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I took my old car to a transmission place because the (automatic) transmission wouldn't do into gear. I could put in in reverse, drive, etc. but it would react as if it were in neutral. If I jiggled the shifter, if would go into the right gear.
So I took it in and they asked if I could leave it there and come back in about 2 hours, since they were busy and couldn't look at it right away and they would want to drive it. (They actually were busy, as there were lots of people in the waiting area). No problem. Came back and she couldn't find the paperwork for my car. I had a sneaky suspicion that they hadn't looked at it at all. She went back into the shop and came back out. She just said they looked at it and it would need to be rebuilt. Cost $850. I say no thanks and left with my car. On the way home, I drove past an AAMCO and decided to just swing by to see what they said. He looked at it right away and immediately recognized that it only needed a linkage adjustment. He fixed it in 30 minutes for $50.
I went back to the original place and talked to the same woman at the front. I reminded her that I was there earlier, and what she had quoted me. She enthusiastically said, "Oh, yes! Would you like us to go ahead and do the repairs?" I asked if I could speak to the person who looked at my car because I had some questions. She went back and got him and he came to the front. I confirmed his diagnosis and estimate and then asked him loudly why AAMCO was able to fic it in 30 minutes for $50? I said that I'm sure all their customers would like to know as well (and there were still a lot of them there who heard the whole exchange). The look on his face and the woman's face at the front desk was priceless. I wished all the people in the waiting area good luck as I walked out the door.
Took my GTI to the VW dealership for a regular service.
They checked everything in front of me - worked. I even initialed it.
Picked up the car a day later, the drivers door didn't open anymore and the window didn't go down either. I told them to fix what they broke. They said they didn't break it. Really? So I arrived the day before with the door not opening? I don't think so.
Had a few arguments with mechanics, manager, and then owner (threatened with bad yelp reviews) and then got the repairs for free. Haven't been back since. If I pay $$$$$ for a qualified dealership service, I want qualified dealership service.
Could have gone to a cheap back alley mechanic and gotten better service - which I might do in the future.
Took my GTI to the VW dealership for a regular service.
They checked everything in front of me - worked. I even initialed it.
Picked up the car a day later, the drivers door didn't open anymore and the window didn't go down either. I told them to fix what they broke. They said they didn't break it. Really? So I arrived the day before with the door not opening? I don't think so.
Had a few arguments with mechanics, manager, and then owner (threatened with bad yelp reviews) and then got the repairs for free. Haven't been back since. If I pay $$$$$ for a qualified dealership service, I want qualified dealership service.
Could have gone to a cheap back alley mechanic and gotten better service - which I might do in the future.
No offense, but that sounds like a standard VW problem. If one even looks at them wrong **** breaks.
Was gearing up for a long haul thru the New England states, Winter time. Decide to get a road safety check done before leaving and have the oil changed.
Two new tires put on, battery charged and new wipers.
Leave for my trip with a packed car. Notice my oil pressure gage is flashing.
This is while on a busy NJ express. Pullover , lift the hood and oil is splattered everywhere! I find "an" oil cap jammed down in an engine area. The Oil cap DID NOT fit my car! I have to walk off the highway and down to an auto store , to get a new oil cap and some oil. I let the car sit a bit and restart the car.
I call the shop that did my road safety check and the mechanic is like "Ohh yeah, I see your cap on the one bench, do you want to come pick it up?
I should have told them, do you mind delivering it since i am stuck on a turnpike in NJ!
Some time ago I had an issue with my clutch master cylinder. I was almost certain what the problem was, but I decided to get a second opinion from a shop up the street. I explained my issue: the clutch pedal would slowly lose resistance and drop to the floor under light pressure and I suspected air was getting past the seals in the master cylinder. The mechanic insists that, in order to make any diagnosis, he has to drop the transmission because he's pretty sure the clutch was going bad. He reminded me that, because I had 120K on the car at the time, it was more than likely the clutch. $1200 to drop the transmission, check, and re-assemble, not including cost of clutch if it needed it. I argued him for maybe 5 minutes and left. He didn't even attempt to reproduce my issue on his own to test my theory.
