People so unreasonable sometimes...

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Thought I'd share a story from today.......

Uh oh. Many of you may know I own a full service repair shop and towing company. We made an uh oh today. Lady brings in a very high mileage 2004 Honda Accord for an oil change. On the car is taped a for sale sign for $2500 cash. One of my oil change kids drains the oil, installs new filter and paying more attention to chatting up the counter girl (admittedly she's hot and is a distraction) than his job neglects to add new oil. Yes we have procedures and checklists. He broke all of my rules. He's fired btw. He did check the tire pressures and fill the wiper fluid tank. !!?!?!?!?!?!!.

Amazingly the car makes it from the back bays of my shop to alllllmoooossssst to the fromt of the parking lot before kaboom.

We are high volume. I have a lot of employees. Mistakes happen.

My service manager comes and gets me before telling the lady what happened. So I have the guys push the car back out of sight and into a parking spot. I go and chat up the customer. It goes like this.

Nice Honda....for sale huh....had many lookers....oh just put it up for sale today huh.....Oh I see that's why you wanted to change the oil....mmmhmmm....ya they sell fast usually....you want how much for it....$2500....kinda high for the mileage....but it will sell on my buy here pay here lot.....have a clean title....great...oh it's in the car....great...tell you what....I'll buy it for your asking price.

She's happy. All is well. Son coming to pick her up. I give her cash she gives me the title. Problem solved. I'm relieved the car was a beater and not something expensive.

As she's cleaning out the car another not so bright employee..who no longer works for me either....tells her what happened. Really??? Ugh. Now she's upset. Threatens to sue me ect. Yelling at me. Why?? She got her asking price and was super happy 5 mins ago. Got her car sold same day she started trying to sell it. Now she wants $5,000 and is threatening me with posting online what happened. I invite her to post all she wants I really am not going to stress over it. It's my car now. Not hers.

Funny huh. People. Had to firmly invite her to leave my office. I really don't see the problem in all honestly. Everyone wins. She got what she asked for in cash. SMH

Already have the engine out of the car and happen to have a total wreck in my impound yard with same engine that's my car already bc it wasn't picked up by owners after the wreck. Engine runs great. A little more than half the mileage of the one it's replacing. Will be on my buy here pay here lot with all fresh fluids ready to roll tomorrow after lunch.

The old engine wasn't completely locked up btw. It still could be turned by hand so we filled it with used motor oil from the days changes—but alas no compression. (I can hear the OCD guys freaking out now hahahaha hows that for an oil change brew???L but hey the jobber filter was brand new right!!!j Just wanted for kicks to see if it would start and how it would sound. Even it it started it wouldn't go anywhere but driving itself back into the shop. Experiment failed. Haha Surprised it didn't totally lock up. Really shocked actually.

Thought I'd share. I'm sure inevitably will get flamed. Almost 25 years in biz mistakes happen. I always do what I feel is fair and mutually beneficial. I have no regrets.
 
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You've already negotiated on the price and you now have the title. Just because she wants $5K doesn't mean anything but, you did the correct thing in buying up the car to eliminate any legal problems.

For the employee that told her the story of the engine, this is just one word against the other. Nothing will happen and she can't raise her asking price just because she wants to. The car may have not been work the $2500 in the first place so asking $5000 after receiving her own asking price is..."whatever you want to call it"!

But, you did the right thing by buying the car. You're a stand up guy by doing so even if you didn't tell her why you bought the car.

My dad(mechanic) had a garage too and he would never hire the pretty girl for the front desk/counter as he always said that, "the grease rag was for wiping the drool off of their faces not grease/oil from their hands".
 
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When all this could have been avoided, had he checked the "oil" prior to starting the car.

On the flip side of the coin, she wanted to sell it and got her asking price on the spot. Just another stupid opportunist, thinking she can make more money on it.
 
I think you were totally out of line. After all you should have been required to buy her a new 2020 Honda Accord with all the options just for her trouble. BTW I'm obviously kidding.
48.gif


No matter what you do you can never satisfy an opportunist. I'd say you were a very stand up businessman in taking care of it on the spot. I am assuming that if you had let your insurance handle this that she would have been days or potentially weeks (with it being the Holidays) in getting a resolution. She should consider herself very fortunate.
 
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You handled everything very well, but I understand her frustration too. Threatening to take you to court is a bit over the top, but forgetting to add oil is unacceptable too. She acted based on emotion and not logic.

Sadly, she's going to make your shop famous.
 
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I think that was handled well. I doubt the "market value" of the car was as high as the asking (and paid) price. You could have told her to sue you, and then beat down the price by introducing all manner of "evidence" from other similar sales (not unlike comps in the housing industry). She'd have walked away with less.

Moron whom left and empty crankcase? Fired. Can't do much more than that.
Chatty counter girl? Give her a warning to stay away from anything but professional talk, and since she has essentially no business in the bay, and the workers have no business in the office, well, that should reduce most concerns.
Goof-ball that spilled the beans after the fact? Gone as well.
 
