How bad has someone tried to rip you off???!!!

You sound like a real sweetheart. What''s the name of your shop so we can avoid it?

 

The same thing that happens every April 15th

I called the big brake store chain to ask about having the brakes done on my wife's DD, a '04 Chrysler T&C. Just to get the pads done, no discs: $850. Hmm. I went to the parts store, bought the pads, all four discs, a book for the van, all for under $200. It took me about an hour to do the back, my brother in law had to do the fronts after I got hurt at work, but it took him about half an hour (he's a mechanic).

Soooo, let's see, it would have taken a mechanic roughly an hour, he'd have a lift and be equipped and knowledgeable about the job. I'm willing to bet he'd get the parts for less than I did, but let's go ahead and say he pays $200. So if he did change the pads and discs he'd be charging me $650 an hour to do brakes? Huh, yeah, that sounds legitimate

 

Are you serious? I hate e-beef but how could you let someone drive away with NO brakes? That's a serious issue! Here in Texas, If a drunk driver leaves a bar and kills someone the bartender HAS been held responsilbe in a few cases. I'm sure the same would apply for shops!

 

The wife and I bought a '98 Windstar in 2000 with 25K on the clock, put another 10K on it and it needed pads, rotors, etc. I didn't want to do it so I sent her to Just Brakes. She calls me in tears because they said it needs 1K worth of work. I talk to the head shmoe in charge and gives me the some line about every-goddam-thing between the MC and the wheel needing replaced. Corrosion, etc. Now this is a 3 year old car that's lived in Arizona all it's life and this is a complete load of crap. I tell him she gets the $88 an axle deal or she leaves and amazingly he does it for that without complaint but as she's waiting for the car to get done a co-worker comes in to get her Chevy truck and guess what? Yep, it needed 1K of brake work. I did the rest of the brake work for next 130,000 miles she drove it. A-holes...

 

Is it bad when Wikipedia has to answer that question for me? Do you gus have any idea how big the list is for Deaths/Birth on this day?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_15

 

About $5.00 at any parts store,also use em on the a/c lines.

 

New cars use metric hardware,they probably had to go out and buy a set of standard tools.

 

He didn´t.

 

Had a gift certificate for a free oil change at one of those instant oil change places. Took the wife's Jeep there to get it done.
I normally do all the maintenance.
They wanted to flush the motor
upgrade to synthetic
change transmission fluid(but not filter)
change fluids in both differentials and transfer case
cooling system flush
and told me the battery was shot.
Wanted over 800 bucks!

I told him all I had was 5 bucks and the gift certificate.
He went on and on about how they accept credit or ATM cards.
I started getting Irate and thought he was gonna call a cop.
He wanted me to sign a waiver and I told him I wasn, t gonna sign anything just do the oil and filter.
He finally did it............

One time went into Sears for their advertised $19.95 muffler.
On a 71 El Camino. All I wanted them to do was stick the muffler on the pipe after air chiseling off the old muffler which was blown out.
Before even raising up the car I see them hauling out a complete exhaust system for the car. I went back to find out WTF
he tells me he has to install the complete factory exhaust system on the car.
I told him he didn't have an exhaust for the car.
That El Camino had a pontiac motor in it with the factory "Y" pipe from the pontiac welded to the mid pipe off the original 6 banger el camino.
He opened the hood and saw the pontiac motor and wouldn't even work on it.

Wouldn't even sell me the muffler for $19.95 cash and carry...........

 

We had an 83 AMC Eagle at one time, around 1988.
Car kept stalling every time you took your foot off the gas.
I sunk a lot of money into it, and couldn't figure it out.
Took it to a dealer to have them hook it up to their computer and tell me what was wrong.
He came up with close to a grands worth of repairs. None of which had anything to do with the problem. Would you beleive valve cover gasket, belts, hoses, fluid changes, wires and plugs(I had new ones on it), all BS stuff. Charged me $40 for the diagnosis.............yeah thanks.
Finally found the problem.........rusty gas cap, wasn't breathing.

 

I know, I was wondering why That guy with the coupe felt that way about the situation.

 

When I was 16, I borrowed some cash from my dad and bought a 69' Dart as my first car. He took it to his guy to get it safetied after I did the exhaust and the brakes on it with his guidance.

