Thank you! All of the info is invaluable and I already feel better prepared for next time. I will def. use the “Show Me” response in the future, and ask to compare to “normal”. While I did have the brakes pads replaced and the car re-aligned, I feel better educated about the mechanics. I even asked for the old pads to show them to friends who can explain why they needed replaced so I can become more knowledgeable. The dealer said the car needed to be re-aligned because the tires were wearing abnormally. If I were to check the tires, where should I look for the abnormalities? Again, thanks to everyone for your feedback!
Having them return th eold parts is a very smart idea. I do this myself, and generally recommend it. With parts that are rebuildable, there’ll typically be a “core charge” that you’d have to pay to keep them, but you canm still ask that they show them to you before returning them for rebuild.
Tire wear abnormalities show up in the tread wear. I’ve attached a chart to illustrate the idea.
http://www.procarcare.com/includes/content/resourcecenter/encyclopedia/ch25/25readtirewear.html
The tread on a tire is the same all the way around and from one side to the other.
What you’re looking for is the appearence of the tread.
Is it different on one side than the other ? more worn out vs less ?
If it’s different in the middle that’s an air pressure solution, different on one side is alignment.
Think about the wear on the soles of people’s shoes. by looking at the sole wear you can tell how someone walks. If they drag a heel or step slightly to one side it shows.
The tires show wear in the same way and after some miles the wear pattern tells a tech something about the alignment, pressure, and balance of the tires.
As well as being often an indicator that it’s time to look at the suspension components. Worn out struts, various joints, and other problems often show up first on the tire wear patterns. Although these things affect handling, they develop so gradually that the driver often doesn’t notice until the tires wear badly.
Asking for the old parts is good. If they ask why you want them, you can tell them that your 14 year old nephew is interested in cars. For all they know, he might discover that they gave you someone else’s parts from another kind of car to make you happy so they had better give you your old parts. Regarding a core charge if they want one, ask if you got new parts or rebuilt parts. If they gave you new parts, why were you not offered the option of rebuilt parts at a lower price and why a core charge if they are using new parts? If they quietly gave you rebuilt and not new parts and a core charge might be valid, you might want to know why were you not informed that you got rebuilt parts?
I can’t tolerate crooked, stupid, incompetetent or costly but good car mechanics so that does not leave me much except the DIY option for most car repair and maintenance work.
I can't tolerate crooked, stupid, incompetetent or costly but good car mechanics so that does not leave me much except the DIY option for most car repair and maintenance work.x 10000! Totally agree.
One good way is simply to listen to Car Talk every week. Although the show is geared to entertainment more than the nuts and bolts of car repair, you can still learn a lot about how a car works and what symptoms result when this or that part isn’t working. I’m assuming you don’t actually want to work on your car yourself. That’s completely reasonable. Working on cars is physically demanding and potentially dangerous work. Most people are better off letting a mechanic do it. If you’d like a basic understand to help w/a conversation with your mechanic, I think the Popular Mechanics Car Repair books is pretty good.
Assuming you don’t want to put on overalls and get all covered in grease and grime and busted knuckles, what you are really asking is: How do I find a good mechanic?
I think the best way is to ask everybody you know – coworkers, fellow church goers, friends, relatives, gym friends – just about anybody you have a personal connection to, even if it is ever-so-slight. Ask them for mechanic recommendations. Who do they use? And why do they use these particular mechanics? Then interview a few of the recommendations you got, either during the course of some scheduled maintenance you needed done anyway, or just drive by the shop and if they aren’t busy, simply talk with them. Ask them if the frequently work on your make and model. Be sure to let them know who exactly recommended you to the mechanic. That’s the key.
Why? Because the mechanic who’s been recommended will have an incentive to do good work for you. If you just drive up to a shop unknown, the mechanic might not be that inclined to do his best work, as he’ll likely never see you again even if he takes extra time on your car to make certain it is fixed correctly. The recommended mechanic, however, he’ll understand that if he doesn’t take the time and effort to do excellent work on your car, you’ll tell your friend about your problem, and not only will the mechanic loose you as a customer, he’ll lose your friend as well. It’s powerful medicine.
