How to not get screwed on repairs

[Anonymous]

Any tips on how a woman that doesn’t know much can not be taken advantage of by repair shops? I recently had one shop charge me for diagnostics and then quote me over $1,000 for the repair (new fuel pump.) Luckily before they got too far into it, I got a hold of my husband (who’s an awesome mechanic, but 400 miles away right now.) He had me call the shop and tell them to stop. He looked up cost of the part (about $370) and book time for the repair (2 hours) Called around and found another shop that did the job for $600, of course this required a $57 tow across town.

Now I’m having the same problems again (intermittent crank/no start) I’m taking it back to the shop that installed the fuel pump (if it chooses to start tomorrow :dry: ) I will definitely be waiting until I can talk to the hubby before I have them do any work. But, I’d like to not have to deal with being screwed over just because I’m a woman. That and I’m not able to talk the talk unless my husband basically gives me a script.

Topic

[dave]

This is when a little “lying” might be good. Tell them your husband is a fanatic about keeping old parts.

I have a feeling she might not even have to lie about this. B)

[V]

I have been getting screwed at shops for the past 8 years or so. Every time. That’s why I started working on my car. Mechanics straight up disconnect random sensors or break things. For example: Take a car in for a clutch change – “lol lol we couldn’t get an exhaust bracket off so we had to order a new one, lol lol $150 for both of them and extra $60 for labor lol.” I just changed that bracket 3 months ago, but whatever, come to get car “lol lol there is some strange pause in acceleration, we think we need to change your throttle body, car came in with CEL lol, that will be $400” – it didn’t, I ran codes before giving it to them. Whatever, ask them to just give car back. Go through throttle stuff – find that they disconnected my throttle position sensor. And what can you do about it, nothing really, short of idiotic things like slashing their tires or something.

I have literally tens of stories like this, both at dealerships (the worst actually) and random shops. I am not rude at all, I don’t ask them anything annoying, etc. Just seems to be the norm, happens to all my friends to. Don’t get me wrong – I respect what mechanics do (I think much more so than a person who doesn’t know all the things they have to understand) and not saying all of them are like this, obviously, but damn.

I think part of it is them not liking working on older cars, even if they are clean / bolts aren’t seized. Also, with older cars, it’s easier to justify that “x randomly broke.”

That’s my $0.05.

[Author]

Replies