For me as a manager that must look after the interests of my employer I would have to look over this entire situation (including what overall condition the car is in and if the customer could be looking for someone with deeper pockets than the shop she did not go back to, before I commit my company to this repair. Something made the Dealer price this job like they did, you guys say “simple greed” I am not so quickly convinced that this was the reason for both the pricing and the way the entire repair was handled.
There’s a line between capitalism and taking gross advantage of a customer’s ignorance, with a dose of price gouging thrown in.
Now that we know which side of the line you’re on, please let us know where you work so we can take our business elsewhere. That’s capitalism at its best.
Every proposed repair that my local dealer has ever recommended (e.g. $400 to replace a “leaking” oil pan gasket which was not leaking a drop) has been unnecessary.
Yeah, something made them price the job like they did, and it wasn’t their concern for the customer.
I posed a question twice to oldschool and his refusal to answer that question only means that he doesn’t like the answer he knows that he will have to give.
The OP was more than likely the victim of mechanical incompetence but oldschool is advocating outright fraud so as to pad the bottom line.
I don’t normally get pxxxxxx off about various threads even with people who strongly disagree with me but when it comes to putting the royal screws to someone to fatten your wallet I do get hot.
The vast majority of techs I’ve worked with have been competent and honest. The few that weren’t seem to have the same traits that oldschool seems to favor.
I really hope this was the result of incompetence rather than an outright screw job. Even shooting the customer an outrageous estimate (or three, in this case) can be a form of incompetence, in that they don’t know how to deal with something like this or simply don’t want to deal with something like this. I hate the thought that this could have been a case of the shop seeing the OP coming from a mile away and took full advantage to get as much money out of her as possible. I suppose this could have been the case, though.
I worked for a chain muffler and brake shop a number of years ago. While I was there, the owner lost her franchise and the shop was consequently taken over by corporate. The district manager had that very mindset. He basically believed that while a customer had their car in the shop, we (he, anyway) needed to sell as much work to the customer and get as much money out of them as possible because they may never be back again. I personally prefer to look to the future, and realize that, while the bottom line may not be as attractive today if you do a customer right rather than rape them out of as much money as possible, that customer will continue to come back every time they need repairs or maintenance done, you will develop a good reputation, and in the long run make more money that way. I guess I don’t have much of a managerial mindset.
I’ve lost a lot of money over the years by trying to be honest and maintain a high ethical standard. There’s been times when the cash flow was way down due to work load, etc. and opportunities presented themselves in which I could have easily cashed in for a month’s pay in 30 minutes time. I will not do this.
I’d rather be broke and honest than be a customer gouging weasel.
Wish every shop owner had your ethics.
Sorry if I get so volatile over issues like this. It’s one thing to have a few hiccups along the mechanical way due to a difficult diagnosis but when sheer incompetence runs up a big bill I do get irate.
When deliberate fraud is involved it stews me even more.
I can’t even start to count the number of vehicles I’ve repaired where the owners had spent hundreds and even thousands of dollars chasing a problem when 5 minutes of careful thought before raising the hood may have revealed the answer to be a 5 minute fix.
An example would be the elderly man who bought a low miles, older Ford truck which quit him 3 times in 2 weeks. First tow was a few hundred bucks of guessing. Second tow was another couple hundred of guessing. Third tow was a real hoot because the third time was the point at which the shop diagnosed the problem as “intermittently failing rocker arms”. Please. The possibility of one failing is near zero much less all of them on an “erratic” basis. Over a 1000 bucks later later he had a new valve train followed by the truck quitting again the very next day.
At this point the dealer who sold the guy the truck had it towed 85 miles to me after I told the dealer that the shop was apparently staffed by idiots.
The next day the truck was unloaded and it took me less than 3 minutes to figure it out. The problem was a glass fuel pump fuse in which the end cap solder had melted slightly.
Threw a new fuse in and problem solved. Didn’t even charge the stunned customer for the fuse. Heck, he tried to get me to pack up and move out west.
There’s a number of stories like this so you can see why I seethe over it. In the example above they were not card carrying crooks: just clueless imbeciles depleting someone else’s bank account.
I lose monetarily, the buffoons cash in, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror with a clear conscience.
Don’t apologize for getting upset over outrages like this. More people should get upset.
I was brought up around people who were honest, and if they didn’t know the answer to a question, they said so and didn’t try to BS. It was a shock when I grew up and met the real world where incompetent people told blatant lies to my face.
Unfortunately incompetent or dishonest mechanics are able to get away with this kind of garbage because so few people are equipped with enough knowledge to keep them honest.
You’ll get your mechanic’s wings in heaven. (Hopefully not too soon, though!) 
