Auto shop business practices

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ESP47

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I've always daily driven my Duster and I've only had my car in the shop a couple times for minor things where I already knew what the problem was. I don't really know how the whole repair side of everything works.

I have a buddy who has an early 2000's S-10. This thing is turning into a piece of crap and is starting to have problems. He took it into the shop the other week because it was over heating. The shop said his radiator was bad and that they needed to change a couple hoses. Several hundred dollars later he was out the door.

2 days later he has a huge puddle of coolant under the truck and he goes back to the shop. They waive the initial diagnostic fee and tell him it's likely the intake isn't sealing correctly but it'll take $500 in labor just to get to the intake to see if the seal is bad. He pays them and he said sure enough the intake was cracked and they replaced the intake and gasket. All in all it was $1700+ out the door.

My question is if it's normal for shops to just throw a bunch of parts at it and keep charging you until something works? It seemed to me like shoddy diagnostic work. The intake was cracked all along, but they went ahead and charged him for a radiator and hoses + labor. Is this common practice?
 
There are alot of shops around that do that. I would look around for a good shop that others recomend. Your friends are the best ones to help you. See who they go to and get the good service.
Alot of shops figure once they get you in there, they got you. Then just get
you by the balls.
I worked at a shop like that. Didn't stay there long. I always wanted to fix it right the first time. I still belive that the people that don't have a big income should be charged less that the rich bastards.
Just glad I'm out of it all now! I'll try everything I can do before I have to take it into a shop.
 
As vehicles age s@#t happens. Kind of sounds like they are parts hurlers, but hard to really tell. I am sure I am not the only one who went about a simple task that turned into a major nightmare. Hell, I think there is a thread here where someone talks about converting there car over to big bolt pattern and it turned into a full on restore. What your friend is going thru is why I do as much as I possibly can for myself. My treadmill needed a new belt. Place I bought it from wanted $300 + tax to put a new belt on it. Found the belt on line for $120.....a couple of hours of my time and saved myself $200. A lot of this stuff is not as tuff as it looks. Just go slowly, label/bag/photo what you take off and you would be surprised at what you can do your self.
 
The key to your question is the “two days later”. Is it not possible the radiator was bad and the intake was not leaking at that time. My only concern is the five hundred dollar cost to reseal the intake. Not every shop is out to beat their customers. Not saying that there are not ones who do but not everyone is.
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm asking because this is the 2nd time they have done this in the last year or so. I can't remember what the other problem was but they swapped out something very random that cost $500 and I remember thinking that there's no way it had anything to do with the problem at hand. Of course it didn't and they ended up fixing whatever the problem was, but they charged another grand on top of the pointless $500 charge.

I've had the whole 2 things go wrong on my car a few times as well. It's just funny that he's taken it to this shop twice and it's happened twice. The odds seem against you there but who knows? I guess it's time to find a new shop.
 
Lots of shops that will just throw parts at a car till one of them fixes the issue and then charge the customer for all of it.
 
A shop in NJ charged my sister for a 4 wheel brake job on her old Duster she had. Car had drums on it. She thought it was a bit odd when they charged her for new rotors & calipers. She crawled under the car when she got it home and not a damn thing had been replaced. They were the only shop in her community at the time. Did not take long for them to go under afterwards....
 
My buddy just said when he went down there he asked to see his old intake. The guy showed it to him but said the crack was internal and very small and could only be seen when hooked up to some sort of pressurized machine.

Makes me wonder how such a small crack could drop so much coolant while sitting overnight?
 
always request the old parts back. if theres no core charge they should have no issue giving them back to you.
 
