I used to have a friend who was a college prof. He once told me a story of a student he had who insisted he should get an A because "I paid my tuition." I wonder if that kid ever learned how it actually works...
Originally Posted by
burnthesheep
I can do my own car work. I get the concept of efficiency and profit. But one thing that bugs me about shops is pulling the old "book hours" junk.
Wife took car in for inspection and it had a bad tail light. They "offered" to fix it for $120. I drove over, parked, took the other car while she waited to the auto parts store and was back in 10min with a new bulb for like $8 or something.
I gave em hell about it and they tried to claim "book hours". I said "book hours on a taillight bulb is an hour or more"? They couldn't answer. You open the trunk, swing open the velcro flap, unclip the connector, replace bulb, done......
I can accept "book hours" for a timing belt or something. A bulb........as long as it isn't some crazy Mercedes or something........c'mon.
I once had a surprise when I had an oil change. Took it in... mentioned I had heard a noise and couldn't pinpoint it, asked if they could see if they could see anything while they were under there, or maybe it was the brakes. Came back to pick it up... nearly fainted at the price they told me. Apparently they had charged me also an hour of labor for a "brake inspection" and another hour of labor to check out the underside. I was in my early 20s, and an over-$200 car bill was no small deal at that time on what I was making. Mind you, this is largely on me because I just wasn't understanding-- after all, I knew a lot of oil change places will take a quick look and let you know if your brakes are getting close to needing replacing so I wasn't expecting it would be a huge deal for them, and I figured they had a good view underneath while they were there and would be able to see quickly if something looked obviously "off" that might be causing a noise. I wasn't expecting them to take a lot of time or go over it with a fine-tooth comb. So, it's my fault because apparently I was asking them to do a lot more than I thought I was, but I wish they had told me what the charges would be. I learned that day that I was stupid and didn't understand car repairs, but unfortunately it cost me a pretty penny.