One time a friend asked me for advice for how to handle a problem w/his teenager. I started to offer some up, then decided …“hey, I’m not the parent of a teenager and know nothing about this topic at all” … lol … So with that – and understand I’ve never been an auto mechanic – but if I were one, I wouldn’t use replacement parts from the customer. I’d only use parts I source myself. Why? B/c I have no control over the quality of those parts and if the parts didn’t work I might get stuck with un-billed time to remove then re-replace them with the proper quality part. Or, worse even, I might be held responsible for making an unsafe repair. A mechanic can’t work away his time for free. Not and stay in business. And a mechanic certainly can’t make a living while also in court defending themselves against unsafe practices. No, not gonna use customer sourced parts.
I do concur w/the OP that if she asked for the used parts to be returned to her, that request should have been fulfilled. If there’s extra work involved to do that, the customer should be informed they’ll be billed for that work also.
I grew up under the hoods of many cars, as my Dad taught my 4 brothers to fix cars (very well) & I had to be their helper. I never stopped being a mechanic’s helper, but had to move to a different state, leaving my good mechanic friends behind, & the mechanics here don’t seem to want to help a woman who actually knows what is wrong with her car. They seem to feel intimidated, but I don’t know why. I make it easy for them by diagnosing the car & bringing the parts; the reason is because it is a certain type of car with hard to get parts. So to save them time, I order the parts & bring them in to save the time for them.
I had found a very good old school mechanic who would rather I bring the parts, but he had passed away, so I was stuck looking for a new one.
Before I had the car sent to the garage I called them & asked if I could send the parts, & if they would please save the old parts for me, to which I was told yes & yes.
Whenever I called to see if the parts were good, I reminded them I needed the old parts back.
When I went to pay on the car & was told they didn’t save the parts, then lied that I ever asked them to, I called my brother who just retired as a mechanic in another state. He said it was rude behavior on their part to act like that, & not even care that I was upset that they didn’t save the parts. He told me to find the state law, of which I could not, so I decided that maybe if I wrote to your site, someone would know if there is a general law mechanics go by about saving parts?
After contacting everyone in this state who should know about laws, and was told by them there is no such law, my brother told me to contact Edmunds.com. Sure enough, they were very kind, unlike some of your comments/directives to me about how no mechanic should fix any of my cars. They actually researched it for me & found it for me (which I kind of thought you guys would be able to do for me…),
But, as things go in this state full of snakes, the mechanic shop which is rated a AAA/NAPA garage, doesnt’ give a s*** about the law & now is adding extra monies onto my bill.
I explicitly left the car there since my brother told me it’s better to find out the law first, then take it in to them, then offer to bargain with them since the parts that failed after only 2 years of installation should be warrented, I needed them to prove to the manufacturer that they failed, but since they threw the parts away, I now can’t prove anything to the manufacturer.
They are so rude, they don’t care that my entire family is mechanics & that I did this in order to find some relief for their disregard of my requests to save the parts.
What can I say? I have always lived by my word & expect others to do so…
Ok, it’s fine that you ask for the parts because you are a guy. Let a woman ask for the parts & she only gets grief…it’s surprising how sexist some people are still…
Regarding saving old parts for the customer; sometimes you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
I’ve seen several instances of producing the old used parts for the customer and they start with the interrogation. How do I REALLY know this came off of my car?
Can’t help you with that as thermostats and wheel bearings don’t have serial numbers…
Reminds me. I had about 20,000 miles on my 74 Olds and the transmission was acting up. It would slip out of gear on start up if you weren’t gentle. At any rate the dealer fixed it under warranty but when I got in the car, the old part was in a plastic bag on the floor. Guess they thought I cared. I never asked for it and didn’t cost me a dime anyway. Thing is though I could never figure out what it was. It was about a 10" plastic type disc about 2" thick and it was cracked in two. Didn’t look like anything that came out of the transmission. Maybe it was a TC part or something. Still curious after 40 some years.
