OK.. long story short.. I had a 92 Accord EX.. went in for routine maint at about 85K, timing belt, etc.. Ran perfect going in. $800 worth of preventative maint later, my wife drives it home. Upon arriving, she tells me the "engine" light is flickering. I go back, they say the alt is shot. I complain it never even TWINKLED before they had it. They give me BS about 85K alternator, no surprise it is failed, sorry about the coincidence it failed while they had it. They claim the mechanic never was near the alternator. New Alt was $400. I let them fix it. As I was checking out, paying a $1200 bill on a PERFECTLY running car.. I got loud in the service area.. told them to "TAKE MY FRICKING NAME OFF THE MAILING LIST CAUSE EVERY FRICKIN SERVICE REMINDER I GET IN THE MAIL WILL REMIND ME OF THE 1200 DOLLAR FRICKING I GOT ON A PERFECT RUNNING CAR".. The service rep wanted to crawl under the counter, and then he gulped and said he would take the alternator off the bill. I calmed down as he mumbled under his breath about how POWER WASHING THE ENGINE MAY HAVE AFFECTED THE ALTERNATOR!.. NO ****! I was furious all over again, as far as I was concerned they admitted how they screwed my alt.. and I had to go thru a whole bunch of BS to get them to admit it. Anyway, folks who don't know why/how alternators could be sensitive to water would just pay the bill and take it up the ****..

Nowadays, the dealers only do the diagnostics or grubby work I don't want to do, but I use the service reps as resources to call and ask about common problems. They can be extremely helpful in some situations, they've seen it all and properly diagnosed 90% of it...

 

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by 928FIXER:
<strong>I only have one question to ask to start out....Did this shop charge a diaganosis fee?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">no, they did not charge for diagnosis - they advertise free estimates, as do most.

update - as expected, the owner backed the mechanic and his diagnosis... at first. The best he could muster after 20 minutes on the phone and a 10 minute visit to his shop was "sorry".

I then provoked the situation by asking how much of his business he would estimate is legitimate. He repeatedly made mention how "personally" he took my remarks and insinuations. I then tried to compare my situation to one that he may be able to better relate:

"What if I were to troubleshoot one of your computers and report the monitor needed to replaced, when in fact it simply was not turned on."

He gets it - he just doesn't care. A lose-lose situation, unfortunately.

Skip

 

I had a close call last summer. A bit over a week before a Mid-Ohio DE, I take my 951 to Euclid Foreign Motors on the east side of Cleveland to check my rear wheel bearing. I had been getting some bearing like grumbling, and wanted it taken care of before getting on the track. Euclid Foreign has a decent reputation with German cars and there are only a couple of minutes away and very reasonable priced. I usually go to Steinels, which is a top notch Porsche only mechanic, but they are about 25 minutes away, and hard to get into so I cheated a bit and went to Euclid Foreign. I told them what I thought, said my tires are pretty cupped but that it seems worse than tire noise and wanted it checked out – no problem

Well the owner calls me on Saturday to tell they put the car on a lift and noise is coming from the tranny. He says its shot and needs rebuilt, and that he doesn't rebuild Porsche tranny's. So I call Steinel’s in a panic and he says he has a nice used '86 tranny that he'd sell me for $1,000, but that he doesn't have time to install it before the DE next weekend. I am scheduled to leave for CA for work for the week and won't be able to do it myself, so I call Euclid Foreign and thankfully they say the also have no time. I call Eric Steinel back and grovel - he feels bad for me and says he'll fit it in before the weekend. So I take the car to Eric, and he calls me a day later when I'm in CA and tells me that although he'd love to sell me the tranny there's absolutely nothing wrong with mine - WTF. He tells me that 944 trannies make all kinds of noise when turning the wheels when the car is up on the lift and the guy at Euclid must not be too experienced with 944's - he was very diplomatic. It turned out that it was just bad tire noise from my cupped tires - Potenza RE730's after several track events.

So I dodged a major bullet. Although as anyone who's taken their car to Steinals knows, he always finds issues that need to be taken car of, so I still ended up $600 poorer, but it was a heck of a lot better than buying a tranny and paying to have it put on. Also my tranny has LSD and the new-to-me didn’t have LSD. So because of this guys incompetence I was almost milked out $1500 - $2000 and my LSD. The only thing that saved me was the incompetent guy happened to be too busy.

So after that, and the having Mueller Tire gouge the living S**t out of my rim trying to mount a new tire, I have vowed that only Steinels and myself touch my car period - no exceptions. Buyer beware.

 

I love stories like that. Wife has a Isuzu Trooper and the muffler was rattling. It has a stainless steal exhaust and shouldn't rust this quickly. Took it to a shop I've done business with for over 8 years, the theif qouted me over $200 for an entire system. I then took it to another shop, just to see if they were honest, the other shop said a spot weld on the pipe exiting the actual muffler went lose. He spot welded it for $5. He said, if I were you I wouldn't go back to that shop you just came from... they saw you coming.