Rev up your engines,
today I'm going to talk about ways that mechanics can rip you off and how you can avoid it in
the first place, now I have to admit over the years dishonest mechanics have actually
made me a lot of money, cuz they went to the dishonest mechanics and said they need $3-4,000
worth of work, then they'd come to me for a second opinion on it and I'd say, hey they
made up most of that stuff, maybe you need to do this $200-300 dollar job but the rest
of it you don't need, I would have never gotten those customers if the first mechanics had
been honest, now the first thing is being overcharged for a job, I'll give you a perfect
example of one I had last week, a customer had an acura and it was recalled to have the
engine rebuilt, so I took it to the dealer, and they said yes they have to rebuild the
engine, but they have to replace the timing belt, now according to them the timing belt
wasn't included in the recall, so they wanted $785 to change that while they were rebuilding
the engine, which if you know anything about cars is a total rip off, cuz to rebuild the
engine they got to take it all apart, so the timing belt has to be taken off with a bunch
of other things, they were going to charge him $785 cuz that's the book that says here's
what it costs to replace a timing belt, but that's on an engine that's all put together,
they had to take the whole thing apart anyways, they had to remove the timing belt to do all
that work, so what they should have done is said, well the timing belt is $89 we'll charge
you for the belt, they shouldn't charge labor cuz they had to take the thing off anyways,
and I see this all the time, so it always benefits you to learn a little bit about your
car so you don't get ripped off like that, you can do a little research or you can ask
a guy like me, they often will try to do stuff like that, and then they'll show on the book,
see it says replace timing belt that's $785, I see this kind of double charging happening
all the time, if your going in for a recall, have the recall done and nothing else, cuz
they don't make any money on recalls at the dealership, so their always trying pile stuff
on top so they make money, you got a recall, let them do the recall and say just do the
recall and nothing else, now the next thing to avoid is people selling you things that
you just don't need, many years ago when gm had their horrible v8 diesel engine that was
a converted gasoline 350 v8 engine, I had a friend and he showed me a bill from the
dealer, we was made cuz even after he spent a bunch on money at the dealer it didn't run
right, actually it was the engine going out cuz it was one of those diesel conversions
and they never were any good anyways, but I looked at the bill from the dealer, and
included in it was 8 spark plugs, and of course diesels don't have spark plugs, they just
made the whole thing up, and when they got caught, oh they said, oh we made a mistake
in billing and they refunded him his money for the spark plugs, now that was an extreme
example but I see it all the time, things are good and people try to sell them parts
that they don't need, one of my customers she was a bookkeeper, and she was a bookkeeper
for lots of people and one of the guys was a millionaire, and he had a volvo and she
knew he was getting ripped off so she had him bring it to me, so I looked at his service
records, now this volvo was like 3 years old but it only had 15,000 miles on it cuz the
guy flew everywhere, he didn't drive his car all that much, he lived downtown so he didn't
have to travel around a lot, well in those 15,000 miles they had sold him 3 sets of tires,
and 3 sets of brake pads, they just made up stuff and the guy was a millionaire, he just
thought, oh it's a Swedish car it costs money to maintain them and I want it to run good,
so he paid for 3 sets of tires and 3 sets of brake pads, and he probably didn't need
any of them at all with only 15,000 miles on the car, I see flat out dishonesty like
that all the time, especially when it comes to these service intervals that's something
you really got to watch out for, I had a customer with a porsche, now it was 4 years old, but
it only had 8,000 miles on it, she only used it as a weekend toy right, so she take it
in to the dealer for the servicing, and basically they charge her $1,000 just to change the
oil and to check things and then they advice that she had $5,000 more work done on the
car, and since it was the first time I worked on her car, her friend told her about me,
I said bring it over and let me check it out, so I pulled off all the wheels, I looked at
everything that they said the car needed, and it didn't need any of that stuff, the
brake pads weren't worn out, nothing was leaking, everything was working fine, so I said let
me call up the porsche dealer and I'll talk to them for being crooks and trying to sell
you all this stuff your car doesn't need, and here's how to guy responded at the porsche
dealer, he said well when the car is 4 years old, we advise replacing the brake master
cylinder, the rotors, the brake pads, the brake calipers, everything cuz this is a performance
car and we want our customers to be safe, so I said hey the car's only got 8,000 miles
did you even look at the car, I pulled the wheels off and said this thing still has 90%
of everything left on it, there's no reason to change it all, but they used one of those,
50,000 miles or 4 years which ever comes first service intervals and tried to sell her a
bunch of stuff, that's a load of nonsense, on many modern cars ever so many miles some
of them it's 15,000 miles some of them it's 30,000, a little light comes on to remind
you that it's time to service the car, people freak out and think, oh something is wrong
with my car I got to take it right in, well those things just come on so many miles, and
a lot of it is total nonsense there's nothing wrong with the car at all, it's just that
they know you see this light a lot of people will take it to the dealer cuz this light
is on, then they'll say, oh well it's time for your 30,000 mile check up and that's gonna
be $900 and blah blah, that's really taking things too far when they started putting all
those warning lights, cuz hey it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with your car
