Seller Feedback Rip-Off Artist

[qca]

damm straight ,the problem was was with the security system and the wiring diagrams supplied to service it, the problem was fixed and if presented on another car of the particular model again across australia it would take probably about 20 minuites to diagnose and 30 minuites to repair when parts are in stock .
the customer was not charged .

 

[jibby]

The customer was not charged. Exactly. I wish most mechanics in LA would service cars in that fashion, unfortuanately it is not so. So we move on and on to the next auto repair shop hoping for an honest service repair. Most mechanics won't admit that they cannot fix or understand a problem, rather then simply telling the owner of the car I don't know how to fix it, they start changing parts hoping it will fix the problem by trial and error. All the while the owners of these cars are paying for the mechanics mistakes and education. Is that fair, it goes on all too often atleast to me.

 

[sideshow]

its a no win situation

if u tell the shop u willnotpay then they will tell u whereto go

im lucky that i can usually borrow someparts when doin tests and diagnosing

and then i can return the parts with no charge

some of the blame is not on the shop

but the shop should not take on the job if they cant do it

diagnosis is the hardest thing to do

and if u have the attitude of only pay for what used then no one will work on yr car

i think its up to the owner to ask around and see what people say about where to go and get car fixed

on the other hand its annoying that i charge 100 bucks to fix a job and it takes me 20 minutes

but the customer would rather take it to a guy who only charges 50 bucks an hour but might take him 3 or 4 hours to fix

i tell the customer your not payin for my time and labour but yr payin for my experience

and if any workshop puts an exact quote on any bit of diagnosing that is not straight forward then they are just wasting time and loosing money

unfortunately the cars are gettin much more complex and these days its just not as easy as replace the points or spark plugs to fix the prob

if the shop does a bad job in time if they keep stuffin customers up they will loose business

so its up to the shop how they treat their customers

 

[jibby]

Well said. That is exactly what happens, even if the shop for example in LA, loses business, there are so many people and cars in LA that another sucker will drive into that shop and go through the same crap. There is no regulations on auto repair shops out here. The stiffing continues.

 

[harley]

Lextreme
Michael Snipes again.
As far as rip off artist goes you may allready be aware but steer clear of "Level Ten "Transmision in N.J.
I speak from a first hand experience

 

[jibby]

Thanks for posting that I think it is important to know who is good and who is not. Anyone know of any bad lexus shops in LA to stay clear of? I can certainly think of one.

 

[stevechumo]

This is true, having said that the dealership repairs that take 30 hours or so did infact repair the problem I bet and did not charge the customer for diagnostic repair time or test parts that were not needed. Am I right ?

John, it's Steve. If you let the dealer fix your car, then they won't charge for the diagnostic. However, not all dealers' quoted repairs are trusted. They can lie to you the same thing as small mechanic shops. This idea is from what I've heard from a friend of mine who had been working for several Toyota dealers for around 23 + years. He's also a team leader so he knew all the tricks. The repairs and payments to the dealer mechanics are based on "Commissions", which means if the mechanic gets the car and works on them, then he'll get paid for that specific cars. So, the conclusion is that he can lie to the customers through those nice dressed service representatives. Sometimes, these 2 people involve in the same trick. Although the reputation of the dealer is important, the more important thing is how they'll get the money, unless they get suspected by Toyota headquarter. The tricks and lies are also on factory warranty. So the best thing is to have your car under warranty...But that's rare in our cases.

I've gotten a lot of bad experiences with mechanics so I don't trust any of them, even the ones that I knew for a long time. I agree with the previous thread that not all mechanics know exactly what they're doing, and those guesses are educated guesses. That's why it's funny to have different diagnostic answers when the car is taken around several shops. However, the main thing that shows the honesty of the mechanic is how he takes his responsibility for wrong diagnostic, how much he charges the customer, and how he deals if the car breaks down after repair.

 

[jibby]

Well said Steve! I did not know new dealerships also can be corrupt, I figured since the dealership only works on the cars they sell, they have a better idea on how to fix them in comparrison to your local non dealership shops. You also pay considerably more at the new dealership for those repairs and parts. I prefer not tp pay those high dealership prices and my car is not stock so I am not concerned, but that is disappointing to think some new dealerships are corrupt as well. What is this world coming too?

 

[sideshow]

sometimes u cant really call it corrrupt

it is all up to how smart they are

if someone takes 20 hrs to fix a car and someone takes 4 hours to fix same problem
its not really corrupt

its just that one place was smarter than the other

before u go blaming workshops for this and that u have to remember time is money
so if they sepnd alot of time u have to pay unfortunatley

if i got a diagnosing job and guy wanted a quote i would tell them to f**k off

its very hard to quote a job u dont know what it is

i got a good reputation for fixing things others could not fix and i still fix cars for big factories and other auto electricians even though i am not a qualified auto elct

so if i take ages on a job and have to try alot of parts its not that im corrupt

its that i do not have the tools machines ect or the knowledge to fix the car quickly

best thing to do is ask around who does good work and this is why i have a good name

 

[jibby]

I understand what you are saying but why should the custumer pay for the mechanics education or lack their of. I think if a mechanic does not really know how to fix the problem and spends a lot of time thru trial and error fixing it, the mechanic should not charge for all that time or for new parts that were not needed thru trail and error. He the mechanic should just charge for the amount of time an experienced mechanic would charge whom were to know what the problem is right from the start and charge accordingly, and not for extra hours of time spent on the car just because the mechanic did not know how to fix from either lack of knowledge or inexperience. Isn't that honest and ethical business practice? Doesn't that make sense?

 

[Muzza_NZ]

unfortunately every car related problem is different....

