Auto Repair Scams

[Ian S]

Interesting, my Hyundai dealer experience has been pretty good. They've not been pushy but I maintain my car strictly by the Manufacturer's schedule. Their price for oil change and filter is the same as or less than any independent and I get my car back washed. I usually wait in their comfortable lounge and avail myself of their Starbuck's coffee and various muffins and donuts. I'm outside the main warranty (5 years 60K miles) but within the powertrain warranty of 10 years 100K miles. There have been a few warranty repairs but nothing in the last couple of years. They provide a checklist of potential wear items but never any pressure. I even bought a set of tires from another Hyundai dealer whose price special beat Discount Tire. I plan to do all the fluids next visit so that will be a significant expense I expect although I've found they usually have some discounts I can take advantage of.

 

[broadway]

About 10 years ago I was ripped off by a AAA-approved independent shop.

Among other things they told me that they broke the oil dipstick because I waited too long between oil changes so the oil was sludge.

They got over $1K from me. I was dumb and naive.

 

[travelover]

............On another note, I'd venture to guess that less than 10% of the car owners here on this site have actually read the maintenance schedule in their owner's manual and fully understand the factory-recommended periodic maintenance intervals. ..............

Even that is getting a lot harder - the manual says to follow the computer generated maintenance prompts. So, instead of changing oil at say every 5000 miles, the computer analyses how many short trips you take and how many miles you've driven and computes an oil change interval.

 

[Idnar7]

I am blessed to have a good, honest mechanic for the last 20 years. We also have a tire station within walking distance. The tire place convinced my wife she needed a full fluid replacement and showed her a pan of sludge. The car had less than 10k miles. She was charged $400 for something not needed. I took a truck in to have a flat repaired and they said the radiator was rusted and needed to be replaced. I took it to my mechanic and he said the radiator was aluminum and couldn't rust. The tire and battery shops are the worst for add-on unnecessary work.

 

[calmloki]

In La Quinta I went to an independent that was recommended. Now sometimes ahole jerk shop owners can be forgiven under the theory that they have to be really good mechanics to overcome the lack of good customer service. In pretty short order this independent showed he lacked adequate mechanical skills to overcome his aholery.

At some point I was in a fairly empty Thai restaurant and had eyeballed a very nice BMW E30 M3 parked outside. Not a common car in the BMW world. Found the owner and we had a good talk and he gave me the name of a BMW tech who had been lead tech at a dealership for many years. I've been going to him since - very fair, very good prices, clean and excellent work. He can't do everything - lack of hoist and some test gear - and he is slow, but we get along well and I'm happy. A good feeling.

 

[Carpediem]

Find a trustworthy independent shop if you can. Stay out of dealerships. The service departments in them are the high margin revenue generator and they are encouraged to upsell people who know very little about their vehicles.

AMEN to the 'stay out of dealerships'! We just dropped in (for the 1st time) to the dealer where our car was originally purchased (we bought it used) to get an oil change and to get some estimates on a couple of things. We left with roughly a $4k repair estimate. Here are a couple of highlights:

- New tires: Approx. $1500. (I ended up buying the same recommended tires at Costco and saved $700 INSTALLED!)

- Replace driver side mirror - the motor to fold the mirror in/out stopped working: Approx. $525. (I ended up buying one on eBay for $110 and will replace it myself.)

They also said my timing cover gasket needed to be replaced (small leak). Estimated cost: Approx. $1700. I called a local garage afterwards and they estimated $700 but they were suspicious of the dealer's findings and estimate. They said to bring it in so they can check it.

Needless to say, I won't be going back to that dealer.

 

[Walt34]

Although perhaps rare, there are honest dealer service shops. A long-time friend of mine is a light airplane mechanic and for a couple of years worked in a Honda shop that bought, sold, and serviced used Honda cars exclusively. He liked aviation better so he went back to that. Anyway, this guy is not exactly the one you would pick out to try to fool on Honda service work.

He has his car serviced exclusively at the Honda dealer where he bought it. He does a lot of independent part-time work on airplanes outside of his regular job so it is worth the time savings to have the car work done. We've had our car serviced there when it was under warranty and although their prices tend to the high side they are not ripoffs and they've never tried to upsell anything not needed. So there can be honest dealer shops.

 

[pb4uski]

I actually trust our local small-town mechanic (after many years of running through others). He did a brake job on my son's car... about a year and 11k miles later it was in and he mentioned that the rotors were rusted badly (and they were) and he needed a brake job.. I objected and referred him to the brake job just a year earlier and he checked it out and replaced the rotors gratis (I think he got concessions from the supplier for defective parts). Then about a year ago I sent my truck in for a brake job and he calls me and tells me that my frame is rusted and won't pass inspection in a couple months so it isn't wise to do a brake job... we agreed that he would just replace the pads and then I traded the truck. A number of other stories.

OTOH, I was in my local stealership last week for an oil change, tire rotation and state inspection (2016 with 24k miles).... after I check in the service guy calls me back and shows me the engine air filter and cabin air filter that they had pulled from the car and how dirty they were. I asked the cost... one was $45 and the other $55... $100 total... I said no and that I was planning to replace them myself since it is a simple job (which was true). I ordered WIX filters from Amazon for $25 delivered to my door, viewed a couple videos on how to change the filters on YouTube and did it myself in about 15 minutes taking my time.

I will give them credit though... they suggested that they no do the tire rotation because the tread on the rears was less than the tread on the fronts and I agreed... so that saved me a bit. But OTOH they also pitched me a fuel injector additive when checked in that they spin as recommended that I said no to... it is recommended by the stealership because it is a high profit item... not part of the car manufacturer's recommended maintenance.