Rev up your engines, today I'm going to talk about ways that mechanics
can rip you off and how you can avoid it in the first place, now I have to admit over
the years dishonest mechanics have actually made me a lot of money, cuz they went to the
dishonest mechanics and said they need $3-4,000 worth of work, then they'd come to me for
a second opinion on it and I'd say, hey they made up most of that stuff, maybe you need
to do this $200-300 dollar job but the rest of it you don't need, I would have never gotten
those customers if the first mechanics had been honest, now the first thing is being
overcharged for a job, I'll give you a perfect example of one I had last week, a customer
had an acura and it was recalled to have the engine rebuilt, so I took it to the dealer,
and they said yes they have to rebuild the engine, but they have to replace the timing
belt, now according to them the timing belt wasn't included in the recall, so they wanted
$785 to change that while they were rebuilding the engine, which if you know anything about
cars is a total rip off, cuz to rebuild the engine they got to take it all apart, so the
timing belt has to be taken off with a bunch of other things, they were going to charge
him $785 cuz that's the book that says here's what it costs to replace a timing belt, but
that's on an engine that's all put together, they had to take the whole thing apart anyways,
they had to remove the timing belt to do all that work, so what they should have done is
said, well the timing belt is $89 we'll charge you for the belt, they shouldn't charge labor
cuz they had to take the thing off anyways, and I see this all the time, so it always
benefits you to learn a little bit about your car so you don't get ripped off like that,
you can do a little research or you can ask a guy like me, they often will try to do stuff
like that, and then they'll show on the book, see it says replace timing belt that's $785,
I see this kind of double charging happening all the time, if your going in for a recall,
have the recall done and nothing else, cuz they don't make any money on recalls at the
dealership, so their always trying pile stuff on top so they make money, you got a recall,
let them do the recall and say just do the recall and nothing else, now the next thing
to avoid is people selling you things that you just don't need, many years ago when gm
had their horrible v8 diesel engine that was a converted gasoline 350 v8 engine, I had
a friend and he showed me a bill from the dealer, we was made cuz even after he spent
a bunch on money at the dealer it didn't run right, actually it was the engine going out
cuz it was one of those diesel conversions and they never were any good anyways, but
I looked at the bill from the dealer, and included in it was 8 spark plugs, and of course
diesels don't have spark plugs, they just made the whole thing up, and when they got
caught, oh they said, oh we made a mistake in billing and they refunded him his money
for the spark plugs, now that was an extreme example but I see it all the time, things
are good and people try to sell them parts that they don't need, one of my customers
she was a bookkeeper, and she was a bookkeeper for lots of people and one of the guys was
a millionaire, and he had a volvo and she knew he was getting ripped off so she had
him bring it to me, so I looked at his service records, now this volvo was like 3 years old
but it only had 15,000 miles on it cuz the guy flew everywhere, he didn't drive his car
all that much, he lived downtown so he didn't have to travel around a lot, well in those
15,000 miles they had sold him 3 sets of tires, and 3 sets of brake pads, they just made up
stuff and the guy was a millionaire, he just thought, oh it's a Swedish car it costs money
to maintain them and I want it to run good, so he paid for 3 sets of tires and 3 sets
of brake pads, and he probably didn't need any of them at all with only 15,000 miles
on the car, I see flat out dishonesty like that all the time, especially when it comes
to these service intervals that's something you really got to watch out for, I had a customer
with a porsche, now it was 4 years old, but it only had 8,000 miles on it, she only used
it as a weekend toy right, so she take it in to the dealer for the servicing, and basically
they charge her $1,000 just to change the oil and to check things and then they advice
that she had $5,000 more work done on the car, and since it was the first time I worked
on her car, her friend told her about me, I said bring it over and let me check it out,
so I pulled off all the wheels, I looked at everything that they said the car needed,
and it didn't need any of that stuff, the brake pads weren't worn out, nothing was leaking,
everything was working fine, so I said let me call up the porsche dealer and I'll talk
to them for being crooks and trying to sell you all this stuff your car doesn't need,
and here's how to guy responded at the porsche dealer, he said well when the car is 4 years
old, we advise replacing the brake master cylinder, the rotors, the brake pads, the
brake calipers, everything cuz this is a performance car and we want our customers to be safe,
so I said hey the car's only got 8,000 miles did you even look at the car, I pulled the
wheels off and said this thing still has 90% of everything left on it, there's no reason
to change it all, but they used one of those, 50,000 miles or 4 years which ever comes first
service intervals and tried to sell her a bunch of stuff, that's a load of nonsense,
on many modern cars ever so many miles some of them it's 15,000 miles some of them it's
30,000, a little light comes on to remind you that it's time to service the car, people
freak out and think, oh something is wrong with my car I got to take it right in, well
those things just come on so many miles, and a lot of it is total nonsense there's nothing
wrong with the car at all, it's just that they know you see this light a lot of people
will take it to the dealer cuz this light is on, then they'll say, oh well it's time
for your 30,000 mile check up and that's gonna be $900 and blah blah, that's really taking
things too far when they started putting all those warning lights, cuz hey it doesn't mean
that there's anything wrong with your car at all, but it scares people and especially
