Damage to my car from body shop....

[KitaCam]

Ha.....

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: antiqueshell

Imagine that, I'm as reasonable, and rational a customer you can find.

Yeah, I'm sure. You certainly come across that way on here.

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So tell me why is it that ONLY ONE industry seems to have major issues

Because of your adversarial attitude and the chip on your shoulder? I've had more problems personally from the food service industry, cable/internet industry, real estate/property management industry, utilities industry, shipping industry, etc. overall than I have had from the auto repair industry. The auto repair industry has never flat out destroyed something expensive I have paid for - UPS has. The auto repair industry has never performed completely not what I asked for or made me sick - the food service industry has. I have never had the auto repair industry violate a signed contract in an effort to extract more money out of me - I have had a landlord do that. I have had to get a couple jobs redone, but [censored] happens, and it got fixed. I have had to redo some things I have done working on my truck myself too. Now that I work in parts, I still run my truck though the shop for some things like tires, or the pinion seal I recently had put in, and while I check the work, I don't worry about it either. I had the fluid changed when I had the pinion seal put in...ironically, the tech took more care in cleaning up the cover mating surface than I ever have when I changed the fluid on this truck.

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My "attitude" is appropriate for the circumstances I encounter. If you run shady or incompetent operation, I will let you know and we are not talking about honest, occasional mistakes here I take those into account in all my dealings with all businesses. Not all customers turn tail and run away without letting bad businesses know it. But as you well know that is what they hope for especially when it comes to auto repair.

It sounds like you go into the situation looking for a fight. Either that or you seek out the cheapest/shadiest places to work on your vehicles and wind up getting what you pay for. There are bad shops out there for sure, including at the dealer level, but it's not representative of every shop or every tech in the industry. Just like the other industries I mentioned above are not all bad. There is nothing wrong with a customer coming back with a legitimate issue. It's when they try to get someone else on the hook for a preexisting problem with their car that they need to be "fired." FWIW, I see nothing wrong with KitaCam's complaints. The shop messed up. This is why I would not pay someone $300 to paint a roof though. That is too cheap. Didn't you say before that you work for a company that manufactures parts for the OEMs? If so, why is your industry so disgraceful? Why do you send us so much defective junk? You guys must all be bad.

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl

Because of your adversarial attitude and the chip on your shoulder?

Nope. Wrong again. As many poor shops as I have dealt with I go in HOPING for the best.

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It sounds like you go into the situation looking for a fight. Either that or you seek out the cheapest/shadiest places to work on your vehicles and wind up getting what you pay for. There are bad shops out there for sure, including at the dealer level, but it's not representative of every shop or every tech in the industry. Just like the other industries I mentioned above are not all bad.

I most certainly do NOT go in looking for problems. Even though as with industry as a customer I have every reason to be negative. I never look for a "cheap" shop. I am willing to pay more for better service, yet somehow it never seems to work out that way. In fact the amount I pay seems to have little effect on the quality of work done or the character of the people working there, note that I do NOT use shady hack outfits. You cannot deny that this industry has a reputation among MOST customers for being as bad as it gets in business. Right up there with lawyers. Consumer organizations and investigators have proven this many times over. What you seem to want to deny is that my experiences really are a result of the fact that most shops are terrible and only a limited number have competence, and integrity. This denial is why the industry will not actually do anything to change their practices. Deny, deny, and deny some more.

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Didn't you say before that you work for a company that manufactures parts for the OEMs? If so, why is your industry so disgraceful? Why do you send us so much defective junk? You guys must all be bad.

Actually the manufacturing side of things USED to be pretty good with respect to integrity, and competence, but it now too has started to rot from within. Greed is the main culprit.

 

[01rangerxl]

Most consumers assume things they do not understand are a ripoff. Sometimes they are right. A lot of times they are not. My aunt's car was leaking a large amount of coolant from around the timing cover, and a fair amount of oil from the oil pan gasket. She was quoted around $1000 to replace the cover gasket, timing chain & sprockets, and the oil pan gasket. I got the car fixed (t-cover gasket only) for $300 and some change via a friend connection. My aunt thought the original quote was a "ripoff." It was not. They quoted her the price to fix everything once and know it was fixed at their normal labor rate (all of this broken down and itemized on the quote). It was a fair price. Anything less, and they would risk a comeback for some other related issue. I explained this to her and she finally understood...the $300 was the cheapest way to patch the car up, and the $1000 was a full on avoid liability, fix all the issues price. If you are having so many problems, YOU ARE USING SHADY, HACK OUTFITS! Obviously something is wrong with your choice of shop. It's not hard to spot a shady, hack shop. I worked for one for a very short time, and I quit, BECAUSE THEY WERE A SHADY, HACK SHOP! They were cheap, and that's why people went there rather than going places they knew were better. Either you are picking shops for the wrong reasons, not reading reviews, asking around, etc., or you are a difficult, unreasonable customer. Those are the two possible explanations. Believe it or not, most mechanics don't wake up everyday thinking "I'm going to scam antiqueshell." Most want to do a good job. Even here, at a $TEALER$HIP, we have some techs who care WAY more about the cars than the owners do. One guy is an oil filter and Road Force balancing savant. Not all here are as particular about what they do, but none want to rip you off or do poor work. That isn't their goal.

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Actually the manufacturing side of things USED to be pretty good with respect to integrity, and competence, but it now too has started to rot from within. Greed is the main culprit.

If I use your line of thought, that is denial and a cop out. You are all just a bunch of shady hacks, selling me junk defective parts, and scamming me.