Killed a con-artist repair shop big time!

One of my buddies Rob has an 84 GN that he was having so many problems with. He took it to the dealer, who was an old friend of his dad's . . . and so on. Anyway, he was having ignition problems, the car ran like absolute ****, and nobody could figure out why. It had been to three shops, before the dealer stepped up and finally fixed the problem. They had to call up some dude from GM in their Buick division to get the whole thing straightened out. Anyhow, his total bill throughout all the shops woulda cost him about $2500 for every sensor or little doo-dad you can think of (most of which were replaced 3-4 times). Basically, the dealer took off everything that was changed and started over. They took every possible sensor, switch, relay, etc. and replaced it with GM parts. Car ran perfect, and somehow he was billed $324 for "warranty work" . . . explain to me how that works!!! o No:

I guess it pays to know people . . . what a lucky bastard!!!

 

Hold on there guys - read this

Now I've read all the posts. The rights, the wrongs and everything in between and being the Libra I am, I weighed all read arguements. Now I've been on both sides of this ball. Growing up with a single mom who when having car troubles sometimes got taken by dishonest people and later in life as a mechanic, parts mgr./service mgr./estimate writer. Sorry though gents not an owner of a buisness yet but in working closely with them know that operation of a shop is not inexpensive..... But then I totally changed direction and decieded to lighten things up a little. So in re-reading Darryl's first post and I think we've all missed the REAL point here. Besides that Darryl is a nice guy just trying to be helpful of an old girlfriend. :TU:

Supposed cost of starter $185
Supposed cost of labor $ 90
"Supposed" Thankyou from "sweet but not so innocent Kelly" :Brow: PRICELESS!!!

So in the words of Fred Durst "I did it all for the nookie" :laugh:

 

Something some seem to miss is he was respectful to the manager and simply questtioned his prices etc. The man never asked him to leave. He left on his own telling the guy he didn't want to have him do the work. The guy follows him outside as he is leaving and start with the I added wrong storyf. That's when he got more colorful. The fact the manager waffled on his story like that proves to me he was trying to stick it to his customer. The manger should have let him walk and ended it there, but he went outside when he was leaving and started lying. He was within his rights to tell him to f%$k off.

 

bottom line here is that,many shops take advantage of women(and elderly people) because they figure they dont have a clue, which is plain BS. heard so many friggin stories. i think you handled the situation perfectly.i dont deal with anyones crap

 

All I got to say is this:

IF IT WAS EASY, EVERYBODY WOULD BE DOING IT!!!

That, my friends is from a 23 year certified mechanic. You gotta pay for those tools and experience or do it yourself!!

 

i couldnt agree more moparman!:beer

 

My father-inlaw's Chevy truck had a problem recently and had to be towed to the dealer,thats right the Chevrolet dealer where he bought the truck.They had the truck for 3 or 4 days told him it was fixed charged him $60 dollars.He comes to me because the truck started doing the same thing.With my trusty voltage tester and about 5 minutes I found the problem to be a dirty battery cable.Cleaned it up total time 10 minutes truck has been fine ever since.Needless to say he will never send this truck there again and he will not buy his next truck from them.He even called the shop manager to bitch and they said "so".No refund of money no we are sorry.So was the $60 dollars worth it?I think not.

 

Absolutely. Here is a TRUE story. My grandmother had a 91 Taurus. About 8 years ago it started leaking power steering fluid. I told her to keep it topped off and I would look at it on the weekend. I come over on Saturday and she tells me that she took it to Bob's automotive in Ridgfield Washington. She said she told them that it probably needed a new power steering pump and they put one in for her to the tune of about 350 bucks.

I ask her if that meant it didn't leak any more. She didn't know yet as she hadn't checked. I asked her if they looked to see if that was where the leak was coming from, she said she didn't think so, they just put a new pump in because she thought it needed one.

