How do you feel when an auto repair shop makes recommendations based on tests you didn't even ask for?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Not to side-track too much, but that’s kind of a neat device! I always carry a multimeter in the car (plus some small pliers, set of spare fuses, analog-dial tire gauge, plus jump starter, and cordless tire inflator, and probably some other stuff I’m not thinking of…flashlight and hi-viz vest…I dunno…stuff).

Cool device, though.

The last time I went to JiffyLube (might have been the first? dunno…definitely the last!) probably ten years ago the dude actually showed me an engine compartment air filter which was very much so not from my car. As in they brought in a filter not from my car to show me. That is some brass balls, but not much else, on the part of that jackass.

I don’t feel like changing the oil filter myself on my newer car, so I go to Valvoline for one of their express sit-in-your-car and wait for a full synthetic change. I find them reasonable, and you can keep an eye on them. They might chide you if you wait longer than 3K miles for another full synthetic oil change, but they can blow me! Really, dudes, you just signalled that your “premium synthetic” oil is garbage and needs to be changed that regularly?

Well, that’s just business, and whatever…easily ignored, and they tend to be pretty nice and have a good coupon discount every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

One thing that bothers me is various places, including tire shops, reading the tire pressure on hot/driven tires. I had a screw in a tire causing a slow leak, so I went to the place I bought my tires (“lifetime guarantee”), and the tech/mechanic wasn’t quite grokking when I wrote out a diagram of what the cold readings of each tire was that morning, and therefore the amount the tires should be inflated at to compensate for the fair bit of driving I’d done that day.

It seems like something tire people, of all people, should know, or even Valvoline quik-fluid-change people. Of course they can tell if something’s super low, but so can I. A mystery.

For all I know there is a standard chart for properly inflating tires to their “cold” correct PSI pressure, but I just take cold readings and inflate accordingly myself, before waiting for the ECU (or whatever it’s called) to signal low pressure. All about the gas mileage and good performance OTR.

22

I’m in the “very much depends on the shop” camp. Honestly, if it’s a shop i trust, i ask them to take a look at the car and tell me if it needs anything else. So there’s no such thing a “tests i didn’t ask for”. But i don’t trust the place that’s easy to get an inspection done. If they say, “hey, you need x” i say I’ll take it to my regular place. (Which doesn’t do state inspections.)

23

Decades ago I took my car to a rip-off place called M*das for rear brakes. I’d done the front brakes myself and was “splurging” having someone else do the rear.

The guy came out and told me my brakes were done, but while my car was on the lift he noticed a severe problem with my exhaust and told me he could fix it for $X. I told him I’d bring the car back sometime, I didn’t have the time that day.

He told me he couldn’t let me drive away because it was too dangerous, carbon monoxide, state law, etc. I told him to give me a minute.

I walked across the road to a pay phone and called the police, explaining my car had been stolen and I could see the thief. The cop showed up and gave the mechanic a lecture, saying his behavior was illegal, etc. All this in front of a waiting area of customers.

My regular guy fixed the “problem” the next time I had the car to him for a fraction of what M*das had quoted.

24

Honestly it’s probably a bit of both. What reason would a shop have to NOT report a potential problem they find? Of course they want to get more business if they can, but I suspect they’d still prefer it not be a right-stat-now emergency in the future. Even if that could potentially yield them more parts and labor, they always cause scheduling problems that could bump other customers, or require overtime, or the customer could have to go elsewhere, so there’s risk in that.

25

I’d say it depends on the shop - but it doesn’t really, not for me. I don’t do anything at those quick change places and I usually change mechanics because the one I was using moved/retired or has become inconvenient for some reason. I also never go to the places where they can do inspections etc “while I wait”. The shops I go to have enough business that they don’t need to manufacture any and don’t have room to do any non-emergencies immediately. .

26

Ditto. Whenever it goes in, ‘let me know if you see anything else’. If they do, if it’s going to amount to any significant cost, they’ll call and tell me before doing anything about it. If it’s something really minor, they may just fix it and tell me when I pick it up.

If they actually find a problem, then of course they should tell you. The difficulty’s with people who have made up the “problem” entirely, and/or who try to claim that something that will indeed be a problem in six months or a year must be dealt with immediately, at their prices, when the customer may be able to fix it themselves or get it done more cheaply elsewhere and in any case may want to get their full money’s worth (and the planet’s full production/disposal’s worth) out of their tires or brake pads instead of replacing them a year sooner than genuinely advisable.

27

I don’t think so. IANA automotive electrician but you need to measure the cold cranking amps. A battery can show 12v at a voltmeter and still not have enough capacity to start the car. I believe that in the shop they measure the delivered amperage with the battery under load.

28

Mostly as @thorny_locust said.

The issue is mostly them going on a fishing expedition. You bring it in for an oil change and they decide to start poking around at suspension or battery or … “as a courtesy”.

Every minute they are doing that they are wasting their own labor hours. Why would they waste labor hours? Because they can then upsell you more work. Sometimes legitimately, and sometimes not. But their motivation is mostly because fishing expeditions are profitable. Not because the cars need fixing, but because car owners can be persuaded they need fixing.

If I bring it in for an oil change I want exactly that and nothing more. If they put it on a lift and a wheel falls off as the car is rising, I’d expect them to notice and report that. Poking around looking for problems, real or imagined? No thanks. Back in the day I could do that myself, or nowadays have somebody I trust do that on a schedule I choose.