older people, they'll often get talked in to buying a whole bunch of stuff that their
car doesn't need, just last week one of my customers told their friends about me cuz
they went into the toyota dealer and they were all upset cuz they said their car needed
$3,500 worth of work done, they took it in under one of those service intervals, and
of course they tried to sell them everything including the kitchen sink, I went through
it with a fine tooth comb and used my fancy scan tool and really I couldn't find anything
wrong with the vehicle, now the rear brake pads were getting a little thin, I said well
you know their going to last another 5-10,000 miles probably, they said go ahead and change
the rear brake pads, so I did that but even that didn't need to be done right away, and
they tried to tell you, oh it's dangerous you need to do this, those stupid little lights
they probably sold more unnecessary repairs to people than anything I can think about,
so if your car is one of those service interval lights that comes on, hey do a little research
on your own car, see how often that light comes on and you can learn what it really
means, don't be scared that, oh my car is going to blow up, most of the time it has
nothing to do with anything other than a certain time frame has passed on and then the light
came on, sometimes think of that light as a game on monopoly, where you get a card that
says, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to jail, only in this case jail
is the dealer that's going to try to rip you off, yes you need to maintain your car, oil
changes any everything that needs to be done, your better off getting a little notebook
and doing a little research and see what has to be done on your car at what time, and do
it then, don't go by these made up lights that come on every so many miles regardless
of how you maintain or drive your car, take many toyotas for example, the use a hoat coolant,
hybrid organic acid technology, many of them go 7 years or 150,000 miles, so all you got
to do is put it in your notebook and say coolant 7 years 150,000 miles then you know when that
time comes up you go ahead and change it, do that for all your service intervals, don't
trust some stupid little light comes on and then people try to sell you stuff, that's
why the most important thing is to find an honest mechanic, it doesn't matter how good
a mechanic is, if he's not honest everything is thrown out the window, now I know some
really good mechanics that charge a whole bunch of money but their honest, if you can
afford what their charging your going to get a good job done, and I have friends that live
in other places of the country, the say oh wow bob you know he was a really good mechanic
but every time we went to him, $100 for this $100 for that, this was years ago, and today
when I talk to these people the say now it's $1,000 for this, $1,000 for that, realize
yes things cost more, which makes the importance of an honest mechanic even bigger, I've seen
dishonest mechanics that have a little spray bottle, they'll spray the stop of the strut
on here, then they'll show the customer, look your strut is leaking, you need new struts,
I've seen them try to sell all kinds of stuff, oh you need your fuel injectors cleaned, most
cars when their driving normally with good gas, gasoline is a very good cleaner, it will
clean the engines by themselves, now if you do have a gdi gasoline direct injection some
of those do carbon up and they actually have to be cleaned, regular fuel injected cars,
your driving with good gas and maintain them they really don't need the fuel injectors
cleaned, or vice versa, now a lot of the manufacturers say, oh the automatic transmission fluid is
a lifetime fluid, you never have to change it, it's good for the lifetime of the transmission,
well if you don't change it every once in a while believe me it's gonna get dirty, the
transmission is going to wear out and it will be long after the warranty is up and you'll
have to pay for a super expensive transmission, so in this case it's actually better to do
more maintenance than what the manufacturers often suggest, cuz they want to sell you either
another transmission that costs thousands and thousands, or that you give up and buy
another car, but I could never understand that cuz if the transmission did break on
a car that I bought I would never buy another one of those cars again, that would be the
of that, and that's where the Japanese have eaten up the car market, when I was a young
mechanic let me tell you, Japanese cars were few and far between you hardly ever saw them,
now go out and look at a parking lot their almost all Japanese cars, cuz they gradually
made them better and they didn't put as much junk in them, so people bought them, they
weren't particularly excited with the Japanese they just said, hey they make something that
doesn't break I'm going to buy it, and of course when it comes to not getting ripped
off on repairs the best thing is to have a car that very rarely needs repairs, cuz it
doesn't matter how good or how honest your mechanic is, let's say you go out and buy
a Fiat, odds are the thing is going to break down before it's time, regardless of how you
take care of it, you'll spend a lot of your hard earned money on repairs whether people
are honest or not, you know get a little flashlight you can check your struts before any mechanic
looks at it, if their all dry and it rides good and then if you go someplace and they
say, look your strut is leaking, you just checked it and you know it wasn't leaking
if it's got oil on it you know their crooks, and go ahead and get one of those little scan
bluetooth tools that plugs into your obd port that works off your phone, you can say things
like, well it's got p0174 so I know it's running a little bit lean, the codes will tell you
that, and if you go a little further you can go into live data on these things and you
can say, well the fuel trim is adding 8% fuel and when you show theirs some knowledge their
going to have a lot harder time scamming you, so know you know scams that mechanics might
try pulling on you and how you can avoid them in the first place,
so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring
that bell!