Every time I take my car in to be repaired at the dealership, my girlfriend tells me I’ve been ripped off. I know nothing about car maintenance, but she grew up around people who did and she’s always telling me I’ve spent too much for this or didn’t need. Yesterday I had a bent tire rod replaced and took the suggested accompanying wheel alignment - $80 for the tire rod replacement and $120 for the alignment. Apparently I was once again screwed. In the past I’ve paid for brakes getting cleaned (she said that’s a scam), spent $200 on a car battery that costs $50 in the shop, etc.
I still stick with the dealership because it seems like the safe thing to do. I figure, why would they rip me off on a $100 repair job if there’s a reasonable chance I’ll buy my next car with them for $20,000? It doesn’t make sense to me.
I always get my car repaired at the dealership nowadays, I’ve had problems with independent shops, and even my dad advises it. They also usually have better guarantees on stuff. The local Honda dealer even gives me free yearly state inspections, so it’s a nice deal.
They can and are all crooks. Find yourself a decent (and honest) mechanic.
Also, if you know nothing about cars, trying educating yourself just a little bit. If nothing else, listen to Car Talk for a few months and you’ll hear about some of the more ridiculous scams that dealers (and dishonest) mechanics pull.
I’m not sure about the tie rod (that sounds about in the range, with labor depending on your car), but $120 for alignment is a rip-off. As is break cleaning (wtf?) and most probably the $200 battery (again, depending on your car and the battery installed, but it does sound high).
I still stick with the dealership because it seems like the safe thing to do. I figure, why would they rip me off on a $100 repair job if there’s a reasonable chance I’ll buy my next car with them for $20,000? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Dealership service departments are not always rip-offs, however the one you’re going to sounds like it is.
I found my last mechanic through AAA. It has worked out and I get a small discount for being a AAA member. Of course I know nothing about cars, so they could be fleecing me, but I’ve been happy with the work.
If your girlfriend knows a lot about car, get her to take your car to the mechanic. Then you will get good care for your car and your girlfriend can’t complain if you get ripped off, which seems to be the main problem. ;)
The dealership would rip you off because they can. However, the same is true of independent mechanics. The difference is that if you can find a good independent mechanic, his work will be universally cheaper than equivalent work at a dealership because the dealership’s ripping off of you is baked into the standardized costs across the organization.
I have a mechanic that I trust. I like it that way. He’s in my general neighborhood and he knows that if he rips me off he lose both my business and my brother’s. Routine maintenance (fluids, mostly) gets done at the oil change outfit because they work on the weekends, when I am able to go to them (if I have to drop my car off at the for real mechanic, I’m either working from home or borrowing a car from somebody).
Also, fun fact, and this has more to do with sales than maintenance, but if you got a hat from your car salesman when you bought your car, you done fucked up son.
Dealerships aren’t crooks, but they are high margin. The same service that was $60 at Firestone was $300 at the dealership. Of course, Firestone won’t pick up my car at my house, give me a nice one as a loaner, give me free cookies, and shine my shoes.
The only thing car dealerships are good for is selling you new cars. After that they should be avoided like the plague.
I bought my Fit in 2010 and quickly realized that I really, really needed the key fob which (at the time) wasn’t standard.
I then made an appointment to bring the car back, have them cut the key on the fob+key combo piece and program the car. On the phone they told me it would cost 100 bucks or something.
When I showed up the guy asked me if I had been given a price quote and I said “yeah, 100 bucks”
“Oh that’s not correct,” he said, "it’s $300. We have to install the receiver in the car.)
We argued for a bit and then I told him to go ahead with it while I yelled and screamed at his scumbag lying cheating management.
It took me three emails and like four phone calls to the management and the guy that had just sold me the car but I finally got them to honor their price.
They claimed that the guy in the service department had looked at the wrong model year parts list.
Which would make sense except that every single Fit EVER MADE already has the key fob electronics already in the car and the only thing you have to do is cut the freaking key and program the car.
Lots of people do it themselves after buying the part online and having their local dealership just do the key cut.
Stories about scummy dealerships are a dime a dozen. Stories about good dealerships are rare. The stereotypes are true.
