5 Mechanic Scams Everyone Falls For

rev up your engines I've been doing this for 52 years and man I have seen a lot of scams that people have pulled sometimes they were out right fraud scams sometimes they were just poor mechanics who didn't know what they're doing and screwed up jobs but either way you don't want that to happen to you now the first and best tip of system get a scan tool now the scan tools you can use on your phone that I've shown there's standalone scan tools that cost forty dollars twenty dollars and five thousand dollars well you don't need a $5,000 one but just get any scan tool because if your car's not running riding your check engine light is on that check engine light is the generic coat it means there's one of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different coats store these machines access those codes and they're simple to use you just plug them in you got to make sure the right side this is a notch here and there's a notch there so it goes in upside-down like this then it starts reading now in this case it's scan and throw and what does it find as you can see here no cold things your honor finding ordinary codes now if it had codes they chose the codes it gives freeze frame data that's on there if you have an expensive scan tool this particular ones about 200 bucks it memorizes all that stuff but say you got a cheap twenty thirty dollar one it doesn't memorize things heck we all have phones with cameras just go to the screen take a picture of it then you'll have it store it on your phone done if you're not gonna fix it yourself you go to a mechanic here's the problem with my car you know exactly you got all that information so you're not gonna be easily scanned that way you now know what shape the car was in let's say you get it back not running right you plug your scanner back in it's got the same codes guy didn't fix it or even worse and I've seen this on numerous cars that people have brought me after other people worked on them they now have more codes different codes not only was it not fixed right but something was done wrong while they were working on a car does this somebody's gonna pull a scam on you watch this just unplug the MAF sensor here right here now it's unplugged it shows that it has p0101 a mass air flow volume circuit range performance I don't think I haven't seen this done on people's cars before other than just unplugging it which is obvious for another mechanic they will caught a wire somewhere hidden in the back that'll trip the code and you're not gonna find that but you're gonna know something fishy is up if all of a sudden you get this new code right here today work on the car that it's totally coincidental that they worked on your car you get it back and now it's got all these problems that it didn't have before and anybody trying to pull a scam on you if they see you coming with a scan tool and you say well here's the code here's the data they're gonna think twice about pulling some kind of obvious scam on you now the next common scam has to do with mechanics with little oil cans who are crooked I'll squirt oil around and say oh look this is leaking something I've seen happen a lot of times I've seen people get new struts when they didn't even need them mechanic will come in they'll squirt oil all around the struts the strut is full of oil the seal goes bad the oil will come out showing it's bad well they squirt all over the place it's a look-see it's leaking it's all that's why it's a good idea to get a strong flashlight like this baby and search all around look at your struts they should be bone-dry like this not covering with oil but you check them first then if mysteriously some of your struts are now coated over oil when you bring it back you know they're trying to pull a scam on you and really if you don't want to be scammed Hey learn to do at least two simple things yourself air filters you just clip them pull them out put another air filter in do that yourself if your spark plugs are like this Toyota simple learn how to replace them yourself I have had more cars coming here they weren't running right or failed the yearly emissions test because either the air filter was telling me clogged up or the spark plugs why not stop you can easily do yourself then nobody's gonna scam you and one scam that I advise you to just stay far away from is the free lifetime oil changes that some dealers and shops will give you they just want to get you in the shop that's the loss leader oh I'm getting a free oil change every time you take it in for the free oil change guess what they're gonna find something that either they'll say oh look this maintenance is due or this is worn that is worn be very cautious about these free oil changes that you're gonna get why not do like me change your own oil get good quality all good filter you know when it's done right then nobody's getting in there to try to rip you off because realize today car dealerships don't make much money selling cars they're kind of cut to the chase the internet everybody knows what the cost what you got to pay for them what their profit margin is they make the majority of their profit fixing the cars that they sell not selling them and once they get you in that door they're gonna try to sell you the kitchen sink I don't think it's just dealers that do that there was a guy down the street here years ago he had an inspection license for the state of Texas for doing those yearly emissions and safety inspections now there's very little profit and actually doing the inspection you don't