Ecomodding Project Car Impounded...

[slowmover]

Obviously you don't want to lose the car. The police or a judge is a next step to prevent a fraudulent "taking". May have to tow the car home, or similar. Good luck.

[merccom]

i use to own a shop and i can tell you right now that one of the reasons that it's so hard to find an honest shop is because they normally go out of business.

you can spend 3 or 4 hours diagnoseing what exactly went wrong and it will be something like a bad injector that shorted out the wireing harness so you you charge the customer for an injector an a half hour labor for and then they refuse to pay for the diagnostic or at the very least raise all hell about it.

so then you've spent almost an entire day on a job that ends up paying a hundred dollars total. its an effin joke.

it sucks bad but i dont blame shop owners for being hardasses. you've got to make the money when you can, otherwise you go out of business.

i tried to be as honest as possable and do the best i could for people but now i'm back to working for someone else

[brucepick]

Like merccom said.

What's good for the duck hunter isn't good for the duck. But nothing says you have to get shafted in this. Like slowmover wrote re. getting it towed - but you might need to beg/borrow/steal the $$ to get it towed.

BTDT. Except the beg/borrow/steal part.

[pete c]

I'm so glad I have the ability to wrench on my own ****. There are crooks out there and there are good shops.

If you have a bad experience, don't return. If you think they really stuck it in and broke it off on you, go ahead and bad mouth them to others. Better yet, find places on the interwebs where you can post reviews.

If you have a good experience, tell everyone you know, post on the internet about it...etc. We really need to do what we can to help out the good guys.

And on that note, I'd like to once again thank the guys at hi-tech transmission in e. longmeadow mass for the work they did awhile back for me. I've had good experiences and bad with shops. They stand out as the best experience I had when they fixed someone else's mistake for me at a fraction of what I expected to pay. if you need auto tranny work done and they are within a few hundred miles, use them.

[jakobnev]

Originally Posted by merccom

it sucks bad but i dont blame shop owners for being hardasses. you've got to make the money when you can, otherwise you go out of business.

I hope you are not trying to make the case that losing money on legitimate work is an excuse to defraud innocent people.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

For the other times, I demand to see the items they replaced. Very easy to tell if rod ends were garbage, or if spark plugs really were worn down, etc. Always, always have them show the supposed worn items.

Would you accept being shown actually worn items that supposedly came out of your car? You really shouldn't be at a shop you can't trust, and if they want to scam you then they're going to be able to.

[TOOSTUBBORN2FAIL]

I honestly expected to open this and see that some stupid california law got your car impounded. I've been hit a few times by that.

Not that your situation was much better, just expecting something different. Good luck with everything.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

Would you accept being shown actually worn items that supposedly came out of your car? You really shouldn't be at a shop you can't trust, and if they want to scam you then they're going to be able to.

I worked for "experience" once at a good garage, mainly as the gofer and tea maker for a week or so - unpaid, I thought it would be good to learn. So after being sent for the "right handed spanner" and "a long stand" I was allowed to follow the main guy for a couple of days.

This place was legit, they had another dealer who sold the same cars down the road 10x the size who ripped people off.

Anyway a guy brought in his 6 month old new car for a service - filters, oil - nothing special. Except he had marked all the parts. This made the mechanic guy a bit mad so as he wasn't busy that day he replaced all the parts and replicated the guy's marks exactly.

Of course Mr Customer returns and claims his car has not been done at which point the mechanic shows him all the old parts in a bucket complete with the little marks on them. "Of course if you don't trust us you could take it to **** ?"

Never seen someone turn red so fast.

[BurningDinosaurBones]

Originally Posted by merccom

you can spend 3 or 4 hours diagnoseing what exactly went wrong and it will be something like a bad injector that shorted out the wireing harness so you you charge the customer for an injector an a half hour labor for and then they refuse to pay for the diagnostic or at the very least raise all hell about it.

so then you've spent almost an entire day on a job that ends up paying a hundred dollars total. its an effin joke.

What you say is true, but I'd rather be a broke honest man than a thief who feeds on his fellow man for a living.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by merccom

i use to own a shop and i can tell you right now that one of the reasons that it's so hard to find an honest shop is because they normally go out of business.

True of any business I suppose, although I don't believe it is often the difference between staying in business or closing shop. Usually lying/cheating/stealing is the difference between making a little money, and making money hand over fist (thinking of Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs, S&P, etc).

you can spend 3 or 4 hours diagnoseing what exactly went wrong and it will be something like a bad injector that shorted out the wireing harness so you you charge the customer for an injector an a half hour labor for and then they refuse to pay for the diagnostic or at the very least raise all hell about it.

so then you've spent almost an entire day on a job that ends up paying a hundred dollars total.

3 to 4 hours is almost an entire day for you? In the US, that would be considered almost half a day. Either way, diagnostic time is normally billed at an hourly rate here, so fraud is not necessary.

i tried to be as honest as possable and do the best i could for people but now i'm back to working for someone else

Most people work for someone, and I struggle with issues of honesty myself. My boss will often deceive people in the company as to the true reason a failure occurred. I've been asked to lie for the sake of preserving departmental image, but the most I'm willing to do is refrain from saying commenting at all.

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Anyway a guy brought in his 6 month old new car for a service - filters, oil - nothing special. Except he had marked all the parts. This made the mechanic guy a bit mad so as he wasn't busy that day he replaced all the parts and replicated the guy's marks exactly.

Of course Mr Customer returns and claims his car has not been done at which point the mechanic shows him all the old parts in a bucket complete with the little marks on them. "Of course if you don't trust us you could take it to **** ?"

Never seen someone turn red so fast.

The mechanic is a fool. This was an opportunity to demonstrate his integrity and instead he demonstrated harassment to the customer. How else is one to know who is trustworthy? Trust must be earned, not foolishly given to everyone. People that place trust in unproven sources are known as gullible.

Placing an identifying mark on a part is harmless. It's an act that does not provoke conflict because it does not deceive anyone. Replicating that mark on a different part, however, is deceitful and provokes confrontation.

If I were the customer, I would be red too; with anger. If he were my employee, I would reprimand him.

5 out of 9 shops untrustworthy?