So, I put a piece of cardboard under the car and started it. In less than a minute there is a steady leak of fluid coming from the rear of the engine compartment. I peak down behind the engine and see fluid spraying from a power steering hose at the rack and pinion. At this point I am FURIOUS.

I hop in the car, my face must have been red I was so mad and I start to back out of the driveway yelling obscenities. My grandmother runs out and stops me from leaving and talks me out of going down there.

ONLY my grandmother could have talked me out of going down there and raising hell. I was 6'3" tall and about 280 pounds of muscle at that time. Trust me BOB or whoever ripped off my grandma in Ridgfield.....we are BOTH lucky I respect and love my grandmother because if I had gotten to you before she talked me down that day SOMETHING would have happened.

Before anyone starts off with crap like "she told them what she wanted"

GO SCREW YOURSELF.

You don't walk into a hospital and tell them you need a heart transplant and get them to just do it because you think you need it.

 

A few years ago, I took the wife's (at the time) 90 Cutlass Supreme to the former Olds dealer in Hagerstown, MD for some kind of warranty thing. Told them to do a Lube, Oil, Filter while they had it. (What can I say, it was winter in Maryland :TU: ). Guy calls and says it needs an air filter. Says the filter is about $19. I said go ahead. Keep in mind, I bought this car and the one before that from this same dealership. Both were brand new cars when I bought them.

In a hurry when I picked up the car so I just glanced at the bill. Got home and looked at the details of the bill. How about a $15 charge to CHANGE THE AIR FILTER! I called the service department and raised hell. The idiot on the other end of the phone tells me that they "always charge that. After all", he says, "the mechanic has to clean out the filter housing and the intake leading to it." I told him that I hadn't touched the car but that I was willing to double the $15 and pay him another $30 if when I get back down there for him to look, he can show me that those things were cleaned out. If not, I get my $15 plus another $15 directly from him. Needless to say, he wouldn't go for that deal. I told him if not, no problem but that ALL of the business for purchasing cars, repair work, and recommendations to friends would have to go elsewhere. "But....but...but...but."

ou: uzzled:


Never did go back there. But(holes). Here's to every crooked tradesman that takes advantage of people who don't know better, but particularly those that take advantage of women and old people: :moonu: :moonu: :moonu::blast: :blast: :spank: :spank:

 

I have in the past, made a few mistakes as well as everyone else out there. In my defense tho, I have also had to repair a lot of other people's mistakes and have learned that the best policy is to just shut up and do it. Running down another shop or person for one mistake can cause irrepairable harm to thei reputation as well as cause other customers to stay away and go to "shade tree" places. Nobody is perfect. I still smirk at the guys who have an entire tool drawer dedicated for "extra bolts". I personally don't have one but, I do have a bucket full of parts and pieces deemed usable after replacing a part that comes with hardware. For instance, I have at least 10 perfectly good Chrysler EGR valves with bad transducers attatched to them because they came that way. My comment that I made merely states that it's not that easy to work on these new cars and technology has surpassed most owners and low level mechanics. I still have businesses calling me asking me to diagnose problems over the phone. NEVER DO THIS! If you venture a guess and that's not it, then you are branded incompetent and never have a chance at redemption. As for the initial poster here, it seems to me that you should have just excersised your right to get the work done anywhere else and not tried to look good in front of a girl just to get a little. The person at the parts place would have just lost every bit of my business and if I managed the store, I would immeadiatly fire both of them for acting like they were running a business on my time. The price quote, agreement for labor (by a non-certified tech), and place of repair (once again, non liscenced or certified) all were done on the part store's dime as well as put your ex in a predicument of chance that I would not wish on anyone I cared about. Sometimes a shortcut can leave you stranded on the side of the road at 3a.m. in the bad part of town. Besides, I know for a fact that techs get paid a heckuva lot more than parts jockeys do so if he's so good, why isn't he working as a wrench? I just love these people who think all mechanics are a rip-off but continue to go to a doctor even tho they are still sick. Who's the rip-off there? Oh well gotta go, gotta go to the doctor for this common cold I just can't seem to shake.

