Recently my daughter took her husbands 2000 Explorer, 36,000 miles on odometer, in for some warranty work, the valve on the intake plenum (idle control valve??, not sure) anyway, it was covered under their warranty so they replaced it, no charge.
Now the good part, while they had it in the garage they decided to give it a quick once over ""just to make sure everything was alright"", What do you think the odds of that were? RIIIIIIGHT !!
Somehow it needed brakes on all 4 corners and all the rotors were shot. Told her the brakes were worn down to the metal.
Also told here that the lower balljoints were 'OVERSTRESSED'. Just what the he!! does that mean anyway??
They told her they could do it for her ((4 rotors, pads on all 4, 2 lower ball joints, total of MAYBE 4 hours labor, I could do this myself in less)) for the paltry sum of ------

------ hold your breath now------

and grab your ankles-------

here it comes------

$1205.00 !!!!!!

After she almost fell on the floor from disbelief, she called me in one of those daughter panics. I told her don't let them touch it, just bring it to me. Well they had her so scared of the brakes that I had to go get it.
Brought it home, obviously it had brakes seeing as how I drove it from Monroville to Butler without a problem, steering was tight and responsive, HMMMMMMMM.

Pulled it in the garage, jerked all four wheels, rotors were amazingly smooth for having steel rubbing against them.
Well I miked all 4 and did a runout on them, not one bad rotor, WOW, of course with better than a third of the pad on all 4, I expected that would be the case.
As far as those lower ball joints, I never did figure that out, checked them, they were fine, with the miles on it, I figure if they weren't they should be replaced under warranty anyway.
Does anyone else see a major rip-off going on here?
I priced 4 rotors, front and rear pads and 2 lower ball-joints at Advance, it came to a whopping $230 and change. I'm thinking that even if it had needed these parts, almost $1000 labor is just a little out of hand for the job.

I'd like to turn them in, but I don't think they gave here the job sheet, so there isn't any way to prove anything, kinda a my word against theirs thing. Probably should write to the corporate headquarters and give them an idea what some of their high profile dealers are up to.

BTW-This is one of the largest dealers in Monroville, can't think of the name so I didn't write one in here. (I'm pretty sure buuuut)

 

Its a good thing she has you!. I would go see the person who gave her the estimate and confront him with what you found and see if nothing else the look on his face as you tear into this person.

 

I agree,

I would go in a tear him a new ahole. I couldn't sleep until I did.

 

Yep, the old 'your brakes are bad' scam. That's the all time classic auto repair rip off. Frequently used in conjunction with the 'free vehicle inspection'. This scam really plays to the fear of the car owner, especially when laid on with a dose of 'you use this car to drive your CHILDREN around? Oh my God!"

Must work like a charm cause the shoddy shops sure do it all the time.

I had a shop do this to me on some rear brakes on my wife's car. I had taken it in for an 'inspection' since we were going to sell the car. The shop said they were metal to metal. The mechanic almost had tears in his eyes, thinking someone would drive a car with brakes so bad. He couldn't believe we hadn't noticed. Funny...they weren't making any sound.

The shop's labor rate was fair, but their parts prices were WAY out of line. I offered to pick up the parts at a local Car Quest and have them do the labor. They said they had to use their parts only, and he strongly advised even driving the car off their lot - too dangerous.

I drove away anyway. And I bought some rear brake shoes and jacked the car up the next day. The shoes had about 25% left; not even close to metal to metal. Drums and shoes at Car Quest were approx. 50% of the shop's prices.

Never went to that shop again, but I'll bet this scam works at least half of the time.

 

what a tool, glad you didn't get used.

 

I've never had a mechanic give me the brake scam, but I have tore into a service writer for lying to me.

My brother and I both bought our trucks at the same dealer less than a day apart. They did the final inspection/prep on my brother's truck and needed to fix a few things. Real minor stuff, but he had to leave it over night for parts. The parts came in and noone touched it. The next day my mom and I were running some errands near the dealer. I thought it would be cool if we picked it up and took it to him (so he had a ride home fro work). I went in and asked if the truck had been in. No was the response I got. My response was "Why the f**k not?" Writer fed me a line of crap with I had an "emergancy" job that needed to be done. I didn't see anything in the sevice bays that looked like an emergancy. I then saw red, told him he inconvienced me and others (dude thought I was my brother) for having to take me to and from work because of their laziness. Actually I was in there for about 15 mins using that idea and some colorful language.

Well mom and I met my brother, I told him what happened, (he laughed) and had lunch. After lunch my brother got back and found he had a message from the dealer-----his truck was done! In less than an hour his truck was ready to go.

Mom and I went back to pick up the truck. The service writer saw me come through the front door, and he left out the back.

This dealer has done good by my family in every aspect except service (dad had problems with them and my old truck). But recently the service writers have been replaced, and our total experiance there is 1000x better.