29

I worked in a shop for a little while after the army-- it was a side gig when I went back to interpreting, but was fun, and guaranteed me a minimal income it it was a slow week in interpreting.

We were required to check for certain things that made the car unsafe, and inform the owner-- whether our shop could fix them or not (we did brakes, including master cylinders, tires, alignments, and front ends, maybe steering, on older cars-- oh, and oil changes). We did NOT do engine work, exhaust work, rear main seals, and a few other things where it was easy for us to spot problems when the car was up, or the hood was, and so we told the customer, but also said we did not do that work, but could refer them to a couple of places if they wanted.

People invariably asked us “How long can it go?” there was no way to tell, and even though we actually could make estimates, that didn’t mean the car wouldn’t fail pulling out of the shop parking lot. The company required that we say that we could not answer that question.

People drove off with very dangerous things wrong with their cars, It worried me to be on the road the longer I worked at the shop.

We absolutely did not tell people something was wrong with their car when it was not. To do so was a fireable offense.

30

The last time I went to a quick-change oil place, the technician told me “Yeah, the calendar says its time, but with the low mileage you’ve got on, your oil and other fluids are all just fine. Here, lemme top off your tires, too. Come back when you hit this number of miles, even if it’s a while”, and then didn’t charge me. That place, I’d trust.

To the OP, I don’t mind that. Worst-case, I can take it to a different mechanic, and have them look at it. The problem comes (and I’ve had this happen to me) when you drop it off for some minor problem that they give you a price for up front, and then when you pick it up, they say “Oh, and we also found X, Y, and Z issues that were really serious, so we went ahead and did those too, and here’s the bill that’s five times more than what we agreed to”. Maybe those issues really exist, and maybe they don’t, but either way, that’s not what I agreed to pay for.

31

I appreciate the free “safety inspection” the quick lube place does because I normally do not crawl under my vehicle and inspect the suspension. etc… on a regular basis. However if they tell me substantial work (usually with a substantial cost) needs to be done I ask for an estimate and then get a 2nd opinion at an independent shop and happily pay the $40.00 they charge to put the vehicle up on a lift and check the problem out.

My son is a service technician at a dealership and they make you initial a disclaimer that you turned down services offered if the find something wrong. Probably to cover their butt if something serious happens and the customer tries to go back and claim they didn’t tell them how bad the problem was.

32

I’ve never had that happen. I’ve had the shop call me and tell me they want to do extra work, and ask for approval. But I’ve never picked up a car to be told they did stuff i hadn’t authorized.

I’ve also had the typical “young women driver” thing where they told me, “those belts look worn, do you want us to replace them?” Spoiler alert, there was nothing wrong with the belts.

33

Certainly a place you trust is better than a place you don’t, but I don’t see why a dealer would be inherently more trustworthy than a quick change oil place, especially if the repairs the oil change place recommends aren’t services that they themselves offer.

34

A la everyone else, I took my Dodge pickup to the dealer with a small warranty issue and the tech came out and told me my rear brake pads were on the backing. OK, I can do brakes, so decline the $300 or whatever and went to Autozone and got pads for $80. On the way home I thought to myself, didn’t I do those pads last fall? Sure enough, the pads were 80-90%. I was hot–called the service manager and ripped into him. They called me back and said, “we spoke to the tech and he knows not to do that.” Bulllllshit. The tech has zero incentive to do that on their own–that’s a dealership-wide thing. Never went there again. Oddly, I now get oil changes at Wal-Mart and it’s no muss, no upsell, and professional. YMMV.

35

That was a good shop.

That is flat out illegal. Call the cops and the papers – or, at least, threaten to in a loud voice.

And, when they give you your car back for what you originally agreed to pay, check those additional parts – as well as the ones you agreed to. They may not have done anything at all.

Yeah. Some dealers are absolutely not trustworthy (see story upthread.) Some quick change places aren’t trustworthy, and some indy mechanics aren’t trustworthy. But some of all of them are. You really need to know the particular place (and whether it’s just changed hands recently.)

What I did was tell everybody I knew, if the subject remotely came up, for about twenty years. Eventually I decided that whoever was running the place back in the 70’s most likely wasn’t there any longer.

36

This, I spent my entire adult life running shops. During a routine service alignment was only noted if abnormal wear was visible on tires or suspension was showing signs of wear. Load testing batteries was usually done when they were getting close to the end of their warranty period. Fan belts are a common upsell, a broken fan belt can end up costing a fortune if you break down in the wrong place and it commonly destroys the engine. Overall I have little trust in drive through service centers. They are always trying to squeeze out a few extra bucks.

37

Yeah, probably, but it was over a decade ago and in a different state. What I did do was tell everyone I knew about it. And then when I found another shop that did good, honest work, tell everyone about that one, too.

38

Hopefully this is in keeping with the thread.

Speaking of tire centers, there’s one in my area that has treated their blacktop with something that makes the tires squeal when turning. At first I thought I had a flat.or something. I drove out and the noise was gone. Their prices seemed reasonable until everything was added in and then they were more expensive than their competitors.

They reek of dishonesty.

39

That is a big no no. A tire that is underinflated will heat up more than a tire that is properly inflated because they run hotter. There is no good rule of thumb for taking readings on hot tires.

40

Fan belt? I’ve experienced this myself with a timing belt, but I didn’t know a broken fan belt could be catastrophic.