sneaky mechanics, two prices for one job
It’s not uncommon: Your mechanic goes under the hood to make a repair, and in the process, spots another part in need of fixing. Unfortunately, it’s also as common to be charged as if the mechanic were taking apart your car twice, rather than just once to access both problems. To get to a damaged water pump, your mechanic would remove several belts. Should he notice a problem with a belt, he’s not going to do twice the work (for example, sticking the belt back in the car and then remove it later for repair). Why should you pay for twice the labor? He was going to take the parts off anyway.
Car owners must have a basic working knowledge of the common parts of their vehicles. Sometimes deceitful mechanics will look for opportunities to take advantage on their clients’ lack of knowledge about their own cars. A favorite trick of these sneaky mechanics involves your car’s motor oil. What they do is hold the dipstick in a way that it won’t go all the way so to show that your car’s short on oil. Now, that is just a cheap trick but others can be quite expensive and surprising, too. A detached spark plug can look like and fake engine trouble. Car owners who know more about their car parts are less likely to be fooled by these sly mechanics so, in short, read your car’s manual or find a basic repair book.
When it comes to your car’s regular scheduled maintenance, your vehicle manufacturer and your mechanic will agree on one thing — your car will need some repair at some point. However, their opinions on just exactly what and when it should be done are, shall we say, worlds apart. Also, expect that the dealership’s list will surely be four times as long since obviously, there is a lot of profit to be made in repairing things that don’t need to be fixed.
How many times have we seen this trick being pulled off? The mechanic tells you something in your car must be replaced, like the starter motor or maybe some other obscure car part we haven’t heard of and instead of replacing that perfectly fine, functioning part, the mechanic merely removes it, gives it a good scrubbing and polishing so it will look like a new replaced part, and puts it back in your car with none the wiser. Car parts which are singled out for the spit-shine trick are those which can be easily removed by hand. Batteries are just some of these “prime targets”. Some shops will not even bother to do anything about it. Instead, they will tell you that they have replaced the part with one that was refurbished (thus explaining why it doesn’t look that shiny and new).
More and more people nowadays feel that finding a good auto shop proves to be quite challenging. To look for the perfect mechanic who is not only highly-skilled and certified, but more importantly, who is trustworthy enough to offer his services at the right price is something that car owners are finding to be a definite impossibility. If you do not pay attention, you might find yourself a bit struggling on the financial side for just a minor repair. The series of articles that follow will reveal a few “sneaky” tricks that most mechanics pull off to cheat customers of their hide. Being more aware and conscious of these matters will help hopefully help car owners in getting, less likely, tricked or cheated off.