Auto Repair Non-Ripoff Stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Never go without a spare for longer than it takes to get to a tire shop.

This is the advice you’d expect from a tire salesman, right? Obviously, they want to sell more tires.

Well, many years ago, my then-wife and I were driving a borrowed vehicle to haul some stuff from her folks’ place to ours, and got a flat on the way while on the interstate. I put the spare on and then insisted we stop at the next town to get the flat replaced. She huffed about how late we were going to be, but let me carry out this mad errand.

Then, after replacing the spare and getting back on the interstate, about 30 minutes later, we had another flat.

She never again questioned my decisions when it came to car care again.

22

Convenience. I love my mechanic, but he isn’t near my house, doesn’t do while-you-wait oil changes, and isn’t open on weekends. So any time I take my car there, it involves two trips on multiple forms of public transportation (one home from the shop, and one back there to pick up the car when it’s done). If I need to take the car in for something else and it’s time for an oil change, I’ll have him do it; otherwise, I take it to a local independent quick-change oil place. (Cheaper than Jiffy-Lube and better service.)

23

Our area seems slightly more likely to have unscrupulous mechanics – suburbs of Washington DC are filled with transients and newcomers to fleece, who might have fewer knowledgeable sources of advice in the area, and there’s a lot of money – the number one and two richest counties per capita in the US.

Years ago, my mom got a new headlight and had the dealer install it. She was soon pulled over by a cop, who cited her for having the headlight misaligned. She returned to the dealership and was told “You only paid us to put it in, not to make sure it was legal.”

She went to a local mechanic she found in the phone book. He fixed her headlight and charged her nothing. When she was surprised, he said that he felt is wasn’t fair for her to pay twice for something that should have been done right the first time. She pointed out that HE hadn’t done it wrong the first time, but he would hear none of it.

He’s retired now, possibly on money our family paid him for good service over the passing years. His son has the place now, and there’s a constant overflow of customers waiting – business is booming. When my old car failed emissions inspection a few years ago – I’d taken it somewhere else because the lines were admittedly long at our favorite place – the inspecting mechanic told me I’d need $900 worth of exhaust work to pass. Having learned my lesson, I promptly brought the car to our gem of a shop and they said “nothing needs to be done” and passed me. Next time it was due for inspection, however, they found a small hole in the exhaust system…and spot-welded it shut for $30.00, instead of a $900 replacement. And passed me again.

It may be painfully old-fashioned, even naive, to do business this way, but this man and his father have a fanatical following now. An honest and skilled mechanic is a treasure not to be taken lightly or mistreated. The whole family has always been respectful and easy to deal with and we try to be respectful and thoughtful in return – last time I dropped my car off, in the blank that asks how soon you need the car back, I wrote “I take public transportation and can wait if necessary – I know you guys are busy, take all the time you need.”

They called me the next morning with the job finished, of course; done right and at relatively low cost.

24

I love my mechanic. When I was on my way home from my last OB appointment before having my first baby, the window motor died … with the window down. We took it in to the shop, explaining that we’d just had our first baby, and asked if there was an inexpensive fix? Nope … the part alone was $250 or more from a junkyard. So my mechanic (who owns the shop and very rarely does work himself) installed it with no labor charges. He also gave me free oil change one time, just because. And when we lived closer to the shop, he would take us home or pick us up as necessary.

25

I’ve got an awesome mechanic in walking distance from my house. I’ve got lots of stories, but the latest is that my old Saturn had a check engine light on and was losing water. There were a few other things wrong with it also. A little while after I brought it in, I got a call saying they found the problem, it would be more expensive to fix than the car was worth, and I should get the car. No charge - he checked the big thing first.

One of the guys screwed something up once, but the owner was very upset and made it right immediately.

26

The mechanic whose shop is walking distance from my house didn’t charge me the second time I took the car to him – I thought it might be a major repair but it was just a matter of changing the wire.

That good turn has paid off pretty well for him, since I take all my cars to him exclusively. At one point fairly early on, he realized he had forgotten to charge me $100 for a part, so he called my home kind of sheepishly to add the charge to my credit card. If I didn’t already have a good relationship with him, I’m not sure how I would have handled that.

I should note that my brother-in-law is an honest mechanic but lives too far away to be convenient for me. I’ve called him several times to double-check that my guy isn’t overcharging, and he never is.

27

We took our car for its annual pre MOT (government mandatory roadworthiness test) service. The guys called me and told me they didn’t think it would pass, because there were so many things wrong with it. They stressed that they thought all the things were fixable and the car was safe to drive, but that it would be expensive to fix all those things 100%. They told me I should save my money, put it through unserviced, and if by some miracle it only failed on minor points they could just fix those and we could re-test it.

It failed because it had a bald spare tyre, and surprised us all by passing the emissions test and the braking test.
It got an oil change and a new tyre and passed.

Total cost: £35 to retake the test and £80 for the service…the oil change and the first visit when they just looked at it were free.

