Paid mechanic $600 to fix something that wasn't broken.

Hi all.

I've had a low idle/stalling problem with my car for a while. Last Fall I brought it to my usual mechanic to get fixed. He said the cause was the alternator, which surprised me because the symptoms weren't like other bad-alternator symptoms I've seen. Since it's an easy fix, I did it myself. I asked the person at the auto parts store to test the alternator and it was bad. When I put the new one in, the car started and ran fine for a month or so. Then the same old low idle/stalling problem returned. I took it back the the mechanic who said 2 fuel injectors needed to be replaced. In reptrospect this surpised me because it was less than 1000 miles earlier that he said the injectors were fine. He did that and a couple of other things that cost me $600. This morning I picked up the car but within a mile it was back to its old ways. I had this problem once before where I had symptom X and the mechanic replaced something that didn't fix the problem. He still expected to be paid the full amount. "The scope says such-and-such is out of spec, so it needs to be replaced," he said. That time I later took the car to the dealer who told me the spark plug wires needed to be replaced. I did it and things were fine. Now I'm right back in the same position. Should I pay the mechanic? Should we negotiate a lower fee?

I think I've learned my lesson not to go to this mechanic anymore.

Thanks a lot.

john

Reply to
john gregg
Loading thread data ...

"john gregg" wrote

Here's the lesson you should be learning. Stop using mechanics and shops as "your" diagnosis centers so that you can save money and install the parts yourself. Either learn to diagnose the problems yourself, or allow the shop that you go to, to both diagnose and repair the problem. Otherwise, you are simply going to run into the same old problem that you are experiencing.

Mechanics and shops are not interested in the customers that come in and want to know what is wrong so that they can run out and replace the part themselves. Those kind of customers are nothing but a pain in the ass.

Ian

Reply to
shiden_Kai

Reply to
David J and Lynne J Shepherd

If he didn't fix it, you should have taken it back to him and asked for satisfaction.

Instead, you pimped off to the dealer.

When he diagnosed it earlier, you did it yourself. Did you pay him for the diagnosis?

There is some uncomfortably inconsistent behavior here.

Reply to
HLS

If you can work on your own car you should save lots of money even if you end up replacing things that are not bad. The guy you take it to will do the same and charge you more for it. And if you are in it for the long haul you can save any good parts you changed by mistake for later use. They don't make any diagnostic equipment that says exactly what is wrong with a vehicle. There is always a thought process required to interpret the equipment findings. Those who just start replacing parts are all too common.

Reply to
eddy eagle

The sad truth is that auto repair shops, even the best ones, do not stay in business by doing diagnosis. They have to replace parts or do overhauls to pay the rent. An honest mechanic will admit that replacing a part may or may not fix the problem. But the customer should be told that he has to pay in any case. If you want perfect work done, do it yourself. It's a jungle out there!

Reply to
Mike X

And somewhere around the time of 04/17/2004 19:23, the world stopped and listened as Mike X contributed the following to humanity:

Exactly. The shop that I take my vehicles to does very good work by me. I let them do both the diagnostics and repair when something breaks. Granted, they are not the cheapest around, but you generally get what you pay for.

A friend of mine went to the local Jiffy-Lube and had an oil change and filter replacement. About 15 minutes later a rod went through the engine. Turned out the oil filter wasn't seated properly and all the oil was pumped out of the engine. He went back and they denied everything. He went to see his laywer and threatened legal action, and filed a complaint with the BAR and the BBB.

He took the truck back to the dealer (2000 Nissan Frontier) to have the engine replaced. Total cost was about $8500. Needless to say, Jiffy-Lube paid for it. I heard later that the actual mechanic who worked his pickup blew up a few other motors as well. Needless to say they fired him.

Reply to
Daniel Rudy

similar thing happened where I live...IIRC the woman with the now bad engine contacted the oil change place, who denied any wrongdoing on their part. then she called the local newspaper, who wrote up a story on it, and the shop promptly paid the repair cost. I'll try and find the story link, I have it bookmarked somewhere.

Reply to
dave stone

But, in this case I think you missed it, the mechanic told him some fuel injectors were bad, and was paid $600 to replace them and some other parts, and the problem wasn't fixed.

Granted he did the earlier repair himself a month earlier. But the mechanic should not have taken him in as a customer for the fuel injector repair if the mechanic didn't want to do the work the second time.

Agreed. Which is why mechanics and shops who are faced with those kinds of customers should simply tell them to get lost if they don't want to do the work.

The reason that they don't is obvious. Mechanics and shops do not want to guarentee repairs, nor do they want to quote jobs at a fixed rate.

For example, you take a car in that has a problem. If the shop were to give you a bid or quote that had a single price on it to fix the car, with NO detail as to what is wrong and what will be repaired, why then there would be no problem. The customer would have no more information than he had when he came in, and would only have 2 options - to pay the amount and leave the car and get it fixed, or to leave. Once it was fixed of course the customer would get the detail of what the problem was.

But, shops and mechanics don't want to work this way, instead they want to give an "estimate" which is legally a GUESS of what is wrong, and can be exceeded if they guess wrong. Because of this, they have to make an initial diagnosis of what the problem is to base their guess on. If they guess right, which happens much of the time, the customer then has a diagnosis and can leave and fix it himself.

So, you see, shops and mechanics have ended up with a system setup which protects them from losing money if they guess wrong on a repair. (unless the guess is really wildly off then lawyers get involved and such) This system is a benefit to them, but it does create a loophole which is that in many cases the customer is going to end up with a complete diagnosis before the repairs commence, and thus can elect to do the work themselves. But, the benefits to the shops and mechanics of this system greatly outweigh the few clowns like the OP who cannot do their own diagnosis yet feel qualified to repair their own cars.

So I do not really have a huge amount of sympathy for the shops and mechanics here. Being in the repair business myself (networks) we see our share of cheap customers as well. For example the guy that buys a network hub off Ebay after we tell him his existing hub is broken, then calls us to install it. Sure I don't make that much on these types of deals, but I make some, and I would rather have the system the way it is than to take the liability for a bad guess if we did it the other way.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

found the story...I believe the shop later paid for the repairs. In this case they used the wrong oil filter, which fell off after a few days.

formatting link

Reply to
dave stone

Mechanical

The marked advantage of a one marque repair facility.

Reply to
Stephen Bigelow

All shops need to make money to survive, but I'd strongly disagree with your contention that "An honest mechanic will admit that replacing a part may or may not fix the problem." Someone with that attitude needs to go back to school to learn how to actually fix cars.

A good diagnostician should be able to identify the fault and FIX IT. He gets to that point by evaluating instruments, measurements, diagrams, and individually testing components to find the one that is malfunctioning. This takes time, experience, and fair amount of education. Diagnosticians DO NOT simply replace parts and hope they fixed the problem -- parts changers do that. Most of the "mechanics" you refer to are simply parts changers.

In the state of California, if you're a shop that makes a habit of swapping parts that don't fix the problem you can expect a visit from the Bureau of Automotive Repair. The penalities for screwing up are just too high.

__________________ Note: To reply, replace the word 'spam' embedded in return address with 'mail'. N38.6 W121.4

Reply to
Barry S.

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.