Car Maintenance / Repair Ripoffs (long)

[Wesley]

My take.

The auto shops are hurting bigtime as revenues are down. I took my 07 Nitro in for vibration problem and ended up with turning caliphers and brake job in the rear? I could not believe it since the fronts were fine. I saw that I paid $250 out of their take for $2000 in repairs for the Saturday. They had 8 people involved in repairs. If they had not come up with my repair, one of the 8 might noit have earned his keep.

Lesson learned: I am not going back to that dealer. I have another favored shop. I want to go to a shop having higher volume in repairs so they do not need to keeop their revenues up.

The recession may indirectly be causing more of these borderline repairs.

 

[CtownCyclone]

I always took our two Hondas ('96 Civic and '01 Accord) to the dealer for maintenance. That is, until this year.

I had suspected my local dealer of being somewhat shady, and had been irritated at them before (like when they forgot to put the oil cap back on - could be worse, I have a friend whose wife's SUV got a (free) new engine because they FORGOT TO REINSTALL THE DRAIN PLUG). The last straw was in December when I took the Accord in for a recalled air bag and wound up paying roughly $300 for new brake pads and machined rotors. As I waited at the dealer that Saturday morning, I looked up the work they were doing on my phone. 4 hours later when they were done, I was seething at how bad I had just been ripped off.

On my way home I stopped at the bookstore and picked up a couple books on auto repair and the Haynes manuals for both cars, then stopped off at Sears for a set of tools, jack, and stands. Best decision I've made.

Oh, and the best part is that they did a ****-poor job of machining the rotors, as well, even though they "had the mechanic do it again because the first round wasn't good enough" because the wheel started shaking while I brake just last week. Going to take a look at it Sunday, and either going to take it in to Just Brakes to have it machined properly or just replace them outright myself.

This happened to my aunt. That's a big deal.

My list is short, I had a Blazer that wouldn't shift into 4WD high. It would shift to 4 Low and 2 High, but not 4 high. Needed an oil change, so I took it into the dealer and had them look at the 4WD. They called me up and told me it was either the controller computer or the 4WD module and it would be $1200 to fix. Told them not to fix it. After I picked it up, I surfed the web and found out that if you disconnect the battery, it will reset the computer and the 4WD will work. Tried it and it worked like a charm. $1200 well-saved!

 

[djcubby]

My take.

The auto shops are hurting bigtime as revenues are down. I took my 07 Nitro in for vibration problem and ended up with turning claiphers and brake job oin the rears? I could not believe it since the fronts were fine. I saw that I paid $250 out of their take for $2000 in repairs for the Saturday. They had 8 people involved in repairs. If they had not come up with my repair, one of the 8 might noit have earned his keep.

No doubt if they charged you for turning calipers you got screwed. :twitcy:

 

[Cymon]

Did that on a 98 S10 ZR2 4 yrs ago and it was a pretty easy job. If nothing else, get a Chiltons manual and it walks you through it in pretty simple steps.

Mine is on a 2002 ZR2. I've heard they go out because of the Dexcool GM uses. I'll see how it goes.

 

[ISUcy08]

I'm lucky my best friend's dad is a mechanic.

 

[Cyclonesrule91]

Mine is on a 2002 ZR2. I've heard they go out because of the Dexcool GM uses. I'll see how it goes.

Don't tell me. You have a small leak that drips down the back of the block and you see antifreeze between the intake manifold and the heads.

I took the money I saved on that job and bought a torque wrench. I am putting the intake manifold back together and see in my Haynes manual to tighten to ?? in/lbs. I set the torque wrench correctly only I set it to ft lbs and snapped one of the bolts and had to take more of the savings to buy me some easy out drill attachments so I could get the busted bolt out of the block after drilling a hole in it. Keep that in mind.