OK4450 is grated by the Dealers reported(not confirmed) behaviour,funny thing is ,that is not the OP’s question. He/she wants to know if he/she should report the problem to the shop that worked on the car the last time before the plug shot out, that’s the question that is being asked.
No, this is capitalism at its worst.
That question was answered way back in this thread. The answer was “yes.”
Not quite. What I’m grated about is:
The fact that the independent shop may not have been the ones to damage the threads as the OP states the Toyota dealer had done all prior service.
The fact the Toyota dealer gave 3 bone-headed, 4 figure options which could have been solved for 50 bucks.
The fact that you are codoning those bone-headed recommendations.
The fact that not only do you condoone the above but apparently feel the OP got what they deserved for not getting a second opinion.
That’s what grates me.
Should I ask you the question again (4th try) about what you would do if this were your wife in that predicament. Take a shot at the answer.
You might as well ask what charity I would donate most of my 100 million lottery winnings to as niether of the scenarios are going to happen.
Now what would I do if someone I knew didn’t call me up before they took such a deal, really nothing I could do as the deed would have already been done. What I am getting at is just like there was something going on that made the Dealer price like thay did there was something going on that made the OP take the deal.
No one seems to get it that I said I would like to look over more of the particulars with this deal(inspect the damage,inspect the vehicle, give both the OP and the Dealer the once over) and try and see why it went they way it did because there is a reason, there is a reason why the Dealer made the offer they did and there is a reason why the OP took it and there is a reason why the OP did not go back to the installing shop before she took the Dealers deal. I realy think that knowing more here could explain why things went like they did.
I have yet to work at a shop that did not have a 90 day warranty on mechanical repairs. Parts are usually one year.
Why didn’t the OP call the shop that did the tune up and tell them"a spark plug fell out of the motor"? whats so hard about that?
I can’t believe these prices.What part of the USA charges such high prices? If it was a shop I managed, I would have towed the vehicle back to the shop, fixed it, and then asked the mechanic for an explanation.
I recently witnessed a mechanic paying a shop owner $1200 to repair a car he totally screwed up. Another mechanic in the shop ended up fixing the car. The owner told the mechanic to either fix the car, pay for it, or pack up his tools.
Most shop owners do not know if a customer is satisfied unless they get feedback.If a customer just takes their vehicle to another shop, the original shop owner has no idea exactly how his mechanics perform.
Forcing an employe to make good fully on his screwups puts the employee in a subcontractor catagory. If I was exposed to potentialy having to pay full price for a mistake I would be forced to charge the shop owner more for my services so as that I could cover these potential mistakes. Do you want an employee or do you want to sub-contract your work out? This is a bit off the path of the situation we have here and I do agree with the idea of what would have been so hard for the OP to take the car back after the plug incident. What would have been so hard for the OP to say “let me check with the other shop” when she was told the Dealers viewpoint is that a new motor is needed? This is what a normal person with a normal grasp on things legally, technically,and financialy would have done, nothing needing any special training to do. Where is the personal responsibility part of accepting the consequences of you own actions here? We have no problem with a mechanic that must pay full price for his mistake but we let the OP off the hook for any responsibility in making a bad decision
All mechanics are sub contractors in this particular shop. The pay is 50/50, but the mechanics must do it all. Talk to customers, call or run for parts, make the estimate ,complete the job and make up the final bill.
1099 , with no benefits.No customer data base or records were kept.
The mechanic could have repaired the mistake on the weekend, but chose not to.
Why would anyone take their car there? Is there someone who negotiates disputes? I can see many issues that I as a customer would object to in regards to taking my car there. Does each mechanic carry insurance to repair his mistakes or is there an overall “chief” at the place? Are mechanics required to put some money in escrow to cover mistakes? I just don’t see how this could work. Does each mechanic have the ability to put leins on cars that customers do not pay for? I bet things could really get out of hand with disputes between,customers,mechanics,facility owner.
First off, I’m going to apologize for getting out of line. I’m NOT sorry for the reasons behind it but I do apologize for losing my temper.
Consider the following. The manual states the first plug change on that car at 120k miles and odds are by then those plugs are frozen by then and may have caused thread damage when removed by the dealer.
At this point oldschool, I think I’ve heard enough from your posts and reading between the lines to know exactly how you’ve rolled in the past. Ethics are apparently not a strong point with you and if I ever shook your hand my first act afterwards would be to start counting my fingers and opposable thumbs to make sure they’re all still present; along with rolling up my sleeve and making sure my watch was still in place.
Personally, I think it’s absolutely beyond disgusting that you fault the OP on this matter and think they should suffer the “consequences of their own action”. You’re one sick puppy.
That would require her to know that it was a bad deal. Refer to OK4450’s analogy about the heating unit.