make that much money this guy did it so he got people in the shop and then man did he try to sell them stuff he'd say oh you failed the inspection but it's gonna be about 450 bucks and I can get it done by five o'clock today if you authorize it now and the way I find out about the guy was one of my customers went there to get the car inspect and he got scammed like this said the guy said oh I need to tune it up and do all this stuff well it turned out what the guy did was this isn't a day when they actually checked the exhaust coming out with five gas analyzers one of these sensors in the exhaust to measure the gas coming out he would wipe that sensor with the rag that had cleaner on it and when he stuck it in that would make all the chemicals go sky-high it would fail the test my customers say oh my cars running bad I just got it inspected so I looked in and a guy paid 450 bucks to have it tuned up spark plugs all kinds of stuff I pulled off the spark plugs on his Honda and they must have been the original once they were covered with carbon they were all worn out and it takes over a hundred thousand miles to where some of these that thin and his were worn that thin the guy got him in by the scam of having an inspection license and then sold them the farm so be very very leery if you're getting your car inspected and they're trying to saw you a whole bunch of stuff that's the game that a lot of these guys play and really many states like Florida they don't even have the inspection anymore in Florida they did then people complain a lot of the elderly people get ripped off so they said well if you're gonna make us have the state inspection the state's gonna have to do it the state did it for one year and they lost so much money then they said we're not even doing them anymore and sure everybody wants to have a safe car but a lot of times the safety inspection itself it was just a ruse that the guys are using to get business in when they didn't have any and make a profit now when I was a young mechanic my grandfather for a short time in my father's garage did state inspections in New York State but he was an honest mechanic and back in those days it was only a buck and a quarter and the law was if somebody came in and you said you were busy you had to give them another time to come back and then they'd have to inspect it and if you're tying up one 30-year base for a dollar and a quarter job it wasn't worth it so they just stopped doing inspections but as I said that small amount of money isn't why the crooked guys inspect cars they inspect it just to get you into their garage and then the selling process begins so if you suspect they're trying to sell you stuff you don't need just leave it's your car you have the right for that they can't hold you hostage and the last scam to avoid is a common one that's happening in Houston lately crooked people will either follow you in their car and say your tires loose it's wobbly or they'll meet you in a parking lot and they'll say hey look you got a flat tire oh yeah that happened one of my customers with a flat tire pretended to fix it bring it back and then I said to her did you notice anything different driving your car before this flat occurred and she said no I drove perfectly fine well if you get a toy they generally go flat over time gonna start pulling to one side make squealing noises I'm assuming what happened to her was this got a car key and he stuck it and pushed that valve take the cap off push the Schrader valve in and then made it go flat then all he did was take her tire off go down the street fill it over there and then put it back on again because I looked at her tire and there were no marks on it that showed that it has been patched didn't look like it taking an apart hatched on the inside and put back together because everything on it was still dirty I'm assuming all he did was let the air out took it off pumped it up we're there somewhere else put it on and she paid him money for that and certainly don't fall for that scheme up there following you and they say your tires loose but we can fix it for you people have been doing that in Houston lately and I guess some people are falling for it now it's kind of hard to tell if that's a scammer or not when you're driving yourself because you can't see but you got a friend in the car just say roll the window down look at the tires if they're going straight they're not wobbling you know it's a scam because from my experience I don't know any honest mechanics who drive around in their cars looking at people's cars and pulling them over and saying your wheels falling off so people do dredge the bottom of the bucket sleaziest thing that can to make money most mechanics have plenty of business they don't need to create business and now you know how you can avoid some of these scams so you still have your car running good but people don't rip you off, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell

Channel: Scotty Kilmer

Views: 1,673,307

Keywords: auto, car, car diy, car mechanic scams, car repair, cars, diy, how to sport a scam mechanic, mechanic, mechanic scam, mechanic scams, mechanic scams caught, mechanics, repair, scam, scam mechanic, scammer, scotty kilmer, scamming, scammers caught, scams, top 5 mechanic scams, 5 scams, car mechanic, things your mechanic won't tell you, mechanic secrets, mechanics don't want you to know, 5 scams you car mechanic doesn't want you to know, top 5 scams, top 5, car scams, car repair scams

Id: 3CTvsM9LTbw

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 22 2019