One of the best days I had while owning my shops was when I had a customer bring his truck in for a noise under hood. Had one of my tech look at it and it needed a water pump. He was out of work at that and needed to save some money, so I printed out the steps for him to do the water pump and sent him on his way. The next day I see him pull in in his wife’s car. He comes in and laughs that he has heard of this but never believed that the shops were being honest, he drove his truck home, pulled it into the garage, struggled through the replacement, fill the system and tries to start his truck. It would not run because the fuel pump refused to run. We towed it in and checked and sure enough had power and ground but the pump would not run. Sometimes stuff does happen
 
here is my suggestion go buy your self some tools not alot just enough to get you started. then bag and tag the stuff with before and after pics, lots of pics, after a bit you will be doing a lot of stuff your self. have your freinds help that way you all learn. and if there is a tool you don't have alot of auto parts stores rent them. another way for info is surf the web and even youtube has a lot of videos to show you how to do it
 
My older sister had a 96 or 7 Plymouth Breeze that she took up to the local Midas (30mi away) to get the brakes changed out without telling me or my dad (we would've done it).
She came over and then told us that she took it there and that they charged her something like $640!!
Said they said they had to change the rotors, pads, drums and shoes, and the timing belt. And they did it without her permission (rotors,drums, belt).

Needless to say, when I looked under the car, it was the same old rusty drums and rotors. I doubt they even changed the belt.
 
Sir Thomas said:
One of the best days I had while owning my shops was when I had a customer bring his truck in for a noise under hood. Had one of my tech look at it and it needed a water pump. He was out of work at that and needed to save some money, so I printed out the steps for him to do the water pump and sent him on his way. The next day I see him pull in in his wife’s car. He comes in and laughs that he has heard of this but never believed that the shops were being honest, he drove his truck home, pulled it into the garage, struggled through the replacement, fill the system and tries to start his truck. It would not run because the fuel pump refused to run. We towed it in and checked and sure enough had power and ground but the pump would not run. Sometimes stuff does happen
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Exactly.

And if it had been your shop doing the work, not the customer you helped out by assisting him in doing his own work when the fuel pump went bad at the same time the water pump had been replaced you'd now be the subject of the OP.

As a shop owner I can see both sides of the issue here. I've been in the situation as the guy who's tested everything out, seen the radiator leak, ('cause it's the bigger leak and closer to the pressure tester) and recommended a new radiator, then tried to fill and bleed the system, only to have it keep popping air because there's another leak that didn't show up doing the system test or, no matter how hard I looked for other signs of leakage, something was hidden and I couldn't see evidence of another leak.

Me being me, though, I hardly ever charge full price because I missed something. Truthfully, I hate making the phone call saying that I f***ed up. But that's what it is: human error. And since I hate making that phone call I try to be as thorough as I possibly can be.

I've been on the other side, too. I've had stuff brought to me where someone else has worked on it before and made an obvious error in diagnostics and tried to charge to cover their mistakes. It puts me in a difficult situation. Because I've been in the situation where I've had a bad day and my head might not be in ballgame. I hate to bad mouth someone else in front of a customer. Again, human error can to blame. Or, it can also be skill set in the other shop. I don't work in the other shop, so I can't say.

That being said, there are shops out there who are out to empty the customers' pockets of every penny when they walk in the door. They have the attitude that if they only see a customer once they're going to get every penny they can just that once. Never been able to understand that mindset. I'd rather have a steady customer base with good referrals than just to see one and done.
 
64 SRT8 Dart said:
My older sister had a 96 or 7 Plymouth Breeze that she took up to the local Midas (30mi away) to get the brakes changed out without telling me or my dad (we would've done it).
She came over and then told us that she took it there and that they charged her something like $640!!
Said they said they had to change the rotors, pads, drums and shoes, and the timing belt. And they did it without her permission (rotors,drums, belt).

Needless to say, when I looked under the car, it was the same old rusty drums and rotors. I doubt they even changed the belt.
Click to expand...
MIDAS That is all you have to say. The one closest to me has a $3500 a day target and I know that for a fact.
 
Sir Thomas said:
MIDAS That is all you have to say. The one closest to me has a $3500 a day target and I know that for a fact.
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Yep, also, one day a buddy of mine's dad took his truck to a Jiffy Lube out here to "test" out a rumor or something he heard. His dad used to race modifieds and is also an engine builder for a military company on Ft. Carson as well so he def knows his stuff. He went in acting like he didn't know anything from anything.

Well after the "oil and filter change" he took it home.....same oil filter was on it. Drained the oil....black as black can be. They didn't touch anything on it!

So, he went back, took his old filter up there and had a hayday. They apologized and said something like they must've gotten the vehicles mixed up or something like that. Ended up getting his money back and confirmed the suspicions he'd heard.
 
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