Car Maintenance / Repair Ripoffs (long)

[iowaboy]

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
Denny's Auto in Ames
Stewart's Performance in Cedar Rapids

There used to be a time when IF you knew something about maintenance that they would respect you and give you the real deal. Now they say too bad so sad. Evidently they are making enough money sticking it up our butts to the 17th hemmorhoid!

Just had my tires rotated last week. They told me i needed a transmission fluid flush. I asked them what criteria they were using and they stated the mileage on the odometer. I changed it 3rd week of December. How they can stand there with a straight face and look like fools I don't know. IB

 

[linkshero]

I took my 2000 Crown Vic to Dewey Ford in Ankeny around 2003. The wipers locked up on me in a rainstorm on the way home. They gave me an estimate of $900 to fix it, but said they could do it for $750. I thought, WTF $900 for the wipers? So I took it home (rain had let up). On the way home, a protective cowling under my steering column fell on my feet because they didn't put it back in all the way.

When I got home, I raised the hood and it took 4 seconds to see the nut that held the drivers side wiper arm to the wiper motor, had worked itself off, and the end of the arm came lose and got jammed into the side of the housing. That caused both arms, and the motor to lock up. I pulled it free, put it back on, found a new nut, and it was fixed in less than 5 minutes.

I was shocked they didn't at least fix that part of it before telling me I had to replace the motor and 2 or 3 other parts. I called the service manager and told him what happened and he didn't really have much to say.

 

[ISUAgronomist]

Damn vincentaldrich must have 1000 cars (well at least 17) with the number of dead threads bumped with his "recent car issues".





EDIT: Post in response to spammer who bumped the thread. Spammer got the banhammer.

 

[ISUAlum2002]

Well, he's getting better. This one is less than 2 months old.

Still makes me wonder, though. He's obviously not a bot, or all of the auto repair related threads would have been brought up at the same time. He must have a list of dozens of messageboards that he goes to and randomly brings threads back from the dead. We just happen to be one of the lucky ones on his list.

 

[Bipolarcy]

I took my car in for a service engine soon light. Turns out it was a gas cap that had lost its seal, which cost $18 to fix. But while I was there, they did an oil change, which includes a "free" inspection. They found my front brake pads nearly down to the metal, and the back ones nearly as bad. They also found a crack in my serpentine belt, and the middle brake light (the one on the back window) out. I told them to fix all that and add a new air filter and it wound up costing me just a little over $300, which I thought was pretty reasonable.

 

[CYVADER]

they can find a crack in about any serpentine belt. but 300 bones probably isn't too bad as long as they did fix all that.

 

[ISUAgronomist]

Well, he's getting better. This one is less than 2 months old.

Still makes me wonder, though. He's obviously not a bot, or all of the auto repair related threads would have been brought up at the same time. He must have a list of dozens of messageboards that he goes to and randomly brings threads back from the dead. We just happen to be one of the lucky ones on his list.

Actually, he bumped this one last month after being dead for 6 months. How he hasn't received a ban still baffles me given his website listed in his profile links to his auto repair manual website (advertising on CF).

 

[hiltonisheaven]

I took my car in for a service engine soon light. Turns out it was a gas cap that had lost its seal, which cost $18 to fix. But while I was there, they did an oil change, which includes a "free" inspection. They found my front brake pads nearly down to the metal, and the back ones nearly as bad. They also found a crack in my serpentine belt, and the middle brake light (the one on the back window) out. I told them to fix all that and add a new air filter and it wound up costing me just a little over $300, which I thought was pretty reasonable.

I had my honda in for an oil change/tire rotation recently and the mechanic says my serpentine belt needed replaced(he was right) but they quoted me $125. I went to O'Reilly's and asked if that was something I could do myself. The guy sold me the belt for $28.95 and explained exactly how to do it. He told me he'd do it for me in the parking lot if it weren't zero degrees outside that day. I was able to change in my garage in about 5 mins.