How To Get Your Car Fixed At The Shop

I was trying to, you know, help people out a little. Sorry that wasn't apparent to you.

Looking at the thread, you can see that it was active at the time. A little courtesy never hurt anyone.

What *I* don't understand is why people feel the need to post into a thread they're not interested in, just to piss in everyone else's cheerios.

Also

Find out what parts you need and by them yourself from a parts store, shops usaually charge you double what they pay for them.

Shops get two prices when they call the parts store, Cost (which is their price) and list (which is double thier cost) and usually what they charge you.

Find out what you need and call around for prices.

No prob, I'm sorry you had bad luck with your vehicle. If it's any consolation, many of those guys wrenching make about 11 bucks/hr flat rate, and if there's no work, they often don't get paid.

The donut suggestion was from personal experience, as most of us in the shop tended to appreciate the customers who looked out for us a little. We returned the favor by tweaking things here and there without adding it to the bill, going to bat for the customer to get repairs covered under warranty when they were in a grey area, stuff like that - all of which cost us money out of our paychecks in varying amounts. Warranty work pays the tech a lot less than customer-pay work, BTW.

One customer who always took care of us at Saturn got her engine replaced under warranty when she forgot to check or change the oil for 9,000 miles. It threw a rod. The new engine would have cost her $3500 out of pocket, but the tech made the case for warranty service and the service writer backed him up, so she got her new engine for $500, total. The little things aren't to keep you from being ripped off, they are to get you sterling service like the above example.

Like every other service job, if the customer takes care of the employee, the employee takes care of the customer.

Win-win situation.

As for parts that go for "List" price versus "cost" price thats simply a difference between the wholesaler the shop gets the parts from and what the shop buying the parts has to charge to make money. Often times some places, such as Sears, have to quote a price before calling to get the part, I've seen many cases when the shop I worked in had a price listed in the computer that was BELOW cost of the available part. We had no choice but to eat the difference. Also many of the wholesalers we get parts from don't sell to the general public so if you go to say, Kragen's or Autozone you'll be paying roughly the same that the shop pays. On the flip side you get to pick and choose between several different products and qualities. A parts shop may decide to put low-cost stuff into a car to keep the price down if they know you are going to have to pay for a lot of repairs, if you aren't cool with that sometimes you can bring a shop a part that you bought yourself and ask them to install it. Many independant shops will allow this but most big chain shops (i.e. Sears or Pep Boys) won't because they can't warrenty the part or back it up in any way if it turns out to be defective, not only that but you can still sue the shop for it if it is, you may or may not win but its a headache they don't want to deal with. Many independent shops are willing to take the chance so that they can get your repeat business.