My ABS light was on so I sent it to the Goodyear shop I bought it from across the lake. Main reason for that is because my grandfather is friends with the guy and I feel obligated to go there. This dude charges me $275 for a new ABS sensor. Saturday I ask someone I know who owns a shop how much that part costs. About $80. One of my rims I curb checked the hell out of when I hydroplaned. Told my grandfather for $250 he can fix it but thankfully didn't. For $100-$150 more I can buy another set of rims which I might do. Then he charges me another $85 because the belt was showing signs of wear. No sh*t but I'm sure with 60K on the truck the belt is just fine. Guess where I'm not going anymore. At least I got a 2 year break tag out of it.

Anybody else ever been ripped off or overcharged?

 

when i owned a bmw a had to pay 1800 for a cat because the cheap 100 dollar ones would still trip the o2 sensors and throw the cel. now that im a little older ive gotten a little smarter. get a copy of the factory service manual for whatever you own. buy a volt meter. through a step by step diagnosis you can pin point what the problem is, figure out if you can do it yourself or not, and be informed of how much it should cost at a shop going into it. lifes full of lessons. what matters is if you learn from them

 

Goodyear is in business to make money, not give stuff away. They charge labor at book rate and mark parts up - both rightfully so.

Don't count on it.

 

Just work on your own vehicle and you won't have these problems. I've ran belts that were 20+ yrs old with no breaking.

 

yeah trust me with an ear and a voltometer you can diagnose so many things yourself, then order and replace them with something from Tasca or Rockauto

 

Goodyear (and Firestone and a few other big names) are in the "redistribution" business. Emptying your bank account and filling yours. I feel their prices are exorbitant (another name for RIPOFF) but they count on unknowledgeable car owners to accomplish that. If everyone became informed consumers those companies would be out of business (certainly no loss for the hard working consumer).

 

Took my 05 FX4 to ford and another shop to get my spark plugs changed out from the originals, only for ford to tell me it would be $600 + $75/plug that breaks. Charged me $150 diagnostics fee for me telling them what I wanted them to do. When I took it to another shop they told me $325 and they will have it done in 3hrs. 5hrs later they call me and told me that they would not do it because of the chance of breaking them off in the cylinder head(known problem that I told them about) and they charged me $160 to take the coils off and spray wd40 into the plugs...in other words they did nothing. Still haven't changed my plugs yet either.

 

Never feel "obligated" to take anything to a shop because of other family who might be friends ....

I do about 99.44% of my own work, the savings more than pays for my tools over the years and the knowledge is free.

 

I would say you were pretty darn good at finding the rip-off's in your area. Too bad your wallet got emptied in the process of not getting your plugs changed. Are there any good honest shops in your area or do they ALL deserve to be locked up??? Incompetence the new norm?