Do you watch when your car gets worked on?

I change the oil in both of our cars. :)

He picks up the pieces when I break a car. For an oil change & fluid check, I'm in and out in 30 minutes and $30 with the sure knowledge that I'm not getting ripped off.

And yes, I watch. I even help.

Jiffy lube upsold me transmission fluid change. They caused a slow leak on the fitting they pulled a hose off to change. Then denied responsibility. I had to go somewhere else to get a new fitting on to get this fixed. I'd stick with transmission specialists or your own mechanic, not a drive-by place like this..

They also tried to upsell me on differential change. Ez lube put wrong fluid in friend's jeep and caused him a little later to spend $1400 to replace rear differential.

If you can avoid the upsells they are handy. I've had one place forget to put trans dipstick back in and had to drive back to get it.

Another place Econo-lube put the oil filter on loosely. Soon as I started car the filter and all the oil came out. I'd brought in my own synthetic (these places have it now) so had to buy another $20 of it :(

Another overfilled my small car's oil. most places do this regularly because oil level is lower warm. is BAD for your car, not always terribly so..

They tell you not to overfill for a reason. It immediately broke the oil pressure sender. Of course they deny responsibility for it.

On my van, which had an 'open sump' boxer engine, overfilling alot results in oil seeping into combustion chamber thru the top, so thick white smoke comes out the back. And if not quite so much then the smoke comes out only when driving up a steep hill. Not super bad but probably gunks up something a bit.

It was almost funny last time.. they checked all my fluid levels and gravely told me that the windshield washer fluid was low, all they could find :)

Edited out

I have a local garage...does repairs cheaper per hour...and, they have one of the top certified Kia/Isuzu/Hyundai mechanics in the nation working for them (because he got sick of working and a huge Kia dealer).

Never been screwed by em yet...and, I trust Dave (the mechanic). He is a straight shooter and will tell me an estimate before the shop manager does to give me an idea if it's a fair cost.

I avoid big names...the bigger the operation, the more it becomes about profit and less about service usually.

I've been going to the same family owned mechanic since I was in high school and have always gotten top notch service for a good price.

I used to watch the mechanic work, but their insurance company put a stop to the practice because of the liability of having a customer in the bay.

You may want to check the vid link ;)

I trust my work...

I don't trust Billy Bob who looks like a refugee from deliverance...

I have rebuilt the calipers and the pistons on the brakes, not engine Piston. Reason: It takes too much time... I don't have the patience. I have rebuilt motors at my leisure, but that is 3-6 months of patience. When I have a problem, I need a vehicle fast... that precludes re-building an engine or trannie... I have done it for a 69 Camaro Z-28, Never again... a buddy took it to the drags without my knowledge... He won money and ruined my rebuilt trannie... and my clutches... Clutches only go out in winter I have found...

...I trust the dealer :-( and enjoy the free coffee and magazines they provide in their lounge. God knows what happens to my car. It is a habit I picked from my dad, getting vehicles serviced at the dearlership.

I got the Jiffy lube that I used to go to. One of their techs put a wrong air cleaner in my car. It caused the check engine light to come on two days after. The car was still under warranty so I to it the dealer and they found that the air cleaner was cut to fit. And it was an air filter only used by Jiffy lube and the only record of my visits was to one store.
I took it in and was told to contact the head quarters which I did.
They were surprised that I had the dealer fix my problem because it was a bill for over $300.00 and they had to reimburse me.
Now I find a local shop and watch them.

Edited out.

my bud sends me a "variety" of topics. The wrong one got copied into the wrong place.

Completely accidental as I would never intentionally post porn on TR.

The bad thing is, I don't even have the emails so I have no idea what vid it was that got put up. :0 As soon as it was brought to my attention I cleared the link and saved, THEN I went and got the real link and saved again. Don't want anyone to ever have a reason to doubt my links, ya know?

Here is an exceprt from http://www.becominghuman.org

[b]The hypothetical intermediate form between man and his presumed monkey or ape ancestors. The concept is outdated since evolution is not modeled as a chain or ladder from primitive to modern forms, but rather as a bush with many branches, each stemming from an earlier branch.[/b]

you can now look for complaints.

I have found I now type in a company name + complains and find a lot about that company.

You can tell the difference often between people crying over nothing and people that have had legitimate claims.

The dealer in my home town I wouldn't take my boys bike to get air put in the tires, but the dealer by where I work I would trust with my car.

And of course, dealer will cost you top dollar for even the simplest of things if they aren't covered under warrenty.

In ANY field there are those who abuse it. It's not just Jiffy Lube, major dealerships, small garages and good local town hero mechanics are all known for scans, especially when it comes to transmissions and air conditioning systems.

As a licenced mechanic I've seen it all. I've worked on cars after they have had a supposed $3k work done on them, with no traces to be seen of course.

It's nothing new.

Should you watch a mechanic work on your car?

NO FRIGGIN WAY!

In Canada, it's illegal, asd it breaks workers compensation rules.

Besides that, I could a fudge a repair in front of your eyes anyway, not that I would but I could.

Has a sign in is office:

"Hourly Rates
$40 / hour
$50 / hour if you watch
$60 / hour if you help
$70 / hour if you worked on it first"

I trust the guy because before I bought my used car from him, I smashed the headlight on a parked Subaru and the owner took it to where he bought it and told me to stop in and pay for it. This mechanic checked with the car's owner and then used a headlamp from an old wrecked car in his back lot. He charged me $50 to install a part that would have cost $225 new. He could have made close to the $50 just on his mark-up if he wanted.

my best friend is one #3|| if a mechanic (both small vehicles and presently a Diesel Tech) and on the rare occasion I must take my vehicles to my PAID mechanic (i.e.: my friend doesn't own the type of equipement needed for a particular job or he hasn't the time) then I have BACK-UP to make sure I actually got what I paid for. ;)

I always do my own repairs, As a fitter I think I have the knowledge and the expertese to do the job correctly. Also getting parts at trade and not having to pay labour helps. Ok there are things I get done in a shop, mainly because I cant be bothered getting under, like autotrans servicing. But all other stuff I do myself, and use the net to research the tricky electronic stuff. but there is always light codes to help solve most problems. But my old Lada 4/4 is bulletproof and is easy to maintain. Debs car is diffrent with the mangement systems, but Holdens are nearly bulletproof too. the old 3.8 v6 just keeps going with a basic tune and trans check every year, it has done 250 clicks on the same motor now. With 12 years on it