We get there to pick it up and it had a $1200 bill waiting. They went and replaced everything in the front end except the bushing because it was "loose". My dad pays it and I have to pay him back. The car is driving down the highway wandering everywhere because the lower control arm bushings are shot.

We bring it back to them a month later to find out whats wrong with the front end. Same guy who did all the work checks it out - and comes up with another $1200 estimate - everything in the front end is "loose" and needs to be replaced. Dad hit the roof and I thought he was going to throttle the guy!

Needless to say, the manager who was a friend of my dad gets involved and replaces the bushing for free. The car drives like a new car.

Unfortunately for my dad he kept bringing his cars there, and they kept screwing him. Like my old OT daily driver Mazda that my mom fell in love with and I gave to her. 4 sets of ball joints in 2 years because they started clunking. I replaced them once in the entire time I owned the car because I broke them doing my rallye driver impression, I ended up doing the clutch on the car one day and noticed the old Mazdaspeed ball joints I had installed 5 years previously, with only one bolt tight, and the other one loc-tighted 1/8" off the control arm. After a while the tight one loosens off from flexing, and the joint starts clunking. They just tighten up the nut again, and charge my Mom about $600.

 

My old business partner and I tried to purchase 2 different auto repair businesses when I moved back here from IL. I managed them as he tried to negotiate the purchase & transfer, but fortunately we learned that neither one was worth anything near what they were asking BEFORE we signed the papers.

One morning when I walked in to the office of the ALL TUNE & LUBE that we were trying to buy, I find some big fat guy sitting at my desk. Turns out that my "partner" had bailed out on me in the middle of the night a few weeks ago (without telling ME) and the current owner had sold the shop to THIS guy instead... After a few more days of working there he tells me that I should start looking for another job because "You don't have the personality for this business". When I ask him to explain, he states that "When I walked in here, I had to order a couple of CASES of black spray paint!!! I can't believe that you didn't have any!!!" Of course I get the "WTF are you talking about?" look on my face, and he explains that he simply charges people exorbitant prices to change parts (especially ones underneath the car, or buried in the engine bay like fuel filters, etc.) but all that they would do would be to remove the existing part from the car, wire brush it & spray it with black paint & would reinstall it!!! He was getting upwards of $100 to basically do nothing more than to paint someone's fuel filter. I asked him how he slept at night and his response was "Just fine in my nice big house with the pool and my boat tied up out back". Thank the good Lord above that a local engineering firm called me and offered me an interview a few days after that!!!

My advice would be to tell any shop that you want to SEE the defective / damaged part BEFORE it is removed or replaced, and that you want to take the old parts with you when you go. Some won't do that, but many of them will.

Perhaps we could also start a "sister" thread about places that are truly outstanding and HONEST, where hard working honest people get their work done by more hard working & honest people...??? For example, I absolutely without any hesitation recommend AUTO MUFFLER KING on Jefferson Avenue in Newport News VA as the BEST place that I have ever had exhaust work and metal fabrication done! Keven does OUTSTANDING work, quickly, accurately, and he only replaces what you need & authorize. His father started the business over 50 years ago, and Keven is carrying on the tradition of excellent work at honest prices. He also does a LOT of work on hot rods, muscle cars, and motorcycles around here because of his attention to detail. He's done some metal fabrication work for me and other hot rodders and motorcyclists that is closer to being "art" than "automotive"... When my friend had the custom exhaust bent and installed for his small block powered 34 Ford there, you could practically take a bubble level between the exhaust pipes all the way down the car, they were THAT perfect and parallel!

 

On my old '96 Dodge Cummins truck, I had a small problem. The alternator quit charging, the speedo and odo quit, the A/C quit blowing cold, and the rear ABS quit - ALL AT ONE TIME! Figuring it was a sensor, I took it to the local Dodge stealership to get it diagnosed. He charged me an hour labor ($100) to look at it. I was watching the "tech" from a distance, as he hooked up the underdash tool and had the hood open. Comes back, mumbles something to the service writer, and then the helpful service writer reports to me: "Well, there are several sensors on that truck, it could be any one of them, but to fix it, it's gonna take eith hours of labor plus parts!" OK, so that's $800 PLUS parts to fix...my ass, it gonna take that much!

