A shop tried to tell my wife she needed tons of unnecessary repairs to her car after they performed a "courtesy checklist" on her car. She called me crying and sobbing because they convinced her that tons of money was needed to make her car even safe to drive home. She went there because her tire went flat 300 feet down the road. I think it was a xxxx store. They told her, her front rotors and pads were bad, her brake fluid was contaminated with water (showing her a sample of the fluid with water in it), her struts were shot, she needed an air filter and a cabin air filter, wipers, and a new flex pipe on her exhaust. She also apparently needed a trans service because it was about to fail, and needed a coolant flush because her car showed signs that it was overheating. They removed her inspection sticker (like 3 months left, I took it for its last inspection) and absolutely insisted that she couldn't drive the car in that condition, and that all repairs were needed for re-inspection of vehicle. Repairs totalled around $2700 dollars.
She called her dad first (she was 22) and called me second. Her dad went nuts on her screaming about the possibility of having to let her borrow money, that did not help her mental state at all. Working full time, going to college, doing the right thing in life. I wound up marrying her..
I asked her to have the rep call me and explain it all to me, he wouldn't do it over the phone, he said it was better reading it all myself so I could "comprehend" what I was being told.
I was the one who told her what to do when her tire went soft, I told her to just go into the shop and ask them if they could plug the tire (if it could be plugged). She said yes to a courtesy inspection when asked, because it was free.
I made a huge mistake that day with advising her to just go there and get the tire repaired. I did not warn her about courtesy inspections, or the tactics they use to scare people into spending tons of money on unnecessary repairs.
I went to the shop from school and met her. She made me promise, promise, promise not to get in a fight with the guy, like I had to super promise her and she would hold me to it like she always did.
I went in and respectfully asked for the estimate and acted stupid and confused. He went through the song and dance with me and showed me the contaminated brake fluid sample, the little vial had so much water in it, based on that sample at least half the fluid in the car should have been water. I just got the prices itemized and he gave me the safety lecture and told me that had to void (scrape) her inspection sticker.
He was good, he made it seem like we would be arrested for attempting to drive the car off the site, and we could kill ourselves or someone else if we did, said we could be arrested for driving it without an inspection, etc... I just let him keep going and going. I wanted to punch that weaselly dude right in the face, he looked like the shadiest used car salesman in the world, gold chains and chest hairs, etc..
I walked out with the itemized quote in my hand and talked to her in my car. She just wanted her tire fixed, and an inspection sticker, that's it, that's all, and above all she wanted me to not make a huge scene and get the cops called on me and wind up arrested for shoving his scamming teeth right down his throat.
I went back in and told him we want the tire plugged, (which was the one thing not on the quote) and an inspection sticker. He looked at me like I was speaking an alien language, and I could see him starting to get pissed.. I repeated myself again, and started to lay out the facts to him, his face turned white when I told him I was a mechanic, like I saw it drain from the top down. I said the first thing is the brakes were replaced with Honda pads and rotors about 10k miles ago, I know, I did it. (this was a 96 accord and you had to press the rotors on the hubs). He said wait a minute, and he walked out into the shop and talked to a mech for a few mins and he came back in and tried to bs me again. He said the mechanic made a mistake, it was another car that needed new brakes and rotors, said he would have caught it when we paid the bill, apologized, etc.. HE started in on me about the brake fluid, I told him ********, ********, ********.. He removed most of the ******** crap, and gave me a new total to get the car to pass inspection. I was so good man, I didn't get aggressive or anything, I really had to try to stay cool.
He said at a minimum I needed the struts (front) replaced and the flex pipe replaced and gave me some god awful total. Then I lost it and screamed at him "what about the god ****ed tire ******e?"
Things went sideways. I went through the scraping of the sticker, the flex pipe (I just saw it when I did the brakes, it was a slight tiny bit frayed on the outer weaved wire area, it was absolutely as expected for a car with 185k miles on the part, exhaust was still super quiet as new), the struts needing to be replaced for inspection. I got angry, gave him some nice fuc you's, and told him exactly what he was, a scum sucking piece of garbage they made people pay for non needed repairs by scaring and intimidating them. He got angry, told me to **** off and tossed me the keys. I refused to leave the office area and when a woman walked in, I quickly informed her not to bring her car there because they just scammed my wife, he flipped out and called the Sheriffs. I just kept on telling him, plug the tire, replace the sticker you not only fraudulently scraped, but you have no right at all to remove the sticker from the car, at all. Sheriff showed up, listened to him and myself and told me I was **** out of luck, gotta take the keys and go. Said if I had any serious business complaints I should contact the DOT, DMV or the Attorney Generals Office about it. Said if I don't leave, or if I ever come back I would be arrested for trespassing, he was ashamed that he had to do it, but he had to do his job. I get it. I told him the entire story again, and he listened, said he could understand my anger and frustration and just said go down the road a bit to the next shop, get the tire plugged which would have been completely appropriate if they didn't scrape the sticker.. He asked if the car would pass inspection, yes no problem. Advised me to pay the fee for new inspection and tire plug, and just tell everyone you know about the shop, and make sure they tell others.. I relented and started to walk away.. Then a second Sheriff pulled in the lot to converse with the first. I knew him, he was a Sergeant that deal with a lot when arresting shoplifters. First one explained to Sgt what was up, he listened to my story, and told me to wait a couple mins. He made a show of interviewing my GF in front of the window to the office, and then called me over to talk to both of us.
He told me he was going in and making the guy pay for our new inspection by telling him what he did was illegal and punishable through the DOT regulations and that he could be charged and the shop could lose its inspection license for a year.. He walked back to his car and dug out a DOT regulation book that had some usage wear on it. He came back over, pointed to a few things in the book, and went in and told the guy he was committing fraud, and although he couldn't arrest him for it right now, he could at least get the shops inspection license suspended while he was being investigated by the DMV for inspection violations and vehicle fraud. He came out and says watch this. Guy came out and put a sticker on the window, huffed, and went back into the office... Loved that Sgt., he was so friggin helpful over the years in my town, just a good guy and excellent natural judge of character.
Went a quarter mile down the road to the next shop and asked for a tire plug. Guy smirked and told me I was just up the road with the cops right? I said yeah, and he said "yeah the shop just called me and warned me I was trying to get out of repairs, and to not plug my tire at all, say its needs to be replaced." Yeah, he then told me a few real quick stories about that shop, and said I definitely did the right thing and said he'd have been much worse to them if they pulled that on his daughter or wife.
Tire plugged 15 mins later, no charge.
I told everyone in my family, every friend, every family member of friends, people at work, people in school with me, and my professors never to go to xxxxx, gave them a 10 second story about the fraud.. They all seemed to appreciate and take note of my warning.
That particular shop, I am confident it was xxxx had to change its phone number a few months after that. I heard that people were calling and asking tons of stupid questions about their cars, making this or that noise, heard it made their life difficult enough to change the stores phone number.
I still tell people if they ask for a mechanic recommendation, to stay away from that chain, and give them a 5 second summary of what they did. Then I tell them about my local garage who is the best mechanic I have ever met, honest to a fault resulting in loss of work, and is the only person I will farm out work to with my autos. Solid dude.