So what you’re saying is that if you do your own mechanic work, you are your own best friend?
Seriously, well said.
I think it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to learn how to do your own oil changes. It is a good automotive project for noobies. Read a book and watch the utube videos on them. They are simple to do and you know they’re done right.
Who knows, you may get into it and work your way up to more daring things. Before you know it, you’ll be tearing engines apart and putting them back together without having any parts left over.
Working on cars is actually a fun hobby.
I also usually get in excess of 100K miles from a set of brakes. It mostly depends on driving conditions, and driving aggressiveness. For 15+ years I drove in Charlotte, NC around many traffic lights and during rush hour traffic almost daily and still got 100K miles from a set of brakes. I try to keep an eye on traffic and signals well in front of me and let off the gas and coast when I see traffic slowing or or a red light or stop sign coming up, by coasting before I get to the slow down or signal many times I never even touch the brake pedal, because traffic speed has picked back up or the signal has turned green. Some people give it gas till the last second then go directly from the gas pedal to the brake pedal, this will wear them out quickly. Even in my younger days when my driving style was much more aggressive I’d get 60K+ miles from a set.
Ask your friends, ask your relatives, ask your colleagues, ask your neighbors for recommendations to a good local independent garage. There are still some of us who treat people fairly, honestly, and use a common-sense approach to auto service. We’re out there, may be a little hard to find anymore, but we’re out there. And if you’re not interested in venturing under the hood of your car and learning about car maintenance, that’s fine too. That’s what those of us in the industry are for. Do you inspect your roof and chimney regularly or have someone do it? When your icemaker quits, you call a service company, right? Don’t feel bad about not knowing too much about cars.
As for whether you need new brakes at 40,000 miles, I have no reason to doubt that. Seems quite normal for a city-driven daily driver. When I worked in Southern CA, we were instructed to inspect front brakes on any car that had 25,000 miles. About half of those we checked were ready for front brakes. In the Seattle area, getting 60,000 miles is doing well. 100,000? Ridiculous.
Ask for the reasoning for needing an alignment. If they’re recommending it, there might be some evidence, such as irregular tire wear or steering pull. Alignment can be good one day and bad the next. Just depends on how many potholes you hit. 
Modern brakes do not last as long as the one’s of yesteryear IMHO. You get much shorter stopping distances with modern stuff and powerful braking but sacrifice the longevity. I did manage 90k out of 95 Civic brakes on front and rears never changed over 200k miles in 9 years. The brakes were just plain awful though compared to my previous GTI and post Subaru WRX.
Personally I think its a much better direction in automobiles given the incredible safety benefits.
There are still some of us who treat people fairly, honestly, and use a common-sense approach to auto service. We're out there, may be a little hard to find anymore, but we're out there.
@asemaster
Definitely true, and well said!
There are honest mechanics out there like @asemaster states even sometimes dealerships(my old service advisor at Honda). The key thing is ask around or check Yelp or google reviews. Generally chain stores are really bad in my experience as I believe both service advisor and/or mechanics are on commission which does not bode well.
A good mechanic will explain things clearly and need to perform or not and why. No need to know minutia about cars.
Fordman, she owns a Corolla, she could very well need new front brake pads. My daughter has a Corolla, drives in the city, and hers only last about 45k miles. She used to get 60k under the same conditions with her Ford Aspire.
I agree that 100k+ is entirely doable. My old 90 Dodge Colt went 140k on its original brakes and my Saturn went 139k on its original brakes. But the Nissan Pickup I have only gets me about 70k. The pads on the truck are smaller than the pads on either the Colt or Saturn, yet the truck outweighs them by about 600 lbs. It seems to have about the same stopping power though.
I should add that I don’t do much city driving though.