Yeah, a lot of good advice above. I’ll chime in again with the line that not all dealership service shops are crooks. Some are good, some bad, and it’s a great idea to check around both online reviews and with friends. Dealerships can be handy for numerous reasons, but I find independent mechanics to be a good bit cheaper on average (the advantages that dealerships tend to provide usually cost them money, and that gets passed along to the consumer). In short, your girlfriend is probably right and you should probably get a referral from her friends/family.
There’s a Chrysler dealership near me called Grava, they are notorious crooks. They sold my wife one of those 7 year bumper to bumper warranties that covers a giant list of parts when she bought a car from them (before I met her), and they refused to honor it for anything, ever.
They also charge a $300 “diagnostic fee” to get an error code from the engine to tell you what’s wrong with the car. To get the code you turn the key on and off 3 times and it appears in the odometer. I learned this with a google search.
Aside from not wanting to spend the money on one, threads like these are what make me happy I do not own a car. I know next to nothing about cars, so if some shyster told me I needed a brake cleaning I wouldn’t even blink.
If they had said “We know that all we’re doing is selling you the fob, cutting the key, and then turning the key in the lock three times and clicking a button on the fob and hitting the lock button on the car is easy, but we’re going to charge you $300 anyway” then that would just be “more expensive.”
But telling me something is going to cost $100, then telling me it’s going to cost $300, then lying about why, then lying about the reasons for the first lie is just crooked.
And “some sleazy ones” really understates the problem IMO.
In my experience, both dealerships and independent mechanics can be crooks, or not. We’re lucky enough to currently have both a good mechanic (which we use for our Mustang) and a good dealership (which we use to service our Fit). The dealership’s prices are generally competitive with the mechanic’s (and the mechanic’s prices are good), so it’s not necessarily true that dealers are going to be more expensive. The Honda dealership also does regular service stuff at really good prices–their oil changes are cheaper than Jiffy Lube, for example.
That’s a common scam tactic, quote a low price to pull the customer in then jack it way up when it’s time to pay the bill. Most people are too trusting, scared, or whatever to argue and will just pay it.
It’s also a clear sign that you should never go there again. Any mechanic or dealership that would do that to you even once deserves to be blacklisted. Make sure to tell them on the way out that you are never using them again, and that you plan to spread the word to friends and family.
I like the Ford dealership where I take my truck occasionally, but they are pretty overpriced. However, sometimes they can do things other mechanics can’t seem to.
Example: I have a lifetime alignment from Firestone. When I first bought the used truck I have now, the steering wheel was crooked. That drives me CRAZY. Firestone failed 3 different times to correct it and then told me it wasn’t an alignment problem - that the frame was bent or something.
So I took it to the dealership, and they fixed it - with an alignment.
Firestone’s per-alignment price is about $80, and the dealership charges $120.
Yeah, the Honda dealer here actually posts a board comparing their prices for basic services to the other local service centers (Sears, Jiffy Lube, Pep Boys, etc) and their prices are pretty competitive.
Important lesson on why it’s important to know your mechanic. One of the reasons I drive a Honda Civic is that I know that my mechanic can and does work really well on Hondas in general. Civic, Accent, CR-V, Piston, E - doesn’t matter. Dude knows how this stuff is glued together. When I finally do manage to kill this car to death, the first person I’m going to ask what car I should get is going to be Lou, after which I will shanghai my brother (he spent a LOT of time with car salesman developing dealership management software - that’s also how I know that you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER want to get a hat, and also that you should just ask to talk to the fleet dealer) to go get something that I’ll go in knowing dude can work on.
The special thing for me, though, is that my brother has been using this shop for years - even before I moved to the same town. He already put in the time and research to find a mechanic I can trust and I just rode his wake, as I do with so many other aspects of life. As for how to find that kind of mechanic? No idea.
Yeah, I suspect they use that stuff as a loss leader, doing it for cost or a little bit over on the assumption that if you get into the habit of going there, you’ll probably go there when you need real work done. Which is fine by me. I vowed never to go back to Jiffy Lube anyway, after the second time that they failed to put the correct amount of oil in my Mustang.