 

Re: starter

thinks the situation has been diagnosed beyond reproach

 

I pulled and reinstalled the motor in a 89 Cadillac once for a tranny problem and I will NEVER do that again for any amount of money. I would rather pull and reistall the motor in my 70 GS 27 times rather than go thru that ordeal again one time.

 

Many different viewpoints here some right, some wrong, some just venting.

I own two businesses, repeat customers and word of mouth advertising mean I spend almost nothing on advertising now.

I am an A/C State Certified Contractor, A Grade. A/C-Heating contractors are some of the worst for overcharging here in Florida. I just had a customer (75 year old widow) who moved 60 miles away plead with me to come check her A/C because the local guy she called wanted $225.00 parts and labor to R&R a $6.00 capacitor that takes 15 minutes to diagnose and change, if you know what you are doing. Gimme a break!

I had a hickup develop in my Ford conversion van when I first got it (used and out of warranty) and I took it to a local trans shop (recomended by one of my customers) because the torque converter kept locking and unlocking in overdrive. I took it to him because I was swamped with customers and we were leaving on vacation in two days and I just did not have the time.

He tells me the converter is bad and I let him change it out with a $500.00 heavy duty towing unit he happened to have in stock. Total bill $1000.00.

The next morning I pay him, drive away and it is still locking and unlocking in overdrive. I return and say what gives?

We take it for a test ride and he agrees. His mechanic finished it late the day before and did not test drive it. They bring it back in and I wait while they have a meeting by my van with their diagnostic equipment hooked up. The owner comes over and says there is a short in my harness under the hood and some of my fuel injectors aren't firing when they are supposed to. The motor loading and unloading is what was causing the converter to lock and unlock. He says his mechanic will cut the insulation off my harness and promises to get it fixed that day for and additional time and materials charge.

I say what about the converter you said I needed? He says what about it, it was coding so it must have been bad. I said this is not the Army and I am not paying your guy to earn while he learns, see ya.

I go over to the Ford dealer (which I should have done in the first place, great people). They do a diagnostic and come back and tell me one of the coils is bad causing the motor to load and unload causing the converter to lock and unlock. More importantly is they tell me the constant locking and unlocking allows the converter to slip thereby causing the code. Replace the $35.00 coil and all is well.

I go back to the trans shop and show him the print out from Ford and how the coil fixed it and what about the unecessary torque converter he sold me.
What about the fact he wanted to charge me for completely unecessary wiring labor. He says I don't have access to diagnostic equipment and information like they do so I am not refunding anything back to you.

My credit card company got $490.00 back for me.

Moral of the story. I did not want to pay the $85.00 Ford diagnostic fee and took it to a place that does them for free.

You get what you pay for. I learned my lesson again.

Mikey

 

bought the wife a newer car as the old sable had 300k on it. chevy impala bought it at a chevy dealer. several weeks later wife says the battery is going dead. so i check it out using my V O amp meter. i find its drawing 3 amps with the car off. i figure it out by pulling fuses til the draw is gone. i'm thinking it's in the radio shutoff as it will play after the car is off til the door is opened. i'm not about to tackle that so i have her take it to the dealer where we bought it
$125 later and offer to sell a new battery for $175. paper says it drawing 2 milli amps and battery seems weak. not too bad i was thinking it was going to be a new radio at $500 plus. which i told the wife was out. she wouldn't go for the battery either. so now she shuts off the radio before shutting off the car. still haven't needed a battery
moral of the story won't buy another car there.

 

I always get a kick out of re-reading these old threads that were kinda heated. Maybe I am a dick..