The hardest part of that job was when I took the intake plenum off(plastic cover that goes over the fuel injection goodies). There is a 6 pack of injector solenoids inside there with plastic lines that have clips to lock it in place in the manifold. Could figure out how to undo them. Finally figured out that you could pinch the end right before it goes into the intake manifold and they come right out. Just a heads up for that too.

If you have any problems, send me a PM and I can help walk you through some of it you want.

 

[jdoggivjc]

I'm lucky my best friend's dad is a mechanic.

My brother-in-law went to school (WyoTech) to be a mechanic. (He's now a welder at John Deere Harvester/Seeder, depending on the time of the year)

 

[ISUAgronomist]

2007 Chevy Impala - Engine oil capacity with filter change = 4qts according to the manual.

Last time I took my car to the dealership for an oil change I pulled out of the lot and my car seem to lack some power. Looked at the paperwork and check the level, yep they put in 5 quarts. I turned around and made the bastards fix the problem. Went out to the local parts place to buy a jack and stands. That was over two years ago.

This Feburary I had to take the car in under warranty to replace the head gaskets and the ****ers overfilled the oil after putting it all back together again. I didn't give them the chance to correct it and I'm almost sure they put the drain plug in with an air wrench. I had to get a "cheater" bar to get the drain plug back out. :arghh:

Car still doesn't feel the same to me. I'm sure they ****ed something up. Feels a little rough when accelerating but only when the A/C is on. Any ideas on this?

 

[BryceC]

The only thing that really ticked me off was I brought a '92 F150 into a dealership in my hometown, because it was running kinda rough. I talked to them for a while about it, told them how I was a young poor college student at the time, etc. They quoted me like 950 bucks because apparently there were some bolts in the block that were stripped and they would need to drill them out, rethread the block, etc.

Now mind you, this is 100% labor. No parts whatsoever.

I was surprised at this, and so I drove to my brother's house and we loosed all the bolts ourselves with a wrench, checked the threads, etc.

They said 3 or 4 were bad. There wasn't a single one that had any problem. If it weren't for my parents stopping me I would have contacted the better business bureau and written letters to the editor of the newspaper because knowingly screwing over a young student to me is just as low as it gets. Honestly I still get ****** about it.

I like Barkmeier's auto repair in Boone, Butch's in Ames, and United Fleet in Des Moines. If any of those guys screwed you over I'd be absolutely shocked.

 

[Cymon]

Don't tell me. You have a small leak that drips down the back of the block and you see antifreeze between the intake manifold and the heads.

I took the money I saved on that job and bought a torque wrench. I am putting the intake manifold back together and see in my Haynes manual to tighten to ?? in/lbs. I set the torque wrench correctly only I set it to ft lbs and snapped one of the bolts and had to take more of the savings to buy me some easy out drill attachments so I could get the busted bolt out of the block after drilling a hole in it. Keep that in mind.

The hardest part of that job was when I took the intake plenum off(plastic cover that goes over the fuel injection goodies). There is a 6 pack of injector solenoids inside there with plastic lines that have clips to lock it in place in the manifold. Could figure out how to undo them. Finally figured out that you could pinch the end right before it goes into the intake manifold and they come right out. Just a heads up for that too.

If you have any problems, send me a PM and I can help walk you through some of it you want.

I'll be sure to keep you in mind. Mine is leaking in the front.

 

[cloneswereall]

It is irritating that rip-offs are taking place, but "doing it yourself" is simply not an option for many so there is a need to know and find honest shops.

The shops that I've found fair, honest, and generally good people are Denny's Automotive in Ames, and Stewart's Performance in Cedar Rapids.

I second the staying away from Tuffy's thing. My ignition lock mechanism went bad, and they wanted to replace the entire steering column; so I took it to Denny's and they replaced the part for chump-change compared to Tuffy's.

Also, whenever I buy a used car, I take it up to Stewart's to have them look it over (my family has been using these guys for years, so the charge is minimal and honest; He told my dad that the truck he was looking at buying was worth more in parts than it was as a whole, instead of looking to reap money for fixing the thing after he bought it).