So, I call my bro-in-law, who is the parts manager at another Dodge dealer out-of-state...tell him the problem, and he gets with the tech there, who is probably the BEST Cummins guy within 1000 miles. He says "Crank sensor, $120.00 your cost, takes 10 minutes to R/R." I go back to the stealership, and I TELL THE ASSHOLE whats wrong with my truck, and then ask how the fuck he justifies 8+ hours of labor to "daignose" when he knew from the start what was wrong! He gives me the classic "fuck, I'm caught!" look. So, I bought the part from a different Dodge dealer and replaced it myself in about 15 minutes.

These people have absolutely no soul and no sense of what's right.

 

Got railroaded real good and hard by the ol' "love, honor, and obey" trick once....there outa be a law........

 

I went to a muffler man to get some exhaust put on my nova. They never asked me what size pipe I wanted they ended up using 2 1/4 inch on 2 1/2 inch collectors and I 2 1/2 inch flowmaster muffler inlet and outlet they filled in the 1/4 inch gaps with weld and dumped it before the rear axle. It took them 3 hours do the job they charged me $350 and I bought the flowmasters from a catalog and brought them to the shop. I wish they told me how much it was gonna cost to get raped before it happened. I could have bought a welder and the pipe and did the job myself for that much. Never go to muffler man in Saginaw, Mi off of bay rd.

 

Told this story before, but years ago I had a tire place try to tell me it's unsafe to drive a car with larger tires on the rear (in this case, replacing a pair of shit bias ply snows with radials, the fronts on the car were kind of an oddball 14-inch size they didn't have). Car handled 1000 times better when I put some shitty, but better treaded, 235/75R15's on the back. So much better I replaced them with the same size when they wore out. About the last time I went to a chain for anything.


On a 1988-1991 Chevy Suburban, a chain muffler shop. Single exhaust, just the converter, muffler, and tailpipe... $1005. Parts for the whole thing from the manifolds back, including Y-pipe, from Rock Auto? Just over $300. Walker exhaust, probably the same damned thing as the muffler shop stocks. There couldn't be a simpler truck to put an exhaust on, nothing has to come off, there's no crossmembers to thread it through, you can get on the manifold bolts pretty easy. I don't know if they get a wholesale deal on the exhaust or not, but even if they have to pay the Rock Auto price... figure $350 for parts and three hours labor if the manifold bolts are stubborn.. would be around $560... what's the other $440 for (and bearing in mind the $1000 price doesn't even include a Y-pipe)?

Oh yeah. I've bought running, driving Suburbans of that style for $500 and $700 and passed on another at an auction at $600 because I wasn't sure how much more I'd have to go to get it.

I got a '96 Ford Contour a couple years ago for $100 because it wouldn't pass inspection due to check engine light. The computer had blown and it had been swapped for one from an auto trans car. He took it to a dealer who told him that 5-speeds were built as fleet cars only and impossible to find and they wanted insane money for a new computer, seems like they wanted $1100 or so to fix it according to this kid.

I looked on eBay and found a bunch of manual trans Contours for sale, so I knew the dealer was full of shit. So I bought it off the kid and flipped it, I think I got $600 for it, which is still less than the dealer wanted to fix it. The guy who bought it promptly drove it 200 miles home, too, he was completely happy with it.

I think if I'd had to drive it myself I would have just ripped into the dash and pulled the check engine bulb out of it, though.

 

Back when I worked in a garage.
Guy came in to get his car inspected and give it a good once over as they were driving to Florida and Back for vacation. nGave it a good looking over, told them I would put on 2 rear tires before going on vacation, do an oil and filter. Everything else was fine, car was like 4 years old with maybe 25,000 miles.

Guy had his wife take the car to a tire store because he had a credit card with them.
Wife ended up leaving there with everything under the sun as they told them the car was not safe to drive.
4-tires, brakes, rotors, alignment, ball joints, shocks, mthe whole nine yards.
I get a call from the guy asking my opinion.
I told them he got robbed as his car only needed 2 tires.
Next I got an irate call from the service ,manager of the tire store.
I BS'd him that I had already talked with the guys lawyer and it was going to court.
He settled right away............