at all, but it scares people and especially older people, they'll often get talked in
to buying a whole bunch of stuff that their car doesn't need, just last week one of my
customers told their friends about me cuz they went into the toyota dealer and they
were all upset cuz they said their car needed $3,500 worth of work done, they took it in
under one of those service intervals, and of course they tried to sell them everything
including the kitchen sink, I went through it with a fine tooth comb and used my fancy
scan tool and really I couldn't find anything wrong with the vehicle, now the rear brake
pads were getting a little thin, I said well you know their going to last another 5-10,000
miles probably, they said go ahead and change the rear brake pads, so I did that but even
that didn't need to be done right away, and they tried to tell you, oh it's dangerous
you need to do this, those stupid little lights they probably sold more unnecessary repairs
to people than anything I can think about, so if your car is one of those service interval
lights that comes on, hey do a little research on your own car, see how often that light
comes on and you can learn what it really means, don't be scared that, oh my car is
going to blow up, most of the time it has nothing to do with anything other than a certain
time frame has passed on and then the light came on, sometimes think of that light as
a game on monopoly, where you get a card that says, do not pass go, do not collect $200,
go directly to jail, only in this case jail is the dealer that's going to try to rip you
off, yes you need to maintain your car, oil changes any everything that needs to be done,
your better off getting a little notebook and doing a little research and see what has
to be done on your car at what time, and do it then, don't go by these made up lights
that come on every so many miles regardless of how you maintain or drive your car, take
many toyotas for example, the use a hoat coolant, hybrid organic acid technology, many of them
go 7 years or 150,000 miles, so all you got to do is put it in your notebook and say coolant
7 years 150,000 miles then you know when that time comes up you go ahead and change it,
do that for all your service intervals, don't trust some stupid little light comes on and
then people try to sell you stuff, that's why the most important thing is to find an
honest mechanic, it doesn't matter how good a mechanic is, if he's not honest everything
is thrown out the window, now I know some really good mechanics that charge a whole
bunch of money but their honest, if you can afford what their charging your going to get
a good job done, and I have friends that live in other places of the country, the say oh
wow bob you know he was a really good mechanic but every time we went to him, $100 for this
$100 for that, this was years ago, and today when I talk to these people the say now it's
$1,000 for this, $1,000 for that, realize yes things cost more, which makes the importance
of an honest mechanic even bigger, I've seen dishonest mechanics that have a little spray
bottle, they'll spray the stop of the strut on here, then they'll show the customer, look
your strut is leaking, you need new struts, I've seen them try to sell all kinds of stuff,
oh you need your fuel injectors cleaned, most cars when their driving normally with good
gas, gasoline is a very good cleaner, it will clean the engines by themselves, now if you
do have a gdi gasoline direct injection some of those do carbon up and they actually have
to be cleaned, regular fuel injected cars, your driving with good gas and maintain them
they really don't need the fuel injectors cleaned, or vice versa, now a lot of the manufacturers
say, oh the automatic transmission fluid is a lifetime fluid, you never have to change
it, it's good for the lifetime of the transmission, well if you don't change it every once in
a while believe me it's gonna get dirty, the transmission is going to wear out and it will
be long after the warranty is up and you'll have to pay for a super expensive transmission,
so in this case it's actually better to do more maintenance than what the manufacturers
often suggest, cuz they want to sell you either another transmission that costs thousands
and thousands, or that you give up and buy another car, but I could never understand
that cuz if the transmission did break on a car that I bought I would never buy another
one of those cars again, that would be the of that, and that's where the Japanese have
eaten up the car market, when I was a young mechanic let me tell you, Japanese cars were
few and far between you hardly ever saw them, now go out and look at a parking lot their
almost all Japanese cars, cuz they gradually made them better and they didn't put as much
junk in them, so people bought them, they weren't particularly excited with the Japanese
they just said, hey they make something that doesn't break I'm going to buy it, and of
course when it comes to not getting ripped off on repairs the best thing is to have a
car that very rarely needs repairs, cuz it doesn't matter how good or how honest your
mechanic is, let's say you go out and buy a Fiat, odds are the thing is going to break
down before it's time, regardless of how you take care of it, you'll spend a lot of your
hard earned money on repairs whether people are honest or not, you know get a little flashlight
you can check your struts before any mechanic looks at it, if their all dry and it rides
good and then if you go someplace and they say, look your strut is leaking, you just
checked it and you know it wasn't leaking if it's got oil on it you know their crooks,
and go ahead and get one of those little scan bluetooth tools that plugs into your obd port
that works off your phone, you can say things like, well it's got p0174 so I know it's running
a little bit lean, the codes will tell you that, and if you go a little further you can
go into live data on these things and you can say, well the fuel trim is adding 8% fuel
and when you show theirs some knowledge their going to have a lot harder time scamming you,
so know you know scams that mechanics might try pulling on you and how you can avoid them
in the first place, so if you never want to miss another one of
my new car repair videos, remember to ring that bell!