An analogy if you will - Say your 1969 etype jag with a 1UZ in it takes a serious knock in the front corner while parked. You want to get it fixed properly so you take it to a reputable panel shop.
Now most of the local panel shops won't have seen this exact type of damage on this car before and will spend a while getting it right - they may have some superduper press or panel repair machine that COULD make the job easier, but ultimately, using their training they will do their utmost to get the panel repaired correctly in the shortest time possible - there will be a certain amount of time taken to work out the best way to undo the damage, and they may take several goes to get it right - they may feel obliged to replace all the indicator light that was damaged, and tracking that down may take some time.... you think they're gonna charge you for their time?? Too right - these people have to eat...

Now this is trial and error with a problem that you can actually see. Unfortunately you (the mechanic now) can't actually see that intermittent fault on a crank angle sensor or air flow meter, you just hope that the diagnostic code will lead you to it fairly swiftly... sometimes too there are faults that are masked by other problems, dirty air filter, clogged fuel filter, old oil.... well we'd better put that right first...

With modern vehicles being so damn reliable, a mechanic may only see a particular type of problem once in his career, he can either refuse to take the job or more often because he needs the work, he will take it on and by a process of structured trouble shooting, try and remedy the fault - Remember too that he is often working on what your description of the problem is and your analysis may be incorrect...

the point is, some of the costs that we (the vehicle owner) don't understand and aren't prepared for, are legitimate and our ignorance can't excuse that.

Diagnosis of the problems in modern vehicles is a nightmare, and because of the predomanance of the electronics, most people tend to blame them when often the root cause if found to be <gasp> mechanical - issues with speed sensitive steering, automatic transmission shifting, intermittent misses, etc all originally thought to be electrical but turn out to be mechanical - the only way to test these when the code scanners can't help, is to replace parts or maybe a complete unit, and if you don't have one in your shop, guess what, your gonna buy or borrow one...

Well that's my rant, my fingers are worn out from typing...

Muzz

 

[jibby]

That is a good point but that is one incident I can understand, many others I cannot. I could give you several examples but I would be ripping a local shop and I do not want to tell my crapy story although I should about this shop on the forums. Let's just say I have run into a few shady mechanics in my days of owning a used car dealership and now most recently with my sc400 at _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I N G. A lexus performance shop. Fill in the blanks if you are local in LA and stay away from that shop, I got screwed big time.

Late

 

[V8TOY]

come on jibby,,
you fill in the blanks.

 

[stevechumo]

All right, most of the defenses for the mechanics are good. And there're many honest mechanics are out there. But let me ask you a question. What if the mechanic knows exactly the problem can be repaired for let's say $500; however, he went on and charged $1500 for other problems that need not to be fixed? Also, what if the total time he spent on fixing the problems is only 4 hours, he charges 10 hours for the job, given other shops do it for 10 hours?

Conclusion: I strongly believe the above cases are all "Rip-off". Only unethical mechanics do this. It's not smart or whatever. Those mechanics gotta know people sweat to earn the money to pay for repair; of course that those mechanics sweat, too. But an honest and ethical mechanic or any other professional only charges for his truth work, and not cheat their customers. He can raise his charge based on hour or product, but not to cheat the unearned or unneccessary works. If the customer agrees to pay those charges with his high quality work, otherwise, the customer can have options. This is real honest mechanic with real quality.

I've been there and done that. I also have relatives as mechanics. And myself is a current non-licensed mechanic but used to work on cars for people part-time when I had several certificates. I'm not strange with honest and unhonest mechanics so the best thing that I'd do is to shop around and have a receipt when the job is done. Also, talk to the mechanic first to see if he really knows about car or he's just bluffing about general things.

 

[V8TOY]

All right, most of the defenses for the mechanics are good. And there're many honest mechanics are out there. But let me ask you a question. What if the mechanic knows exactly the problem can be repaired for let's say $500; however, he went on and charged $1500 for other problems that need not to be fixed? Also, what if the total time he spent on fixing the problems is only 4 hours, he charges 10 hours for the job, given other shops do it for 10 hours?

Conclusion: I strongly believe the above cases are all "Rip-off". Only unethical mechanics do this. It's not smart or whatever. Those mechanics gotta know people sweat to earn the money to pay for repair; of course that those mechanics sweat, too. But an honest and ethical mechanic or any other professional only charges for his truth work, and not cheat their customers. He can raise his charge based on hour or product, but not to cheat the unearned or unneccessary works. If the customer agrees to pay those charges with his high quality work, otherwise, the customer can have options. This is real honest mechanic with real quality.

I've been there and done that. I also have relatives as mechanics. And myself is a current non-licensed mechanic but used to work on cars for people part-time when I had several certificates. I'm not strange with honest and unhonest mechanics so the best thing that I'd do is to shop around and have a receipt when the job is done. Also, talk to the mechanic first to see if he really knows about car or he's just bluffing about general things.

Damn straight.. you got it to the last point.

 

[jibby]

Well said indeed!!!!!

 

[2UZTT]

My boss and I get locals everyday asking us to 'diagnose' a small problem. Sometime that problem is hidden until there is load, or other factor. So we throw them on dynomometer and diagnose, repair etc. A lot of repair shops dont use dyno for diagnose also. 95% they just leave car stationary and test, and turn on, drive around block etc. Repair on the dyno is much easier for a shop IMHO. You can pin point problem faster, lots of data you can see, voltmeter etc. Shows all sensors, all readings at all RPMs. Being a fabrication shop, we really dont have time to diagnose and repair cars. But damnit they are all turbo cars. And a lot of the time we feel sorry for the owner for bad experiences at other shops.

 

[Pro]

come on jibby,,
you fill in the blanks.

please don't.

if you want to start another thread - then by all means please do.

this thread is to stay on topic.

thanks. :veryhappy