I took my car in for new snow tires, and they wanted to replace my front brake pads. During the same work order they went through my glove compartment to access my cabin air filter, and suggested that needed replaced too. I declined both services and a day later noticed some cabin air filter parts on the passenger floor of my car.
I emailed the store manager and am meeting with him tomorrow. He sounds reasonable, and I am reasonable too.
What is your take on car repair places looking through the rest of your vehicle for any and everything they can find to make a buck? I have no problems with businesses wanting to turn a profit of course, but how far should they go?
Suggesting brake pads is reasonable as the wheels were off, so the pads were easy to look at.
The cabin filter, however, is an odd case. Yes, they do need to be changed now and then, and for as well hidden as they can be, a lot of people are unaware their car even has one. Mine requires the removal of the entire glovebox and 11 screws, so it’s not something to be done casually. I would expect the shop to ask if you want it replaced or checked, but I wouldn’t expect them to spend the labor to get at it without asking.
Agreed. There are no screws or anything involved with mine, but the fact that the air filter was completely and utterly disjointed from the tire replacement makes me feel uncomfortable. Not to mention the spare parts on the floor after the fact.
I used to work at an ethical car dealership (oxymoron?) and they would check out the easy things on the car with every oil change.
AFAIK, they only recommended what was really needed but, admittedly, it can be hard to know whether a repair shop can be trusted. Good word-of-mouth can be a big help.
Anyway, it would be good to have a copy of the service manual handbook for your vehicle, so that if they are recommending (for an extreme but pedagogical example) a coolant flush at 12,000 miles, you know that they are fishing for some unneeded maintenance dollars. 50,000 miles is about average these days, same for the transmission fluid.
Front brakes tend to go at 30,000 miles or so, more if you mostly drive on the highway. Rear drums can go up to 100,000 miles. Rear rotors about the same as the front brakes. You can save a few dollars by “turning” the rotors once, but many shops will not do that anymore.
Spark plugs vary depending on whether they are traditional or platinum tipped. GM claims that platinum tipped spark plug can go 100,000 miles. Traditional 24-36,000 miles or so.
These are just averages. YMMV :smack:
You can always take a pass on any “up-sells,” but if it’s any of the above, it may cost you if you plan to keep the car in the long run.
I don’t like my arm being twisted, even gently. Brakes noted while wheel is off anyway? Fine. Any other poking around and I just find somewhere else to take my business.
Service manager here. One of the largest category of complaints I get is “My car was just there and now _______ is wrong with it.”
Get a flat tire a week later? How come you didn’t see the nail? ( probably because it wasn’t there?) <— had that call yesterday.
So if we look at your brakes we are arm twisting and you don’t like it. If we don’t look at them and they go metal to metal we are incompetent for not looking the car over.
::: sigh:::
So until you guys all get together and decide what you want as a group I’m having my people inspect your car for common items.
I do think the guy working on the car is an idiot for not putting the cabin filter parts back where they belong.
Most of this happens at oil change places, or tire shops. The managers there have a target-basically they want to bill everybody about $500 when they walk in. That means: oil “flushes” , transmission “flushes”, all filters replaced, spark plugs. This happened to my wife-she brought her car into Sears-they changed the spark plugs (which I had changed last year), changed the transmission fluid (which had been done 12,000 miles previously). She wound up paying for about $350 of unnecessary services…and they broke an exhaust coupling as well (cost me $90 to fix).
This makes me love my local shop that much more. If I just want my oil changed, that’s all they do. If I’m going on a long trip, I ask them to give it a once-over and they do. We’ve taken everything from brand-new cars to vehicles with over 200K miles and I’ve never once felt like they’ve cheated us. Once they didn’t tighten something properly after an oil change, and we ended up with a puddle of oil in our garage. We took the car back, and the made it good immediately, no charge.
They’ve treated us so well over the years, I’m comfortable that if they suggest something needs to be done, I usually go with it. One of our cars is hardly driven any more, and the last two times I’ve gone in for an oil change, they told me “You’ll probably need your brakes done next time, but you’re still OK.” But no pressure. I’m about due for another oil change, and I’m going to ask for a good brake inspection, just to be sure.
Last time I took my car to the Toyota dealer for it’s 30K mile preventative maintenance they were trying to high-pressure up-sell me before even looking at my car.
I wanted exactly what the owner’s manual recommended for 30k which the dealer said would run ~$180. HOWEVER the dealer had their own recommended 30k service that they ‘highly’ suggested. $500!
When I told them “no, The car runs perfectly fine, I just want what the manufacturer recommends” I suddenly become a second class customer who must be a cheapskate who obviously doesn’t care about his junker.
This is exactly why I recommend car owners develop a relationship with a shop, dealer or independent. Being a regular customer builds trust. The customers trusts the shop and their recommendations, the shop trusts the customer.
Furthermore I have customers that have become friends. I have even had customers that have followed me from shop to shop. (Talk about a compliment)
the dirty little secret here is that new car dealerships rarely make much money on new car sales. Their profits come from used car sales and parts & service.
True statement, but there are some ethical new car dealerships out there who don’t give you the hard sell in the Service aisle. They just recommend what is needed and let the customer decide.
Well, I just got back from the shop. I spoke to the manager and handed him a bag containing four parts I found on my floor.
Of course there were apologies. What concerned him was that I should have been given a checklist informing me what else was going to be checked. Ah ha! I was never presented with this checklist, and if I was I would have declined everything. I’m quite capable of changing filters and brake pads on my own.
He installed the mystery parts and also a free cabin air filter ($20 ~ $30) so I’m OK with that. He told me he had a chat with the guy who did the work and told him he wasn’t happy. He also told me he would make sure his people are using the checklist so customers can agree, or disagree with what else is going to be checked on their vehicle.
I think he was happy that I brought this to his attention, and I was happy with his corrective action plan and my free air filter.
I wish this were true at my store. If it were I’d be asking for a LARGE raise.
I run a profitable department but sales and fiancé out grosses my dept by about 4-5X.
I have an excellent indie shop, so when a chain oil-change place or whatever trieas to upsell me something, I say thanks but no thanks and maybe run it by my local repair shop.
Funny: about a month ago I was lured in to a Meineke Muffler shop because they had $14.99 oil changes advertised, and I was due.
Even though I TOLD the “service advisor” I was in a hurry, they still took over an hour to do an oil change. The funny thing? They tried to upsell me a whole range of stuff, from transmission fluid changes to tire rotation.
The really funny thing? Despite this being a muffler specialty chain, they totally missed that my resonator (part of the exhaust system and hello, this is an exhaust system chain store) was rusted all to hell and needed replaced because it was getting noisy and burbling. Which I had done last week at my regular shop.
So in short, no. I’ll take recommendations from a service manager under advisement and get second opinions but I will NOT ever simply acquiesce and agree to have the work done. Except probably at the shop I’ve been going to for eleven years, because I do trust them. (Bob, you rock! )
Monro Muffler Brake is good at upselling as well. If you go there for one service they’ll often try to find other things wrong with your car that’s completely unrelated to the original service/repair.
you! 
)