me…what do I use?

25

Typically a car is the second largest investment that a person makes (A house being number 1). If you doubt this just look at the price of new cars.
Time and time again people would buy a car from our dealership. Then they would come to me, an honest technician, working at the dealership (back before I got this cush job) have me service the car, fix things under warranty, ask questions etc. I would take care of them, the same way I would want to be taken care of if I were the customer. I never overcharged I never screwed anyone. I would work late when they brought their car in the day before they were leaving on vacation (driving of course), hell I even used to make service calls at night for people (on my own time at no charge)
When the warranty was up, about 50% percent of these people would disappear. Gone. WTF? I know that they were not getting the kind of service I was giving elsewhere, I know that they didn’t find a guy that knew more about their car than I did. About the only time I would see one of these people come back would be when the flake they had been going to had screwed up their car so bad it barely run they would have bring it back to me to straighten it out. I would and try very hard not to badmouth the guy that had been fucking them up the ass since they left me. Once again they would be gone like the wind. The next time I would see them would be after their next reaming.
But what about the price you say? OK we were probably 10-15% higher total than taking your car to the other guy. But for that you got you get your car fixed right the first time, no ream job, and a warranty. If compare that to spending hundreds (maybe thousands) throwing parts at a car, and then bringing it to me and having to pay what I would have charged you up front to fix the original problem. Coming to me in the first place has to be cheaper in the long run. I mean I can see somebody doing this once, but I have seen the same people do this over and over again.
Here is one example of what I am talking about. Customer needs a 45,000-mile service, doesn’t want to spend the $75 or we charges. He goes to J***y Lube. They sell him an oil change for $30 bucks, a trans service for $60 (just done 5K ago at our dealership not needed for another 35K), and a rear axle drain and refill for $30 (Not recommended until 100K). So our money saving customer has now spent $45 more than I would have charged him and $90 dollars for stuff he did not need. Now when they went to work on the car, they drained the engine, drained the transmission, and drained the rear axle. They filled the engine, and transmission. About 10 miles later at 70 MPH the rear axle seized due to lack of oil. It took me about a week to order the parts and rebuild the rear axle, and the bill for that was $2500. Tell me again who had the better deal on that 45K service?
Now that I don’t work on cars, I advise people to find an honest shop and stick with it. Most of the shops out there are honest. Really they are.

26

This thread is yet another gentle reminder that you get what you pay for, hehe. I subscribe to this theory 100%, and even I apparently forget and have to “relearn” it sometimes.

27

This is why my post count is so low for being registered for as long as I have been… Everytime I get into a topic about cars, I end up spending waaay too much time here and, miss out on all the other fun.

Anyway,

quote:

Someone had previously mentioned “runout” which is a good reason to turn the rotors but, can be spotted by a shaky steering wheel during braking if it is bad enough. Often times a slipped belt in the tires can be the source of a shake so, pay attention to when you get the symptoms of shakes. If it shakes while you accelerate, coast, turn or stop will all be indicators of other possible problems. IMHO, parallelism is the single most important reason why you should “resurface” or, “turn” the rotors each time you replace pads.

<<<Let’s define some terms here for those that aren’t real deep into automotive stuff Run out is where the surface is warped (think of a record that got hot in the sun) Parallelism sometimes called thick/thin variation. This is where one part of the rotor is thicker than another. Both of these will cause vibration!>>>
Hate to add to the confusion here Rick but, you will no doubt have seen the rotors that are thicker towards the center and thinner towards the outer edge. That was the parallelism I was referring to. This condition is extremely common in all makes + models and, will require either a resurface or, a replacement of the rotor. No matter how you define it, a rotor that ain’t flat is not performing at its intended level of stopping performance.
quote:

As you stop your car, you apply a great amount of heat to the brake pads and rotors. This action of heating and cooling the surfaces tends to cause them to change shape over time and, will reduce the ability of your car to stop evenly on any road. Worse on slick surfaces so, if the pads when originally new placed 50% of the front wheel stopping power at each side then, after pad change you could end up with one side wearing out very quickly and the other not showing as much wear, (That’s if you didn’t turn the rotors).