 

[jsb]

Anyone have any expirence with West Side Auto in Urbandale?

 

[ISUAlum2002]

I fixed the dreaded intake leak on a 99 Tahoe I had about 3 years ago. A friend and I had it done in about 3 hours. Be sure to get the upgraded intake gasket set from Fel-Pro, its solid.

 

[Skyh13]

I was having an odd problem with my 97 Grand Prix GT a few years ago -- my low coolant light would come on every so often, and my engine temperature would start to rise.. just a little bit. Then the low coolant light would turn off, and the temperature would go back down. It just sort of alternated doing this for a while.

Looking at the tank under the hood, it seemed like there was plenty of coolant, so I wasn't sure what the deal was. I was visiting my girlfriend in Ames, it was on the weekend and I didn't know any local places, so I took it to Car-X, since they were open. Big mistake.

They took a while to look at it, and then called me to give me an estimate. They said that I had cracked headers, and the estimate was for something like $2500. After talking with my dad, he recommended I get a second opinion. So I went to a local place that we got a recommendation for (American Automotive, I believe), who said they would look at my car. After looking at my car for a while, the guy eventually figured out the problem -- the part of the coolant hose that reached down into the coolant tank underneath the hood had fallen off. So the coolant wasn't circulating or something.

The American Automotive guy went on to say that it was absolutely ridiculous that Car-X suggested there was something wrong with the headers, partly because the engine in these GM cars is awesome, and because there would be other signs, such as white, smoky exhaust. Plus, Car-X clearly didn't run any tests to actually see if my headers were cracked, since this guy also said there's an easy chemical test you can run, by pumping it through the car, and if it changes color, the headers are cracked.

So, safe to say Car-X was trying to **** me over. Luckily I went and got a second opinion, and it ended up just costing me an hour's worth of labor to try and figure out what was wrong with my car. That was my first and last time going to a Car-X. I will never, ever go there again, and neither should anybody else. Hell, it makes me suspicious of ANY chain repair place.


Since I just moved to Waterloo, if anybody has any suggestions on a trustworthy, reputable place in the area, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[mg4cy]

I try to do the work my self when I can, but my wife took her car to the Honda dealer during warranty for oil changes. The Honda dealer is always pushing maintenance work to be done at sooner intervals than the manual or the maintenance minder. 18,000 miles rear differential oil change?.........brake fluid flush (seems high profit?) at $165 or so. They send a list of stuff home w/ my wife that she "needs" done, then I look it up in the manual, and it doesn't agree.

These periodic mileage "inspections" done on foreign cars, especially, Volkswagen, BMW seem very lucrative for dealers. I saved my wife $400+ by doing the 40,000 mile inspection/maintenance on her VW Passat. Most of the stuff is visual/subjective. Lubrication of hinges, etc.

Recently, a tire dealer said we needed new rear struts at 51,000 miles (actually it was an alignment needed), 2nd opinion at Honda dealer said struts were OK, but if we did need them $1000 for the dealer to do it.

I heard a another bad story at work about Tuffy's - bad brake job - caused squealing.

Yep, you can really spend a lot of money by taking their word for it.

 

[Cybyassociation]

I took my cars to Downtown Tire in CR, a Goodyear shop, for almost 20 years. They had a manager who had been there many years and knew most of his customers by name. He left and the place went downhill quickly.

I first started to doubt them when they told me my car needed new shocks with only 37k miles on it. The shocks were not leaking and still haven't. That car now has 137k miles on it.

