Was my mechanic being a deliberate ass to me?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Had this happen a week ago and still don’t know how to feel about it.

Basically a few months ago I had my steady mechanic of 2 years install a car alarm system with a kill switch into my car. I worked fine for a month but then would randomly have the alarm go off at all hours and even while I was driving. I told him this and told him to turn it off which he did. Things were fine for about a month but then the car alarm started to start going off despite being disabled and eventually my car refused to start. I got AAA to tow my car to his shop and have him take a look at it and told him that the alarm system’s killswitch much have somehow accidentally switched on permanently and had killed the battery. So then he did a few tests and replaced my battery and told me that the problem was that when he installed it he didn’t check to see if my car battery was low and that causes a bunch of electrical problems that caused the alarm to go haywire which seemed believable enough.

However afterward when I told him I wanted him to again disable the alarm system because I didn’t want to deal with it anymore he got somewhat aggressive and asked me “Do you know how a car battery works?” I said no but then told him I just didn’t want to deal with the car battery getting kill-switched again and again he told me rather aggressively “Do you know how a car battery works?” I then said Yes and then he told me “Yeah how does it work then?” Miffed I just told him I wanted to pay for the battery and that was it so I did.

I understand what he was saying now (the car battery was just a cause not the symptom) but the way he aggressively phrased it made it seem like he was treating me like shit because I was inferring that he needed to do some more free work on my car to fix it (since the install was still under a 6-month warranty from him). I’m now considering just finding another mechanic since this was very rude and just came out of nowhere. Anyone else think I’m overreacting?

2

No, not overreacting.

My question is why are you putting a car alarm on your car? You realize that they aren’t effective. No one pays attention when they go off. Criminals know how to override them.

3

no youre most l repair guys have this attitude that think they have special knowledge that mere mortals cant comprehend ….

,one sears guy told my aunt to her face she was stupid when she explained what was wrong and said how they fixed it last time (it has to be fixed every year or so ) ……and nothing was wrong with the washer…she called sears back and gave them an earful and someone else came out the next day and said she was right ……

the ones I hate are the "technicians"on the phone that you have to spend 20 minutes going through the same things you’ve al ready done only for the 50th time and then they try to sell you on some expensive service and not send someone out …. I called back and they sent someone out the next day …which turned into another mini mess …

4

it either came with one or a lot of insurances give discounts if you do

5

Does it matter if you’re overreacting? If the mechanic annoys you and you want to take your business elsewhere you don’t owe him anything.

6

Someone who screws up (which it sounds like in this case) and then gets nasty with a customer/client who wasn’t even calling him on it is a person I’d avoid.

It’s not like he’s a brain surgeon with a specialized, wildly successful technique that no other mortal has achieved.*

*and even then, if he was a big enough pain in the ass I’d be tempted to go to Brain Surgeon In A Box.

7

Not overreacting at all. Guy needs a lesson in customer service, and his crappy service has now cost his shop your business.

It really does depends on the CSR you end up with. I recently bought a Frigidaire mini-fridge and as soon as I unpacked it and plugged it in it started making an extremely loud knocking/whirring sound, like the compressor fan was hitting the side of its housing. I called the number in the instruction booklet and was first connected to an extremely rude woman who literally read to me directly out of the “troubleshooting” section of the instruction booklet. I could tell I was going to get nowhere with her so I just hung up and called right back.

The second time I was connected to a very nice gentleman with a southern accent who was extremely helpful. I ended up just taking it back for an exchange at Best Buy, as per his advice, but he also generated a refund/replacement code with Frigidaire and called the store to let them know what my issue was and to make sure I’d have no problems when I got back there. I went to the store and they had a new one waiting at the curb for me, unloaded the broken one and loaded in the replacement, I didn’t even have to get out of the car. I wish I’d gotten his name, because that CSR was awesome!

ETA: and this time at least, the people at Best Buy were pretty awesome too.

.

8

I think the OP wants validation. Or maybe to know whether he’s missing something.
No, OP. Your mechanic was being a jerk. May be he was having a bad day or something? I might give him another chance. If he continues to be a jerk or does shoddy work(again, IMO) then quit him. He should have calmly explained to you what could have happened.

9

I totally agree with this. You owe it to yourself to minimize the number of interactions you have with people that you don’t enjoy being around. Don’t think of him as “my mechanic” he is simply “a mechanic.”

I hear people all the time adopting that kind of speech about doctors, even if “their doctor” treats them like shit and isn’t improving their health. They are amazed when I tell them to just dump the doctor and get someone else, there are plenty around. Mind you this an Australian perspective, I have no idea how easy it is to change doctors elsewhere.

10

Yup. He’s a dick. I a man getting better about not being around jerks. Just walk away. Btw, based on what you said, he probably isn’t all that good at his job. That’s why a lot of guys lash out.

11

It’s a common miscommunication ,an operator describes their diagnoses instead of the symptom… that usually just spurs a few questions directed at the exact scenario.

Not even kind of possible. If you insisted or repeated this several times, it’s probably why he was annoyed.

The problem comes when
1 The operator has a senseless solution they insist on

Or
The scenario I suspect here.