 

Why do people have to reopen these old threads? Funny thing is I now work as a service writer at an auto repair shop. Customer called up and asked how much to change an oxygen sensor? I told them diagnostics is $89, they said you guys are crooks I just took it to Auto Zone and they hooked up their code reader and it says it's "the oxygen sensor", no charge at all. I told them how much to replace the oxygen sensor and they said they would buy their own part. I said fine, I don't usually install client provided parts but I inflated the labor by the difference from his cost and my cost on the part. so we could make something on the job. He shows up and we install the O2 sensor and clear the code, he leaves and is happy he beat the system, saved that stupid $89 diagnostic fee, he calls back 2 days later and says his light is back on and we must have done something wrong. Listen Mack, you told us to put the part in that you provided, we did, you want diagnostics? Fine! he says. Luckily for his car the 7 wire heated O2 sensor was only $220 his cost (but he saved the diagnostics! and got the cheapest sensor in town) We checked out his car and found a leaking exhaust manifold gasket was letting fresh air in and fooling the o2 sensor. There never was anything wrong with the sensor, it was reading correctly. $50 later the gasket was fixed. But he showed us,er.... Stupid people. An error code is an error code, all it means is that some factory specified reading is not within preset acceptable limits, it does NOT tell you what part is bad! For that you need to test every part in the SYSTEM and every part in any system that affects that system. $89 is cheap for the 3 to 8 hours it can take to find the problem. Sometimes an oxygen sensor code does result in a bad oxygen sensor being replaced but if any shop replaces parts based on trouble code alone, run away, they are just shooting in the dark and hoping they got the right part. I get a kick out of people trying to get us to diagnose stuff on the phone, I sometimes tell them it is a part located between the front and rear bumpers if you want it to be more specific, I need to test something., I remember some years back a guy was replacing his starter every 6 months, didn't matter what brand, my buddy a parts guy said "it's probably his freeze plug" we all looked at him like he was crazy, seems there is a freeze plug located right above the starter, a slight leak and the water runs right into the starter, rusts things up and causes them to go bad, the guy replaced his freeze plug and starter and never had another problem. Sometimes there are other things going on. Recently a guy had a stereo stolen from his pontiac, it ran like crap, seems a power wire for the fuel injection is shared with a wire in the stereo that got broken in the theft, we replaced the stereo and the car ran fine, tell me a non-ASE tech would have found that! Any body got a weirder symptom/cause problem they found?

 

Well Said Otter. Also, The Reason Auto Zone Scans It For Free Is Not Cause They;re Nice Guys, But Because They Want You To Buy Their Parts.

 

If you are part of a reputable shop, why are you assuming we are referring to you?

If it is not something obvious or something I can find in a few minutes with my scanners I have no problem paying the local Ford dealership $85.00/hour for diagnostics (my two work vans). They very, very rarely take more than one hour and always tell me what to replace. They take the time to talk to me intelligently and explain what they found and why. It saves me money in the long run because I can continue running my business instead of diagnosing a problem half a day and rescheduling customers. I then buy the part go home and change it.
One time I brought a problem they had never seen a vehicle do before and they asked if they could keep the van for a couple of days to figure it out. They let all their hotshots have a turn diagnosing it for the education and charged me nothing for letting them learn. It ended up being a $45.00 part that failed under certian vacuum conditions at mid rpm ranges in overdrive at steady low load 65+ mph highway speeds. But it took a team of those guys two days to figure it out. My cost was 1 hour diagnostics and the $45.00 OEM part. I love that shop.

You make a point of the shops that just replace every part that could effect the code and you are right stay away from them. I've used a shop once away from home on vacation (free diagnostics they said to get customers in the door) and it cost me $1000.00 trying to save the $85.00 diagnostics fee. Two days and $1000.00 later they said they wanted to cut apart the wiring harness under the hood to look for a supposed short in the fuel injector wiring I said no way give me my van back right now. It ended up being a bad coil that cost $35.00. $85.00 (diagnostics at a reputable shop) + $35.00 (coil)= $120.00 (total) but no I had to be a smarta$$ and save the diagnostic fee so I spent $1000.00 with a dishonest shop that did free diagnostics.
Lesson learned.

Mikey

 

Killer story!