 

I was given a Saturn with a bad clutch, because nobody in in my area would change it for under $1200.00, which was about what the car was worth. I did it, parts, flywheel machining and all for $225.00. It took 2-1/2" hours, no special tools, and no strange efforts. Drove that P.O.S. for two years, and then sold it for $1000.00. Wish I could charge $390.00 per hour and get away with it.

 

a lawyer asked to store his 2 dr 56 chevy wagon on my property.
I let him
Then I gave him $350 to do some legal work
he didnt do the work
I still have his car

good trade!

 

Around 1999 in Tucson a "brake shop chain" was running a coupon special to have brake shoes replaced and installed for a price that was basically the price of the parts. I told my wife to have the rear shoes on her wagon done, do it now as a precautionary, but be ready for when they try to "up sell you". Sure enough she calls me from there and puts the service writer on the phone; "The rear drums are way out of spec and need to be replaced". I asked what are the factory specs on that and what did they measure out at? He mumbled something - I said we don't want them just the shoes and put it back together. He tried one last pitch "we can't be held resposible if your brakes go out". I told him thats fine, just put it back together.

 

ot coil pack on chevy. Dealer wanted $450 installed, I bought the part for $50 and it took me a whopping 6 minutes to put in. I havent met an honest mechanic yet

 

had to get a smog check on my driver. took it to a place and when the printout came they told me it needed $XX.XX to make it pass.

I left and drove down the street to another guy and showed him the printout from the previous shop. he looked at the numbers and told me it looked like they revved it up ands shut it down real quick which made one of the gases they measure go way up. he put it on his machine and it passed no problem.

later this same shop lost all my respect. don't know if it would be a rip off but here 's the story. had an electrical short which was blowing a fuse. don't remember what the fuse connected to but it must have been important. spent several hours digging through the wiring to no avail so I took it in.

I come back and they tell me I need a new battery and my alternator is going out and tell me how much it would be to fix. I asked them what about my short and they tell me they didn't find it. they wanted to charge me $90.00 for the work they did that I did not ask them to do. I should have told them to fuck off but didn't.

later that day my buddy came by and helped me out and we found the short in 15 minutes, it was a crusty relay that had something to do with the points.

the way I look at it the battery is good until it doesn't start the car anymore and won't take a charge. alternators are good until they won't keep the battery charged. I drove it a couple more years with those parts in it with no problems

 

still would have been cheaper for a tow then the cost.

 

Exactally. Everytime I have ever been to a Jiffy Lube type of place they want to do all kinds of crap to my car. Like anyone would spend $800 at Jiffy Lube !!!

 

I swapped a gen 1 small block into an 89 trans am, just a basic swap to get it going, used the stock exhaust manifolds from the donor car, drivers bolted up fine, the passenger did not, cut the exhaust off, took it to a shop and asked him to splice it in. weld on exhaust flange, make one bend, weld it into the existing exhaust, 2.5 ft pipe.

He calls me back hour and half later to pick it up, $900. I got pretty pissed, walked out, came back after a few minutes and told him I'd give him $100 and not turn him in for welding in a cat converter bypass on an emmisions controlled car. $100 it was.

 

Guess I've been pretty lucky, only had to have one car towed from a repair shop, took it home and fixed it myself, they wanted to put a new shortblock in it, i just replaced the main and crank bearings.
I have been lucky several times when i was at the mercy of a shop when i was on the road away from home and needed repairs. I was once driving a '82 Dodge van when a U joint started getting noisy. I stopped at a little repair shop, an old converted gas staion. The guys there were just about to leave and didn't really want to mess with my van. They finally jumped on it, outside in a light rain, one guy slid under the van on a creeper and came out with the driveshaft in about two minutes, they ran it in the shop, and put a new U joint on it, ran it back out and put it abck under the van. It took less than 25 minutes. I told my wife it would probably be over $75...The guy said how about $25? It was $12.50 for the U joint and $12.50 to put it in....

 

I had a tire store try the ole "you can't drive it until it's fixed" routine on me once, they had my car on the lift and wouldn't put it down. I gave him the ole "you won't walk again if you don't give me my car right now", smiled, and drove away. Seems my safety took a backseat to his own All over a tire with plenty of tread, it just didn't match the tire on the other side of the car, same size, just different tread. I should have beat his ass.