10 Things Your Mechanic Won't Tell You
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Senior Member
Joined: Mar 2009
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From: Milwaukee
Technical Article Contributor
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 2,804
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From: Wisconsin
Auto repair is a lot like health care.
"Confusion about your warranty is good for a repair shop. After all, it’s not in an independent mechanic’s best interest to tell you when a repair is under warranty because if he’s mum, he can charge you for it. Dealerships, meanwhile, make little money on warranty repairs, so they look to get as much non-warranty work as possible."
"Confusion about your warranty is good for a repair shop. After all, it’s not in an independent mechanic’s best interest to tell you when a repair is under warranty because if he’s mum, he can charge you for it. Dealerships, meanwhile, make little money on warranty repairs, so they look to get as much non-warranty work as possible."
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 140
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From: Phoenix, AZ
I guess I must be lucky with auto repair shops.
The independent auto repair shop that I take my vehicles to, and have for years, photographs everything that they do that involves parts replacement, plus they will actually show you the original parts and explain why they were replaced. As the service manager said to me, "It is the best way to do business. If you show and explain why you did something, then the customer does not feel cheated".
The transmission shop that does all my transmission work is a small shop with a real stand up attitude. One of the transmissions they rebuilt for a friend of mine failed on him when he was 150 miles away from the shop, and within a week of having the transmission rebuilt. This shop had a rollback wrecker sent out to collect and bring the broken vehicle in, PLUS had a rental car on the wrecker for the customer to use while his vehicle was being repaired. Come to find out that when they inspected the transmission case, they found a hairline crack that was missed the first time they rebuilt the transmission. There was NO CHARGE to the customer for this, as the transmission shop took full responsibility for the failure. The shop stated that they found a very hard to find hairline crack in the transmission case during the second rebuild that they did not find during the first rebuild.
The dealership I have dealt with on warranty work is a family owned dealership that has not screwed with me on anything. Their technicians are top notch, and their service department is a great bunch to work with.
So, yes, I guess I have been lucky with auto repair shops.
The independent auto repair shop that I take my vehicles to, and have for years, photographs everything that they do that involves parts replacement, plus they will actually show you the original parts and explain why they were replaced. As the service manager said to me, "It is the best way to do business. If you show and explain why you did something, then the customer does not feel cheated".
The transmission shop that does all my transmission work is a small shop with a real stand up attitude. One of the transmissions they rebuilt for a friend of mine failed on him when he was 150 miles away from the shop, and within a week of having the transmission rebuilt. This shop had a rollback wrecker sent out to collect and bring the broken vehicle in, PLUS had a rental car on the wrecker for the customer to use while his vehicle was being repaired. Come to find out that when they inspected the transmission case, they found a hairline crack that was missed the first time they rebuilt the transmission. There was NO CHARGE to the customer for this, as the transmission shop took full responsibility for the failure. The shop stated that they found a very hard to find hairline crack in the transmission case during the second rebuild that they did not find during the first rebuild.
The dealership I have dealt with on warranty work is a family owned dealership that has not screwed with me on anything. Their technicians are top notch, and their service department is a great bunch to work with.
So, yes, I guess I have been lucky with auto repair shops.
