Beyond Belief...
I am going to play the devil's advocate for a minute.
1. Most shops (around here anyhow) advertise 20-30 or 40 point inspection with an oil change. I know they don't do it, but - if you don't know any better and trust the shop to inspect everything why would you look for trouble?
2. We are car guys. We are in the minority today. If a kid or adult has never had any type of car maintainence training, what do you suppose they do?
3. You ever wait to go to the dr. until "the pain" or whatever got so bad that you had to do something? I expect after you left the dr. had pretty much the same reaction - "if the dumb basterd had come in a month ago we could have fixed him up with medication and that would have done it, now..."
That said, I agree with most of what has been written.
C