They’ll always call you before they do any work to check if you’re OK with it. They’ll also do their best to get you good deals on parts (and use re-conditioned parts if you’re OK with that). My favourite thing about them is that you never get surprised by the bill when you pick up the car.

28

My story is a bit…interesting.

At 17, I went down to South Carolina to live with my aunt for a little while. My mom eventually came and got me and all my stuff and drove me back to Ohio. Somewhere in the middle of the WV turnpike, the Jeep just…died. It was about 6 or 7 years old, but was our family’s only car. We were in the Hills of Nowhere in the middle of a hot summer’s day, and this was before cell phones were commonplace. We were straight-up stuck. We sat on the side of the road waiting for some good Samaritan to stop and help us. Eventually, a tow truck came along. The driver was straight out of Deliverance, complete with hilljack drawl and missing teeth, but what could we do? He strapped us up and took us on a 15 minute drive up curving roads through random mountains. We thought for sure we’d be raped and murdered, but eventually we ended up in a tiny town that consisted of a post office, a pizza place, three houses, and a junkyard.

When we got to the junkyard, a man who must have been at least 80 years old approached us. He spoke about two words every 30 seconds.

“What…seems…to…be…the…problem…ladies?”

We told him what happened. “Well…let…me…take…a…look…and…see…what…I…can…do. You…can…go…to…that…restaurant. It’s…got…air…conditioning.”

It also had a pay phone, where we tried to call everyone we could. We still had no idea where we were and whether or not our Jeep would end up disassembled.

Right as we were finishing our subs, which were actually quite yummy, the old man came in.

“Take…a…look…here,” he drawled, holding out something metallic. “This…little…piece…here…corroded…off. Happens…all…the…time.” He pointed to a tiny piece of broken welding on the chunk of metal. “I…found…another…one…of…these…in…the…junkyard.”

45 minutes and $65 later, we were on our way, with the nice old man and the toothless tow-truck driver waving goodbye. I still don’t know what town we ended up in, or what the doohickey was that he fixed, but the damn thing ran like a charm for another 10 years.

29

I had a pipe in my exhaust system rust out, disconnecting it from the muffler. It sounded absolutely hideous, and though I’d need some major work. I took it to a place my grandfather recommended, and all they had to do was install a foot or so of new pipe and reconnect it. It was about $50. The receptionist definitely agreed with me that it sounded a whole lot worse than a $50 problem when I brought it in.

30

I took my “popping” noise Toyota Matrix breaks to the dealer at 18,000miles but 38 months. So warranty expired on time but way under on miles. They “couldn’t reproduce the noise and found nothing wrong on inspection”. It was freaking us out so I took it to a local brakes and lube place. They weren’t worried about it but couldn’t really identify the source of the noise in the brakes. The guy at the brake place used to work at a Nissan dealer and says, “Let me take care of this for you.” He takes my cell phone and calls Toyota’s main service line on my behalf while I stood there and demands a courtesy brake replacement from the dealership. They set it up for me and I drive straight to the dealership where they replace the entire brake mechanism on both front wheels which solved the problem. This was two years ago so I wonder if Toyota knew that something was fishy with their brakes then?

Brake and lube guy said to think of him next time we needed an oil change and shook my hand.

31

Had a car we bought in the high desert of California, then later moved to Missouri.

Every time I took the car to Jiffy Lube, they always tried to insist I need a coolant flush and change because it was the wrong color!! Now granted, anti-freeze is typically green, but the Ford dealership had put the bright orange coolant in there and trying to upsell me something I do not need because you think you can just pisses me off. (They also seemed surpised when the 5’3" specimen of human female that is me let them have it for trying to take advantage of me .)

32

The same, it’s pretty common for Les Schwab to do this. In my case, road debris killed my tire and I drove on the flat to a Les Schwab I saw. I was prepared for it to cost a couple hundred, but the guy said “I noticed this wasn’t one of our tires. We replaced it with one of our low end tires, no charge, just come and buy from us next time”

It’s the only place I buy tires anymore.

33

Bought a strong-running 62 Corvair for $2500. On the 90 mile drive home, the brakes and steering were hinky. I took it to a local shop and essentially gave them the green light to do whatever it took to make it roadworthy and safe, to get it where I could drive it and perform whatever “shade-tree” maintenance and repairs it needed.

They basically diagnosed the brakes and steering. Replaced the master cylinder and all 4 corners, the entire front steering linkage, some suspension and alignment work, and a couple of other minor things. Total bill $1500, of which more than $800 was parts.

Phenomenal amount of work for the price. Car has driven beautifully ever since, needing only expected maintenance.

34

I bought a Mercury Grand Marquis from a friend. He gave me $800 off of the original asking price because he said it needed brakes. I went to Auto-Zone and bought new rotors and pads and replaced the old ones. Easy job and no charge for labor! Same type story for most of my automotive repair issues.