<<<I am not sure just what you are trying to say here. I find it reasonable to expect that if two new rotors were installed on the car with new pads that over the life of the pads the wear, heat and other factors that the rotors are exposed to would be equal. Therefore at pad change time, while the rotors are not new, they should be equal, and therefore the new pads should wear equally. At least this is what I have found over many years of experience.>>>
Ahh yes, indeed that is true in the engineering handbook of brakes. However, in real life there are about a million variables that contribute to the premature wear of any part on a car. Take for instance, the fellow that loads his entire office into the back seat of his new sedan. He has in effect, changed the intended normal G.V.W.R. of his car or SUV to something that can not be easily defined. Or, the pick-up owner who regularly hauls around his 300 pound box-o-tools and those 26 concrete blocks to every destination. In the ordinary world of front pad replacement, he just doesn’t understand why he is replacing his brakes every 10 - 15,000 miles when his buddy with the ultra-clean, never loaded truck has never replaced a set for 30,000.

I too, work at a dealership and, I have to say that I see something new every year. Last year, it was the guy who rode the brake pedal so heavily, that he not only burned up his front pads and rear shoes but, also ignited the seals at the calipers and wheel cylinders. No kidding! Nothing left but ashes. This was only his sixth set of brakes all the way around in 20,000 miles.
quote:

Hydraulic proportioning valves tend to take up the difference in a system as it wears leaving one side more glazed than the other. Adding new pads to this old glazed system will make the differences grow larger and possibly overload the fluids ability to dissipate the heat created while stopping. That’s why you end up with bad pads so soon after replacing them. (I think racer72 noted this as well).

<<<If I am reading what you wrote correctly you are saying that they hydraulic proportioning valves work side to side on a car? Not on any car I have every seen or studied. Proportioning valves vary the pressure front to rear so that one end of the car does not have the brakes lock before the other. Please give me a cite for a car that has side to side proportioning valves.>>>
I suppose you haven’t worked on too many Chrysler or, Daimler-Chrysler, (Excuse me), vehicles. Nearly all our dual chamber systems work diagonally on a car. i.e. Left-front / Right-rear on one chamber and Right-front / Left rear on the other. I would say the lines that connect to the proportioning valve don’t alter the intended delivery of fluid so, yeah, I suppose that is actually a side to side correction. I will note that the front to rear control of pressure is also, just as important.

Look, I’m not trying to contradict anyones professionalisim about brakes or, any repair but, I did note several references to the fickle customer who forgets to return to your shop after you bailed his ass out of a potentially expensive repair bill. We’ve all seen it and, personally I don’t do special requests anymore. Simply because I usually end up with a cold dinner and a customer who usually ends up at a chain store once again for the next repair. I hate to be so straight forward about this but, If I reccommend a repair that a car needs but, can go for a day or a week without danger, I will not see the return visit. My repair estimate gets weighed against the billboard posted generic price at, (Put your favorite shark here). You either believe me as a professional with 20+ years experience or, go to the other joint and let those tech school dropouts throw as many parts at it as you can afford.

Hmmm, looks like I did go after someone’s professionalisim after all. He he!

IMHO, you should consider the challenges of car repairs on a per incident basis. Very few cars break the same way all the time so, you will invariably get different opinions about repairs from people who have had different experiences. Kind of reminds me about the way computers work. God, I would hate to be a tech-help operator for one of those software companies!

As for brakes, I will always resurface. Nothing has been said here that will change that for me. Oh, and I might as well add that there are “On car” resurfacing machines that claim to eliminate the problems with runout created by “Off car” methods. Either way has its advantages. I haven’t as yet, seen a car that was worse off by resurfacing. Excepting the ones I got after someone elses shotty work.

28

My view of the problem-CHAIN shops h pressure their managers to sell unneeded work…this is because they have very high overhead. Plus, modern cars need so little maintainence, that brake jobs and oil changes are about all they have to do routinely. Unhappily for the consumer, the car mfgs. are using much thinner brake rotors than in the past-this saves weight and money, but the thin rotors have a tendency to overheat and warp…in most cases, a warped rotor cannot be brought into spec. by turning-it must be replaced. So that is how a simple $200.00 brake job turns into $800.00. The chain shops also mark up parts at least 200%, so they will charge you $75.00 for a rotor thatcost them $25.00
It is better to deal with an independent mechanic, but these guys are being forced out of business, by the heavy investment necessary to operate a shop.