Trust that gut if the quote does not seem right!
I am a car girl who raised by her truckdriver father and if I wanted to spend time with my dad on the weekends, I spent the time in his garage. That man always was repairing something and although he passed away before all the computer technology was put into our everyday vehicles, I have a pretty good understanding when a mechanic or service advisor presents a situation. I have spent most of the past decade in the car industry and the shop that I have to go for my lifetime engine warranty knows that. I have been going to this shop for the past ten years and the first six years, I felt that they were honest.
I recommended others to this garage and knew deep down that I was not being taken advantage of. In the height of the pandemic, this garage was purchased by a popular company that has strongholds in the oil industry as well as in IndyCar and NASCAR. While they grandfathered my warranty during the transition, their prices increased as expected with that type of change of ownership. The first first red flag flew when their service manager left as most immediately and each time I went in after that, attempts were made to upsell as one in the car industry would expect. First it was the brakes each time and amazing it was never the same set of brakes as one pair of brakes magically grew in measurement over a few months. Then it was forty thousand mile recommended tune up which I had them do the first time, but declined it when they offered it again at the next oil change. Keep in mind, I put about five thousand miles on my SUV each year and the oil change is required every four months to the equivalent of 1,500 miles each visit based on my usage. I also keep a folder with each repair order done on the vehicle over the years.
While the shop kept throwing upcharges in my direction, they were a lighter on my husband who is not very car savvy at all. During one state inspection they told him his control arm bushings were bad right after he had a recall repair completed for his control arms to be replaced. Normally with his car having 193,000 miles on his sedan, we would have not questioned a suggested repair as much, but even his were becoming a little too extreme. So when I went in last week for my required oil change, my guard was already up, but little did I expect the dollar amount that the upsell would be.
Forty five minutes into my oil change, the service advisor came out and stated that the control arm bushings were in horrible shape. I had not felt any issues with the feel of the vehicle or any difficulty with the steering. I asked them for pictures and they said there was none to look at, but were very prompt with giving me a quote that soared into the thousands for the bushings with an alignment. My gut was absolutely screaming that the amount was wrong, horribly bad. I asked if I could drive the car home and after the service advisor gesturing thumbs up, I paid for the oil change and he proceeded to schedule an appointment for the following Saturday. Not only was I unhappy about what went down, the last thing I was going to do was going back the following week without a second opinion.
I spoke with someone I trusted in a highly reputable repair facility and they put my vehicle on the lift to show me what was going on. The mechanic showed me the bushings and while they were looking older, the two questionable parts were not in immediate danger of failing. The quote I was given for the same work was less than half the price and when the second repair facility saw the paper quote from the first shop, they were appalled by the price that they had seen. The first shop was charging more than it would have cost to replace both control arms along with the bushings. Although failure was not likely anytime soon, I elected to lean towards the proactive side and decided to have them replaced now. I cancelled the appointment with the first shop and thought that it would be the end of the episode, but it was not.
I received a call this Saturday morning from the service advisor asking where I was. I explained to him that I cancelled my appointment earlier in the week and had received an email confirmation that the appointment was being removed off the schedule and his response was that he had not checked his calendar. Although we are on first name basis when I am there, we certainly did not exchange personal phone numbers. The service advisor would have had to log into the computer system to find my phone number or had printed out a schedule at some point on Monday as the appointment was cancelled earlier in the week. Then he stated that he was going to reschedule the appointment and I simply said no. I was not about to pushed into a service that I could get done a lot cheaper at a reputable shop.
In all likelihood, I will still have to go to this shop for the oil changes, but otherwise I won’t be falling into their upsell trap unless I know I need something like a filter. If something tells you that a quote is not right, get a second opinion!