I went to Honda shortly after, bought a clutch master cylinder and slave cylinder, performed the nuisance of a job (the master cylinder is stuffed in an awful location in my Accord) on a weekend, and 55K miles later the clutch performs very well, no slips, and most importantly, still the right amount of resistance in the pedal.
So many mechanics know that a lot of people don't know s*** about cars so they scam people into thinking they need more work done than they really need. That's why I work on my own car. I personally don't enjoy it when someone touches and takes care of my property like that.
Why can't we have a system like Germany where in order to get a drivers license, you need to know about every little spec about your car. The driving lessons are a joke in the U.S. You just drive around the block and you're done. I read a statistic online that shows that nearly 80% of all drivers don't even know how to do an oil change but I think it's much higher than 80%. Makes you realize how much Americans depend on other people to do the dirty work for them without doing it themselves.
Bought a used car and after inspecting it more thoroughly found the flywheel cover was missing, that's just laziness. It's like three little screws and takes all of a few minutes to put on.
Current car I bought I had lot of issues and I should of looked at it a lot better. I was aware they had hit a curb because you could see the rim slightly bent.
When I got it home the first thing I notice is grease all over the place in the wheel well. I don't know if they were new or not but the half shafts looked like they were recently replaced, they didn't look like they were on there for 114K... Looks like someone had pried on the band for whatever reason, you could see the indentation in metal. They ended up putting a hole in the boot, on the side of the band.
They had told me both tie rods were replaced, after more thorough inspection I found that only one was replaced and one of the sway bar links. And I find this:
In any event I did get a "deal" on the car. I changed the whole front suspensions since it was very easy to change at that point. I'm happy with it at this point, would have been very costly for someone else.
I just got out of the repair facility. They told me that driving my van with the bad front end was "Dangerous" so I made an appointment...Which was today....I get a call at 3 pm telling me "We didn't fix it"
Turns out the owner didn't like the looks of the parts and rejected them, but didn't call me NOR order new parts...
So, they PUT THE OLD PARTS BACK ON and expect me to come back....Excuse me? You said driving it was "DANGEROUS" What changed??
I'll just drive it till I have the cash to pay for a repair.....If they were the "True Blue" mechs they claim to be, they'd have ordered the parts and gotten the work done...But they didn't call me.....
If it wrecks out....Well, I may just not care (If I die) but if they're putting it back, then it's most likely NOT as dangerous as they claim it to be.
Back in 03 I was driving around Burkburnett Tx when I came across a nice Buick Electra for sale. It was a 80 model with the 4.1 V6. The lady selling it wanted $300 because it had started rod knocking. Her husband ( then deceased) had bought it new for her. During the conversation she said that her mechanic had wanted to buy it but she really didn't want to sell it yet. I thought nothing of it at the time. I paid the 300 bucks, got the appropriate paperwork signed and drove it 15 miles back home. The rod knock was not that bad and I noticed it would come and go, it was not a constant noise. Three months later a thunderstorm came thru and blew several big branches onto the roof severely damaging it. For a brief while I considered cutting the roof off and having the only 4Dr 80 Buick Electra removed top sedan. But saner heads prevailed. I had just bought Pat Ganahl's 1982 Magnum Opus "V6 Performance" and simply decided to keep the 4.1. I mean it came factory with a quadrajet!. And it ran. As I was pulling it the oil filter kept getting jammed up against the front crossmember. No problem, I'll unscrew it. I had gotten it halfway unthreaded when a 7/16 inch socket fell into my hand! Now for those of you who don't know this, a Buick V6 oil filter is horizontal not vertical. The ONLY way that socket could have gotten there is if someone held it there while putting the filter on. And then the conversation all came back. Because I also remembered she had said that the oil and filter had just been changed before the rod knock started. That sorry ass worthless son of a ***** mechanic had deliberately sabotaged the car because she wouldn't sell it to him! What a worthless piece of trash. Even now, 13 years later my blood still boils when I think of this. And as an aside, I still have the motor and transmission (as well as all the accessory brackets and pumps, compressor etc,) in my storage shed along with the book. Someday I'll buy a Buick V6 equipped car for cheap that needs a motor, and I'll have one.
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