Ceg'er Exemplified vs. crooked repair shop

[abyssius]

The repair shop I deal with in NY i completely honest, but it's one of those shops that most people would never take a car to........dirty, dead cars out in the lot, old equipment (in the bays, you don't see the $25K worth of diagnostic tools out back)........

But the line of mustangs and old corvettes that get worked on in that shop speak volumes.

These are the kind of mechanics I grew up with. I worked for one for about 10 years after graduating high school in the seventies. Unfortunately, with OBDII 'big brother' looking over your shoulder a new repair industry has appeared. Because the shop discussed in this thread has to buy all the 'fancy diagnostic equipment' they are driven by the need to exploit dollars from everyone who crosses their doors. I can understand that. If they had charged me $500.00 or even $600.00 to pull my lower intake and replace the 'o-rings', I would have been fine with that. DO the job right!

Instead, they squirt a bit of RTV on the problem, and charge me $400.00 to protect their bottom line. They probably looked up the man-hours to do the job properly, found a way to do it in a few minutes by bending up my accelerator bracket, then billed me for the legitimate man-hours. A quick $400.00 bucks made.

Ironically, if the 'fix' had worked and I got my inspection sticker, they would have never heard from me again.

 

[gone postal]

These guys have all the OBD diagnosis crap, but they don't spend a hell of a lot of time cleaning the shop.

They also don't charge a hell of a lot of labor. they charge what it actually took them, they don't flat rate crap........unless you're a customer who deserves it. :laugh:

 

[abyssius]

These guys have all the OBD diagnosis crap, but they don't spend a hell of a lot of time cleaning the shop.

They also don't charge a hell of a lot of labor. they charge what it actually took them, they don't flat rate crap........unless you're a customer who deserves it. :laugh:

Everyone I speak to always knows a 'honest' repair shop that "treats them right". I don't doubt this, but most often these shops don't extend this "honesty" to everyone that walks through their door. If a shop's "honesty" is selectively applied, then in my book they're really no different than the rest. I'm sure that the shop I dealt with probably has a cadre of customers they treat fairly. Unfortunately, fairness doen't often add up to profitability. This is one of the reasons I decided as a young man to pursue a different profession.

I repair computers, servers, switches, routers, networks, etc. professionally - mostly for commercial customers. It's unimaginable in my profession that a customer would be charged for an 'unsuccessful' repair, yet when I mentioned this to this shop manager, his view was they 'invested' the labor and had to be paid for it. Amazingly, I think he honestly believed this as being justifiable.

I don't have a problem paying for diagnostic services, in my profession its called 'consultation'. However, I couldn't charge a customer for repairing a server and then return it to the customer with the problem still existing and expect to be paid anyway. Yet, this seems to be the attitude in many current auto repair shops. In contrast, I've spent a week trying to figure out a network problem, I wasn't able to resolve. I simply told the customer the problem ''was above my pay grade" and recommended they try another company. The problem with my car was simply above their "pay grade", but they wanted to be paid anyway..

 

[gone postal]

This garage extends the honesty to everyone, unless you prove you don't deserve it.

I moved to the area I live in now from another state, and when I needed a repair on a vehicle this shop was reccomended by several people.

New customer, with a vaccum leak I couldn't track down.....perfect scenario if they were going to screw someone.

They didn't, they charged me for 15 minutes of diagnostic work, the part, and 15 minutes of labor.

There ARE honest shops.

The selective flat rate charges I refer to are for people who give them a hard time, drag ass on payment, argue with them about the bill (they charge low labor rates, and until you really piss them off they shortchange themselves on hours), etc........in other words, problem customers who deserve problem treatment.

 

[abyssius]

This garage extends the honesty to everyone, unless you prove you don't deserve it.

I moved to the area I live in now from another state, and when I needed a repair on a vehicle this shop was reccomended by several people.

New customer, with a vaccum leak I couldn't track down.....perfect scenario if they were going to screw someone.

They didn't, they charged me for 15 minutes of diagnostic work, the part, and 15 minutes of labor.

There ARE honest shops.

The selective flat rate charges I refer to are for people who give them a hard time, drag ass on payment, argue with them about the bill (they charge low labor rates, and until you really piss them off they shortchange themselves on hours), etc........in other words, problem customers who deserve problem treatment.

gone postal,

I've spent many years in customer service with several different companies and I've never encountered a policy of treating customers or billing customers differently because of their 'attitudes' or 'argumentative' nature.

In the Information Technology business, just as in Auto Repair, you run into 'hard-asses', 'hostile' and 'ignorant' clients also. If you get stuck with a 'bad' customer, It is simply unethical to be punitive with your billing. etc. The best thing is to try to avoid accepting problem clients - and keep all your actions 'above-board' if you encounter a client dispute situation.
If it comes to litigation to settle a bill, etc. - the court has to be convinced that your company acted completely 'above board' at all times or the customer will always win.

I've found that well-organized businesses have policies in place to counter all possible customer relations problems, including all the 'problems' you listed. Imagine if Verizon or AT&T or your utility company billed customers differently based on the customer's attitudes? They'd be out of business before long, because their competition would snap up their customer base.
This should apply to the auto repair industry also. Unfortunately, IMHO, the autor repair industry may be the most inherently dishonest service industry there is.

In my case, I had a dispute with a repair shop, but I never once showed hostility, or refused to pay them (dispite my gut instinct to do so). Because of this, I'm confident I'll eventually prevail.

 

[gone postal]

The policy of treating customers in a negative manner is normally done for one reason........to get them off of the customer list.

I know people in various lines of work (IT, auto repair, contracting) who all do the same thing. It's not dishonest, and normally the people who are getting billed under "special" conditions know it up front.

In the case of auto repair, and this garage in particular, their car is normally there because the other shops in the area either can't or won't fix it.