By the way, can you define what you mean by saying the ball joints were still fine
Do you mean they weren’t noisey, and didn’t have any play?
What was your mileage, when the shop tried to sell you ball joints?
The ball joints were thoroughly inspected when I sold it at over 300k miles. The play was minimal and still within spec.
I had about 120k miles on the truck when they tried to sell me new ball joints. If they had a problem at 120k miles they sure as hell wouldn’t have lasted another 200k miles.
In my little corner of the world independent shops that gouge the public just don’t last long. They lack the deep pockets of franchise investors to pay the rent at a highly visible building at a high traffic location and definitely are unable to jump in with the equipment and inventory that likely approaches $200,000. It is the highly visible and welcoming image of franchises that allows them to draw in customers with above average incomes driving relatively late model cars but who have little experience dealing with service businesses. And if the franchise owner makes an effort to stay within some fairly wide bounds they can likely do well.
The worst franchise effort that I have seen close was a transmission specialist shop that came and went in less than 2 years. The owner seemed to want to be an asset to the community and treat the public fairly but his pockets weren’t deep enough and he was personally clueless regarding the operation of automobiles. The result was he hired imcompetent mechanics and his shop manager was desperate enough and crooked enough to rip off the public. The shop closed and the owner went bankrupt. The building has been mostly vacant for more than 5 years. A college education and a family with money to invest in a franchise can result in a great deal of money going up in smoke and a personal reputation being trashed.
The last time I had tires installed on my old pickup (owned by my daughter at that point), it seemed to be taking an awful long time, so I went to check and discovered they were doing and alignment and chassis inspection without even asking… or telling. It was a a Town Fair Tire place, and they’re set up so the customers cannot watch them work. They lost two customers that day forever. Probably more, 'cause I’ve since warned others about this.
I don’t normally recommend patronizing shops that don’t let the customers watch, but they had a good deal going and I wanted to save my daughter some money. Never again.
The closest tire place to my house is STS (Somerset Tire Service).
I used to think that they were reasonably honest (albeit high-priced) until they told a friend of mine that he couldn’t use Michelin Defender tires on his Rav-4, because the Defenders weren’t rated as a truck tire. Instead, they wanted to sell him some discontinued Bridgestones that were never highly-rated even when they were new.
Now, both he and I drive to either Costco or to an indy dealer with a better reputation, even though the drive is a bit further.
Yosemite is right about mechanics who have worked at chain shops not endorsing them. I’ve worked at 3 of these places. The best was a Midas shop. They had been in business a long time & had a genuine customer base. We were always busy day after day so no need to oversell.
The other 2 places were Muffler chain shops. In order to make any kind of decent money, the tech had to 1: oversell & 2: once you got the green light for the work, get it done in a lot less than book time. At one of these places they only had a couple of State Inspection mechanics. This is Pa. Someone without their inspection license would check a car out. Then the manager would say to me, “Hey, this car’s ready for a sticker.”, since I had my license. Completely, egregiously illegal.
Luckily I found another job after a month & left without leaving notice. I came in that morning in my street clothes & told the manager I was leaving since I felt I was at risk working there. He wasn’t even mad! I guess he thought maybe I would go to authorities.
Happy now in an independent shop, simple hourly pay,no need to oversell. Yes!
One time a nearly 30 year old roadster showed up for driveability complaints. I diagnosed and resolved the complaints . . . due to defective aftermarket parts, actually
Anyways, before calling the customer and telling him the car was ready to pick up, the manager wanted to me to present the customer with a laundry list of “needed” repairs
I spent a bit of time underneath the car, driving it, etc. The car was in excellent condition, in and out, in every possible way. It literally needed nothing, and it was clearly impeccably maintained.
I told the manager I’ve got no recommendations for upsells, because the car is in great shape and doesn’t need anything. He didn’t believe me, so he drove it himself, then he had me rack it and looked at it from underneath. He left, shook his head and said “You’re right, there’s nothing to sell here”
I have a friend who was once a mechanic and is still a car guy. He had gotten a new job and was working another job so told his wife to take her car to a quick lube oil change place to have the oil and filter changed when it was due. He simply didn’t have the time to do it himself while working two jobs. This was on a common make/model of car I might add.
She came out with over $400 worth of new filters, wipers, and such that were likely not needed. There were parts listed as being replaced like a cabin air filter that the car didn’t even have, plus he had recently replaced the wipers, engine air filter, and such so he knew they were in fine condition since it hadn’t been driven in extreme conditions. He called them up raising hell and they finally agreed to drop the bill down to $40 when he threatened to report them for fraud. He figured that the new stuff put on probably wasn’t too bad of a deal as this wasn’t much more than the basic oil change and agreed. He did mention that they probably put the cheapest grade of wipers on and that the ones the shop threw in the trash were likely still better.
Whenever this topic pops up, which is fairly often, I like to do a search for this four year+ old thread. It says it all. (I wonder where that last post came from.)
In my experience, a friend has a grandson who is, shall we say, a little slow. Nice young man, about 30, but reads at a 2nd grade level. He has a speech impediment, Ws for Rs and such. I’m sure when he drove his Taurus into the Meineke shop for an oil change, they figured he’d be an easy mark. (BTW, he is a very good and careful driver. I’ve ridden with him a couple of times.) They came after him with a $900 laundry list of things that needed fixed. After paying for the oil change, he drove to see me. I’m the only car guy he knows. Everything on the list was totally unnecessary. Some were expensive, like an oil pan gasket change for $300. It had seeped a bit at some point, and had dust clinging to the residue. They suggested a transmission flush on a tranny that had been overhauled about 5000 miles back. Of course the fluid was still nice and red. To top it off, they had not bothered to change his oil. It was dark, and the oil filter was obviously dirty on the outside. I told him to take it back and ask to talk to the manager. That took care of the oil change problem, but it didn’t do enough to spoil their reputation. Maybe this will help.
That facility I mentioned on page one of the thread posted by MG McAnick is still alive and thriving today. Now, like then, they’re a AAA approved facility.