2 Operator asks for an explanation of what happened, the tech explains it thoroughly, is asked if it’s all good now, is told yes. Then decides they want another solution anyhow.

This comes off as both insisting you know more about it and possibly calling the tech a liar, especially if you’re a person who started by giving a diagnoses rather than describing the problem.

People have an odd habit of this, i suspect because they spend so much time with their cars.
EG; they usually don’t insist they know what’s wrong with their central air, they just say it doesn’t work.

That said, it comes with the job. It’s basically the entire reason why shops have service writers. If you’re a mechanic who can’t help but roll your eyes at people, you get yourself a service writer.

In any case,
1 He wasn’t doing a good job of customer service, regardless of why. If you feel like changing shops go for it, find someone more patient or a shop with a dedicated service writer. You’re the only person who can decide if his rudeness was out of line.
Disabling it is not a big deal and should only take about 5 minutes. If you didn’t want it anymore that’s totally up to you.

2 He never disabled it the first time, just changed settings or possibly tightened the battery terminals ( maybe to preserve a partial function, like remote start or door locks?)

3 A crap battery could cause all of these except the alarm going off while driving, that would be a loose connection or an alternator issue.

12

Two things.
1)I once made the same comment as an alarm was going to off. Someone replied 'sure, but I bet no one (ie thief) is standing next to the car.
2)OP mentioned it has a killswitch, so when it’s sounding, you likely also can’t start the car.

Getting back to the OP. I’d suggest you find the alarm box and pull the wiring harness off the module. Depending on how it’s wired, it may kill the starter. If that happens,and you don’t want to further attempt to disable it, you can plug it back in and find a shade tree mechanic to remove it. It’s likely not a bigger deal than cutting out the harness and splicing the wires back together.
I would suggest just cutting the wires to the speaker, but based on what you said, the car won’t start when it’s going off, so it wouldn’t make noise, but it wouldn’t start either.

13

I don’t know of anyone that cares if an alarm is going off or if someone is climbing into the car when it goes off. Those things are so unreliable (as noted by the OP) literally the only thing people around wish is for the damn thing to stop blaring.

Also any professional thief that’s stealing your car to take it to a chop shop, know show to disable your alarm in about 20 seconds, thus making it stop and allowing them to start the car and bypass the kill switch. Your neighborhood gang banger taking your car for a joy ride…well…maybe not. But in that case, your likely going to get your car back with an empty tank unless they crash it first.

14

Not enough to cover the cost and inconvenience.

15

Probably true. The person said it to me back in the early '90s when every 10 minutes you’d hear another car alarm. And they were the ones that made 10 different sirens/woop woop sounds.
Sure, they’re mostly ignored these days, but if I smashed a window, climbed in and started fiddling with the ignition and the alarm went off, I’d probably hop out.

If nothing else, it keeps opportunistic thieves moving on to the next car.
OTOH, I’ve seen people driving down the road with the alarm blaring, so there’s that.

16

You were wrong.

And he was right.

Why? He fixed it.

You told the truth.

You lied.

So, you admit that the expert you hired to do a specific job didn’t realize there was an unrelated problem that he didn’t check for. Then you gave him a diagnosis of your problem that wasn’t correct and when he told you the correct diagnosis and fixed the problem you wanted him to just undo everything he had done. Then when he tried to explain to you why it wouldn’t be a problem anymore you lied to him about your knowledge and decided to just go.

Yup

He may not be a great diplomat, but you hired a mechanic and he sounds like a good one of those. Don’t hire an expert if you think you know more than them. If you do… especially one that has a good two year track history… don’t tell them how to do their job.

17

I can imagine that is frustrating. But if you’ve ever done a job like that, either in person or over the phone, you realise that a great many people lie about what they’ve actually already done. After taking their word for it a few times, wasting an hour then finding that “the step they’ve already done” was never actually done, you stop paying attention to what they claim they’ve tried.

18

How to handle a car alarm when you’re breaking into or stealing someone’s car:
Every 3 minutes or so step out onto the asphalt and yell as loudly as you can “Sorry, I can’t figure out how to turn the fucking thing off, it’s not my car!”

Kick the car and slam the door as you get back in for good measure.

19

The mechanic may be competent at fixing cars, but he’s a lousy owner/employee. He’s also a bad person to treat another person with such condescension.

Fortunately, there are adequate mechanics who are also adequate or better people. The OP should absolutely never give that shop any business again, is spite of you thinking it’s fine for businesses to act like assholes.

OP, are you female by any chance? I ask because I’ve recently become aware of how so many mechanics still in this day and age still act like they should only do business with men.

20

car alarms work on the “what if” factor… like you smash a window the alarm goes off what if you get that one in a million 911 call…

or more likely these days you break into a car and the alarm goes off and pissed off neighbor calls the pd because its the millionth and one time its woke her up at 2:30 am ……

or former gangster girl gets poed her newborn she just spent 4 hours trying to get to sleep is woke up again pulls out her semi auto from her closet and empties it in the cars general direction shooting the thief and damaging the car which was wanted in the first place because the owner was a drug supplier with several warrants ………

oddly enough after that bit of community service they didn’t take her gun but relocated her and child in a undisclosed better neighborhood