Car Repair Scams: Why Traditional Scam Prevention Tips Will Cost You A Fortune
The advice is all the same for auto repair scam prevention. You’ll be told to find an ASE certified shop. Ask around. Check out several different repair facilities first. Are they clean and neat? Do they provide written estimates? Check with the BBB. Is it AAA certified? Some will even advise to “ask for the parts back.”
Traditional tips and suggestions merely put a band-aid over an infected, gaping sore. Strong antibiotics are required to address the root source of the problems in the repair industry. To provide repair customers with the above advice is like sending a soldier into combat dressed in a pink tutu. We have to stop scratching at the surface.
There has not been any “new” advice in decades. More importantly, no one has answered why car repair scams have reached an estimated 40 billion dollars per year. Moreover, why is there still no solution to stop car repair scams?
The first hurdle to conquer is the perception of the frequency of auto repair scams. Many folks just don’t believe that car repair fraud is all that bad. Some even argue that the vast majority of repair shops do an honest day’s work, and that a few bad apples are making the rest look like crooks.
This is an interesting argument, and raises a number of questions.
1) If it is only a few “bad apples,” where are they hiding the 40 billion?
2) If most repair shops are honest, why does every state warn against car repair scams?
3) Why are auto repair shops at the top of consumer complaint lists every single year, in every state?
This is even expanding across the continents. For example, just last week Australia listed car repair scams at number 4 on their top 10 consumer complaint list.
The perception of frequency gets distorted because there are a number of levels to repair scams. There are the blatant rip-offs covered in the news. For a great video visit “Repair Scams Caught on Video” www.repairtrust.com. Then there are the common scams such as exorbitant prices and estimates, and aggressive scare tactics to get service customers to perform services. These occur every day.
The repair scams uncovered by RepairTrust not only found the tactics listed above and more, but a powerful undercurrent of scamming at the foundation of the automotive service industry.
In reality, most car repair scams go unnoticed by the service consumer. Service customers just have no idea that they were ripped-off. This under-the-radar scamming occurs in dealerships, local shops, and franchises. Affiliation with ASE, AAA, BBB, NADA makes no difference.
An ASE patch on a technician's arm, or an AAA or BBB sticker on the door of a service center means absolutely nothing in terms of a scam-free facility. Word of mouth recommendations can be just as devastating, as even shops that "seem" honest aren't.
Check out "Car Repair Prices: There Are No Honest Mechanics" Isnare or RepairTrust for further discussion on this. Also, for NEW and FREE scam prevention tips visit the Car Repair Scam Articles @ RepairTrust.
Traditional tips are ineffective in today’s service industry. Service facilities have found new and ingenious ways of ripping people off. In truth, many of the old tips and suggestions have actually become weapons allowing service centers to indulge in car repair scams more than ever.
The car repair playing field must be leveled. Service customers need solid answers, and they need to be equipped with information, understanding, tools, and an insider’s view of the who, what, when, where, why, and how of price-gouging.
Navigating the dim underworld of today’s service centers with outdated information will cost a fortune.
About Author
Theodore P. Olson (Ted) holds extensive certifications from Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, GM, and ASE. He is the author of eight books and numerous articles on the automotive service industry. RepairTrust
Making Sense of Car Repair Prices
Tags: advice, Answers, automotive, car, car repair, Expert, free, Mechanic, money, Questions, repair, Save
By Jake Dolce, November 14, 2009 @ 5:22 am
An upholstery shop can remove the cardboard/foam backing and recover it with new fabric for a hundred dollars or so. Don't damage the cardboard, because once it's gone they can't do anything for you and you can't get another one.
By srx08, November 14, 2009 @ 5:38 am
Haha, the guy at 0:55 looks like hes driving a Ferrari.
By JennLQ, November 14, 2009 @ 5:49 am
Jenn, didn't ya know smoking is bad for your health;) So, you didn't say what kind of interior. I assume it's not leather, so probably a cloth. Multicolored or solid? One way to do it depending on the amount of damage and how visible it is, is to actually go to say the back seat and find an area that's not visible, like behind the seat bottom if you pull it up. Carefully take a small swatch of fabric and so it doesn't run or tear, glue the edges where it came from with super glue. Now if you are painstaking in this process and sort of crafty with an eye for detail, you can have great success with a LITTLE super glue and a carefully placed swatch. If it is a solid color, you can often make a really careful pyle of the material scraped with a razor and again a LITTLE glue on the area followed by a snowing of the lint like stuff you collected. Hope that helps, this works even better on house carpet and furniture.
By sjdhfpioeahfoihqoifr, November 14, 2009 @ 5:59 am
By Randy L, November 14, 2009 @ 9:55 am
yes slick 50 offers a additive,so does rysolone it is a polymer based additive to some degree seales small surfice scratches around the cylender walls,have you considered changeing motoroil to perhaps a highmilage oilsuch as castrol,or valvaline.do you have oil in your air breather,is your posative crankcase ventalation valve and related hoses,valve clean and operating properly,hoses not restricted or cracked?
By rrrich7@sbcglobal.net, November 14, 2009 @ 3:18 pm
By Snowlion, November 15, 2009 @ 11:07 pm
Buy a repair manual for your vehicle and start doing maintainance and easy repairs on your own vehicle. Also there's a book out there called 'Car Repair for Dummies' or something like that which is supposed to be very helpful. =)
By Douglas C, November 15, 2009 @ 11:30 pm
I would be mostly concerned about the brakes and rotors first because they are major safery issues. The wiper motor can be as well. The AC is more of a convenience type of thing. Get a Haynes repair manual (see below) and do as much as you can on your own). Shops kill you in terms of labor costs. I get maintenance supplies from Walmart when I can and go to Autozone for everything else. Autozone even has a rewards program that works well for me since I go regularly. Anyway, do as much of the work as you can on your own. Also look for online dealers that sell Lincoln products cheaper than retail cost. Even after shipping, you'd probably save money rather than buying from your local dealer.
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By Nels W, November 17, 2009 @ 2:00 am
First thing, stop going to a dealer, their parts are INSANE on prices, and you can get parts that are just as good or better at most part stores. $150 an hour for labor is crazy, I mean just absolutly crazy. Forget that nonsense about how a dealership is familiar with ONLY GM vehicles and they are therefore better. A good mechanic is just as familiar with your vehicle as a dealership, in some cases, alot more expirenced. Bear in mind I said a GOOD mechanic, be careful where you take your vehicle, before handing your vehicle over to a shop, look for ASE certification, and ask around to see who has had any good/bad expirences with that shop. Also check http://www.bbb.org to look for a list of shops with complaints against them in your area.
I, as well, would suggest minimal time dely on having the repairs checked out, but do not hand the vehicle over to a shop and ask them to do the work, tell them what the dealership has told you, and ask them to check it for themselfs. Most shops will charge a diagnosis fee of about $50, and this fee is usually waved if you have the work done there.
Good Luck with that, and like i said, stop using the dealership, its alot of wasted money for exactly what you could get at a good mechaninc elesewhere.
By bruce_eel, November 17, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
Dude, I don't even need to look at the photo. If you wait 4 years to sell it then a $500.00 loss on an 8 year old vehicle will not affect the value by $50.00.