I never had the need, but a few minutes ago I searched the Mechanics Files here for places in my zip code and found only one. Actually one that I had used in the past to fix flat tires.
I also noticed 5 stars behind the business name but no names or comments from people. How does a business get their name into the Mechanic Files and how does one know whether or not the “star(s)” are really from satisfied customers?
If someone is registered on cartalk.com with an account, they can submit the name of a mechanic – whether he/she wants to offer feedback on someone who worked on their car, or to submit their own shop. As for the integrity of the ratings, I suppose you don’t know they’re all really from satisfied customers, but the tool has been around a long time and has generated reviews across the years good and bad. Car Talk can’t review everything posted to MF, unfortunately. It’s just another tool for people to use to locate and compare shops, probably one best used in conjunction with word of mouth.
So that “repair” shop which did the total overhaul on that guy’s RV, botched the job,and created new problems . . . might have submitted themselves and given 5 stars . . . ?!
I would hate for somebody to pick that shop, based on the car talk mechanics files
I’m not exactly knocking the website . . . I obviously love it, since I’m here all the time . . . I’m merely suggesting that the inability to verify the accuracy of the mechanics files could cause trouble for some poor customer
There are a couple shops around here in the files but I’ve never used one of them. I’m not so sure I like internet ratings.
I have looked at the reviews for my area many years ago and saw good reviews on a few of the mechanics that I did not have a good experience with.
It is a bit like yelp, or hotel reviews/etc; you need a lot of reviews and even then it is always subject to bias. A hotel that might be clean for me would not be so clean for someone else (in this case my wife!). We can both stay at the same place and the reviews could be different.
I would have liked to see at least a comment to the affect why the shop was good or bad and a userid.