America's Service Station = Crooks
06-13-2009, 06:13 PM
#1
Safety Car
Thread Starter
America's Service Station = Crooks
My wife and I have been talking my Ford Escort to this shop for the past 2 or 3 years. They have done good work with the exception of a botched brake job that required 3 repeat trips for them to get it right. I started having a suspicion that they might be just another shady repair shop, but gave them the benefit of the doubt since they had done good work before.
Fast forward to this afternoon; my wife comes home telling me that the brake lights won't turn off. I go out to the garage and try a few troubleshooting steps to no avail. Fearing a major electrical problem, I told her to take it to America's Service Station while I looked online for solutions. It took about 5 minutes to determine it was the brake light switch, but I wait for her to call me to see what they said.
She calls me telling me that the shop wants $85.29 for the fix. $40.66 for labor, $35.97 for the switch and another $6.13 for "supplies". I tell her that that was too much and I would try to fix it myself. Of course the shop tries to scare her into staying saying crap like driving it can cause more damage and that their warehouse would be closed soon.
She gets back so I take the car to Auto Zone and buy the switch for $8.99. While I was replacing it, I found out the rubber part that holds the switch button when the peddle is not pressed was broken. There was a spare rubber part already down there so I just replaced the broken one with the spare. I ended up putting the old switch back in and turns out it was just fine, no need to even spend the $8.99 on the new one.
So basically this shop wanted to charge over $85 for something that took me only 5 minutes and didn't require any new parts. What makes this even worse is the spare piece was already down there and all they had to do was replace the worn out one, but no they'd rather try to con her out of money.
Are there any HONEST repair shops anywhere?
Fast forward to this afternoon; my wife comes home telling me that the brake lights won't turn off. I go out to the garage and try a few troubleshooting steps to no avail. Fearing a major electrical problem, I told her to take it to America's Service Station while I looked online for solutions. It took about 5 minutes to determine it was the brake light switch, but I wait for her to call me to see what they said.
She calls me telling me that the shop wants $85.29 for the fix. $40.66 for labor, $35.97 for the switch and another $6.13 for "supplies". I tell her that that was too much and I would try to fix it myself. Of course the shop tries to scare her into staying saying crap like driving it can cause more damage and that their warehouse would be closed soon.
She gets back so I take the car to Auto Zone and buy the switch for $8.99. While I was replacing it, I found out the rubber part that holds the switch button when the peddle is not pressed was broken. There was a spare rubber part already down there so I just replaced the broken one with the spare. I ended up putting the old switch back in and turns out it was just fine, no need to even spend the $8.99 on the new one.
So basically this shop wanted to charge over $85 for something that took me only 5 minutes and didn't require any new parts. What makes this even worse is the spare piece was already down there and all they had to do was replace the worn out one, but no they'd rather try to con her out of money.
Are there any HONEST repair shops anywhere?
Last edited by WdnUlik2no; 06-13-2009 at 06:18 PM.
06-13-2009, 06:42 PM
#2
lol didn't you just say in another thread that dealers were ripoff artists?
1. independant shops always inflate the price of parts to offset their lower labor rates
1. independant shops always inflate the price of parts to offset their lower labor rates
06-13-2009, 07:07 PM
#3
Safety Car
Thread Starter
yep sure did. Which is why I asked if there were any HONEST shops out there anymore. I purposely avoid dealers because in general their prices are higher than independents, but $85 for a job like this is ridiculous. And it turns out there was nothing wrong with the original part, all they had to do was replace the worn out rubber piece with the spare that was right beside it.
06-13-2009, 07:14 PM
#5
Senior Moderator
its hard to find good places to get your car worked on, your best bet usually is to find a shop that does work on performance cars and stuff, usually their policy is no bullshit and getting the right work since the "performance"/enthusiast crowd is huge, and word spreads like wildfire.
06-13-2009, 07:41 PM
#6
Safety Car
Thread Starter
^^^ Good advice! 
I'll try that next. I just hope they don't have an issue doing work on a 10+ year old Ford Escort. I've been trying forever to find ONE honest shop to take it too, I'm sick of jumping around.
I'll try that next. I just hope they don't have an issue doing work on a 10+ year old Ford Escort. I've been trying forever to find ONE honest shop to take it too, I'm sick of jumping around.
06-13-2009, 08:08 PM
#7
The ICEMAN
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06-13-2009, 08:12 PM
#8
Senior Moderator
its hard to find good places to get your car worked on, your best bet usually is to find a shop that does work on performance cars and stuff, usually their policy is no bullshit and getting the right work since the "performance"/enthusiast crowd is huge, and word spreads like wildfire.
Bingo!
06-13-2009, 10:01 PM
#9
Senior Moderator
work is work in this day and age, I doubt they would refuse it, even if they did there's always another shop ready to do the work.
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