Next time we went there my wife dropped it off for an oil change and tire rotation. She picked up it after work, paid and thought something was fishy when she got back to the car because it was in the same spot, didn't look like it had been moved and they hadn't changed the window sticker. (Looking back, that was a pretty good observation for a chick). She went back in and asked if they had actually serviced the vehicle because it didn't look like they had. "Oh....uhhhh....I guess we didn't. Real sorry about that. If you've got about ten minutes we'll get four guys to tag team on it and get you right out of here." Keep in mind, she had actually paid and they had gladly sent her on her merry way after having done nothing to the vehicle. They finished after a short while and said for her troubles they would not charge her for the tire rotation. She told them we had purchased lifetime tire rotation on that vehicle (again, a good pick up for a chick, right?). "No you didn't," they said, and sent her off. The next morning I called and said yeah, I can't remember if I bought the lifetime tire rotation on my car, can you look it up? Sure...yep you did it's right here. So on this one visit they knowingly took our money for doing nothing and flat-out lied to my wife about the tire rotation.

I don't know why, but I gave them another chance since I'd been going there so long. I guess my hope was they were under new management and still getting their act together. I took my other car in for an oil change, transmission service and I'd been having trouble with the radiator so they were going to replace it. A few weeks later I had to take it to the dealer for a recall and they did a free inspection on it while it was there. They said the coolant was full of rust and contaminants and the transmission looked like it had never been serviced, judging by how dirty the fluid was. I stood there and watched them draw it out so I know they were not lying. I said that's impossible, I just had a new radiator installed and the transmission serviced two weeks ago. They said the radiator looks new, but if we had to guess it looks like they filled it up with used coolant. And the transmission has never been serviced, we can tell by the color and how dirty the fluid is. Oh, and by the way, they didn't fasten the new radiator in, they just attached the top and bottom hoses and left it hanging loose in there. Nice.

So back I went to Goodyear, told them they were going to lose a long time customer if they didn't make this right. They said we'll look at it right away and call you. Two hours later they called and I went over, I worked right next door. They said I don't know what that dealer was telling you, but they are liars. Here's your nice clean coolant and beautiful clean transmission fluid. I said well yeah, now you've had two hours to cover your tracks. I vowed to never go back.

About 6-7 years later I needed new tires. It was winter and a big ice storm was coming. I figured I'd better get them before that big storm hit. I called a few places and found my old "friends" at Goodyear were the only ones with my tire size in stock that could do it the same day. I begrudgingly gave them my business again. They screwed up and put the white letters in, I wanted them out, but I was still happy with the tires and the price so I didn't ***** about it. A couple days later I go out to the garage to get something and hear a loud hissing sound. One of my brand spanking new tires was flat. I popped on the spare and took it over to Goodyear. No worries, I thought. I bought the road hazard warranty. They took it in and said we'll get it fixed right up. Couple hours later I picked it up. That'll be $20, they said. For what? Fixing your tire. But I had the road hazard warranty? Road hazard doesn't cover repairs, only covers replacement if the tire is completely destroyed. I've since found out this is actually correct so the moral of that story is don't buy the road hazard warranty because it's worthless. Anyway, I threw a fit (there was no one else there) and told them that was BS (I used the real word too - a big step for me since I'm not a confrontational person). I told them this was the 3rd time they'd f'd me over (again - used the real word) and I was never coming back. The honest to God response was,"Good." So you can see how they value their longtime customers.

Marion Tire is the way to go. Might be out of the way, but its been a family operation for years. My grandpa actually used to work there when they would make service visits out to farms to change the tractor tires. Honest people.

 

[CycloneYoda]

Car-X is evil. My old Thunderbird had a leak in the gas line, so I took it to Car-X. They tried to sell me a new motor for a 1995 T-Bird.

Went to Accurate, and got my gas line fixed.


F-You, Car-X.