You owed her nothing more than what you did. I don't blame you for firing those employees, especially the second one. That's just extremely dumb, what he did.

Glad it was an older cheaper car do the resolution was not extremely expensive.

My old employer had to replace a 5.4 3v Ford engine because they changed spark plugs and something must have fallen down the ridiculously placed spark plugs holes. Killed the engine on first fire up. He put that through insurance including a rental car for the customer.
 
you did the right thing for sure....most garages would have made up a story on why and at best no charge for the oil change
 
Good life story, why I enjoy being here.

If I had been the customer, finding out what had really happened after the fact, it would have been a completely calm "Really... your guy forgot to put oil in it... really?. And then let it go. It happened, move on with the $2500 in hand. No need to yell and scream.

You 'made her whole' in the easiest way possible... and at the same time, you were able to make some lemonade out of some lemons that you'd had shoved in your face. Congratulations.

At the shop where my truck is worked on,. the hot gal is the *owner* of the shop (she's second generation, bought it from her Dad)... and she wears yoga pants to the shop. Yes, distracting.
 
Originally Posted by ToadU
Thought I'd share a story from today.......

Uh oh. Many of you may know I own a full service repair shop and towing company. We made an uh oh today. Lady brings in a very high mileage 2004 Honda Accord for an oil change. On the car is taped a for sale sign for $2500 cash. One of my oil change kids drains the oil, installs new filter and paying more attention to chatting up the counter girl (admittedly she's hot and is a distraction) than his job neglects to add new oil. Yes we have procedures and checklists. He broke all of my rules. He's fired btw. He did check the tire pressures and fill the wiper fluid tank. !!?!?!?!?!?!!.

Amazingly the car makes it from the back bays of my shop to alllllmoooossssst to the fromt of the parking lot before kaboom.

We are high volume. I have a lot of employees. Mistakes happen.

My service manager comes and gets me before telling the lady what happened. So I have the guys push the car back out of sight and into a parking spot. I go and chat up the customer. It goes like this.

Nice Honda....for sale huh....had many lookers....oh just put it up for sale today huh.....Oh I see that's why you wanted to change the oil....mmmhmmm....ya they sell fast usually....you want how much for it....$2500....kinda high for the mileage....but it will sell on my buy here pay here lot.....have a clean title....great...oh it's in the car....great...tell you what....I'll buy it for your asking price.

She's happy. All is well. Son coming to pick her up. I give her cash she gives me the title. Problem solved. I'm relieved the car was a beater and not something expensive.

As she's cleaning out the car another not so bright employee..who no longer works for me either....tells her what happened. Really??? Ugh. Now she's upset. Threatens to sue me ect. Yelling at me. Why?? She got her asking price and was super happy 5 mins ago. Got her car sold same day she started trying to sell it. Now she wants $5,000 and is threatening me with posting online what happened. I invite her to post all she wants I really am not going to stress over it. It's my car now. Not hers.

Funny huh. People. Had to firmly invite her to leave my office. I really don't see the problem in all honestly. Everyone wins. She got what she asked for in cash. SMH

Already have the engine out of the car and happen to have a total wreck in my impound yard with same engine that's my car already bc it wasn't picked up by owners after the wreck. Engine runs great. A little more than half the mileage of the one it's replacing. Will be on my buy here pay here lot with all fresh fluids ready to roll tomorrow after lunch.

The old engine wasn't completely locked up btw. It still could be turned by hand so we filled it with used motor oil from the days changes—but alas no compression. (I can hear the OCD guys freaking out now hahahaha hows that for an oil change brew???L but hey the jobber filter was brand new right!!!j Just wanted for kicks to see if it would start and how it would sound. Even it it started it wouldn't go anywhere but driving itself back into the shop. Experiment failed. Haha Surprised it didn't totally lock up. Really shocked actually.

Thought I'd share. I'm sure inevitably will get flamed. Almost 25 years in biz mistakes happen. I always do what I feel is fair and mutually beneficial. I have no regrets.


You've worked with people for 25 years, and something like this is even noteworthy? Sigh. Bro...people...once I can retire, I'm done. Never come out of my hole in the woods.
 
Originally Posted by FordBroncoVWJeta
How hot was she that he forgot to put oil in the car? Was she changing behind the one way mirror?

Agreed. This thread is worthless without pix. OP owes me my money, or pix.
 
Originally Posted by AZjeff
Sounds like you handled the problem perfectly. Going to do something about the distraction?


This is about the only way to handle the "distraction."
 
If that had been my car I probably wouldn't have gotten mad. It was a fair situation.

You would have lost me as a customer though.
 
Great story! It sure is funny she would want more money after she found out what happened. Some people just don't have any morals at all. Is the hottie still employed there since she was the root of the problem.
lol.gif
 
ROFL..people. Ug. I guess she wanted compensation for "emotional distress".? Perhaps go to the pound and pick her up a Chihuahua-mix that seems to be the ever so popular "emotional support dog"?
 
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