 

[Cybyassociation]

Here's my story though. Bought a new Honda this past summer at Billion Auto in Iowa City. When we were discussing the price, we got to my price, they took it in to talk to the finance guy, they came back with my price + 300. The price of the "mud guards" that are installed by the dealership as soon as the car hits the lot is $300. So I said, well how about you throw in the mud guards and bring it down to my price. Talked it over again, came back with my price. I drive away happy with a new car. 3 days later and after driving in a little bit of mud from the rain, I notice I have mud splattered up the side of my car...they took off the mud guards when they were "detailing" the new car. Called the dealer that sold me the car on the 4th of July, told her that I would be in on the 5th and they would install the mud guards and fill my tank for driving down. Dishonest scum and I will never step foot on that lot again. Love my car though :wink:

 

[Cy1978]

Obviously car sales must be down which has led to dealerships figuring out they can rape the consumer on repairs which has moved to most repair shops at least in the central Iowa area and I'm sure it is everywhere.

I have always pretty much worked on my own vehicles and offer to help others out when they need work on their vehicles. I am surprised what I have run across in the last couple years from repair shop estimates and then what I find on my own. Here are some examples:

1. Friend's wife took a 2 yr old Dodge van with 22K miles on it to Tuffy's because her front brakes were squeaking. She left there with a $900 estimate which included new rotors, new pads, change out brake fluid(WTH) and a couple other bogus jobs. He asked me to look at it. I took the wheels off and the pads still had 75% life, the rotors still looked brand new and changing out the brake fluid is the biggest sham I have heard to date. I took a hose to the wheels and took the pads off and cleaned them and squealing stopped. Some dust probably got on the pad. She was ready to get it done before he asked me about it before they dropped it off.

2. Neighbor was having a vibration problem in their engine. I looked at it and it was obviously a bearing going out in the alternator. She takes it to local Chrysler dealer and they tell here $749 + tax to replace the alternator but they wonder if it was the lower end of the engine with the bearing going bad so who knows where that would have stopped. I bought a lifetime warranty alternator at Autozone for $169 and it took me a couple hours to replace(tearing out, driving to get, putting back together).

3. Friend pays $450 to have the front brakes done on his Honda. They replaced the rotors and the brake pads. I asked him if the car was braking smoothly when he took it in. He said it was. I asked him why they told him he needed to replace the rotors and he said he was told there was rust on the outside of the rotors. Lesson 1 today....... If you get your brakes fixed when you start to hear the squeal consistently, all you need to do is replace your brake pads unless you have lurching when you push on the brake pedal. If you wait until you hear and feel metal on metal when you brake then it's too late and you will be replacing rotors. I told him you can by brake pads with a lifetime warranty for $39.95 and it takes 45 minutes tops to replace the pads. Needless to say I will be doing his brakes from now on.

4. Couple years ago my fuel pump went out of my S10 pickup. Local repair shop wanted $1,200 to replace it. I bought the pump through NAPA for $243 and it took me a Saturday to replace.

I could go on and on but the post is too long already. It frustrates me that this stuff goes on. I know especially in an area like Central Iowa there are not a lot of people that know much about maintenance so it is easy to try and get a quick buck of their customers doing maintenance/repairs not needed....like replacing brake fluid. I know there are good shops in the area that won't bend you over the fencepost in their repairs / maintenance. Just want to give people the heads up.

Anybody else have any horror maintenance stories?
Anybody have any repair shops where they know the place isn't a ripoff artist?

One place I will never take a vehicle to is Tuffy's. I have heard too many stories about them to know my vehicle will never see that joint if I have come across something I can't fix myself.

Trustworthy Shops per fellow CF'ers:

Tott's in Sioux City
Ted's Auto in Norwalk.

 

[Cy1978]

There are two types of shops, those that are the kind that have only their bottom line in mind, and those smart enough to treat people as they themselves want to be treated when they purchase a service for $500 to $3000, and more.

There is one company that people can use free found at the top of google.com under the search terms of (auto repair advocate) The name of the company is honestautoestimates.com. Their service is free to the consumer, and will provide you with an estimate on your auto repair based on national labor guides, hourly rate for your area, and just a reasonable markup on price.

If shop owners want to treat people right they can have a 3rd party endorsement from Honest Auto Estimates the top listed auto repair advocate on google.com