I am going to throttle my grandparent's mechanic

[Parrothead]

My car died back in December, as some of you may recall, and my grandparents wanted to downgrade to one car at around the same time, so they gave me their Buick for Christmas. I recently started working as a delivery driver for Dice pizza using this car. /bg

I am currently sitting in the waiting room for my family's mechanic. I brought my car here for an oil change and to have them look at my brakes (they've been noisy and my steering wheel shakes if I need to brake hard) to see what's wrong.

Apparently, whoever changed the brake pads last did a "slap job" (put pads on, don't make anything fit anything else) which means I now have perfectly fine brake pads, but I need the rotors replaced. And I have a tie end that needs to be replaced. And I need my tires balanced. And I need a tire rotation. And an alignment. And new tires.


Today, I'm doing a rotation, replacing the front rotors and pads, and my oil change. Next week, I get to get an alignment, replace the back rotors (if they are jacked up, they might be ok), and fix or replace the tie end. And I need 4 new tires as I had a flat that was patched that is moving to the front, and the ones moving back need to be replaced soon. (And I need to go back to the doctor for the lab work, and I need to go to the dentist again, and and and)

Rawr at shitty mechanics.

[XCashier]

Sounds almost like the mechanics that "took care" of my grandmother's car. Oh, such dears, such sweet and kind gentlemen to care for a little old lady's car, and when she gave me the car, she told me to go to them. And they were such dears, such sweet and kind gentlemen to care for a naïve young teenage girl's antique car.

Right. A year or so later, the master cylinder was leaking. The mechanics insisted nothing was wrong with it, yet it kept losing fluid. I asked my then-fiancé's uncle to look at it. He said the O-rings on the master cylinder were all shot, and also that the radiator core was rusted out because they kept filling it with water instead of antifreeze. Yep, these sweet and kind gentlemen did eff-all in maintaining the car. Cost me a lot of money, and could have gotten me killed if the brakes had failed for lack of fluid.

I don't mind paying someone else to work on my car, as long as they do the job I'm paying them to do. Perfectly reasonable expectations, that's all I (or anyone) ask.

[cleorose]

My hubby has been a mechanic FOREVER. He got his start working for his brother fixing up junkers. He has worked at mom and pop shops, major chain mechanics like midas, firestone, jerky boys, travel america. I can tell you or rather he can that at LEAST HALF of the guys who were hired in as mechanics, couldn't change oil much less fix a car. They were hired in to be trained. Except very few people in those places know what the heck they are doing. I mean why hire someone who is certified and can command a cool 20+ bucks an hour, when you can pay joe blow $8 an hour to google fu the answer and at least jerry rig it to work long enough for the customer to get home.


You can ask if your mechanic is licensed. Any mechanic should be able to tell you if he is ASE certified or not. And if he doesn't know what ASE is than you probably got a 50/50 chance of coming out worse off.

[Parrothead]

Family mechanic that just fixed the car is ASE certified, and has worked on my parent's cars for 30+ years with no problems. Grandparent's mechanic? No idea. They live in Virginia, and we're down in Georgia.

Apparently one of my tires was unsafe, too, so I had to buy a used one today and still need new ones later.

[AccountingDrone]

That is why I carry around business cards for my mechanic .. we found them when we moved up here in 1990 and I do not voluntarily go anywhere else. The thing is, they are not any more expensive to go to than some random place with crap for employees.

[Sapphire Silk]

A similar situation happened to Evil Empryss's MIL. She had a Lincoln Towncar, couldn't drive anymore, and gave it to EE and her hubs.

Car was a wreck. All kinds of unnecessary work done on it, and needed work not done or not done well.

The car needed far more work done on it than it was worth, and it was an albatross (almost literally . . . car was white). So she sold it . . . told the buyer exactly what was wrong with it. At least he understood the issues and was willing to deal with them, so both walked away happen.

[mathnerd]

I took my old civic to a mechanic twice. One mechanic fucked up the brakes almost beyond repair (they worked, but the real trouble began the next time the brakes needed replaced) and the other failed to diagnose the problem in a spectacular fashion.

[MadMike]

I used to take my car to a small independent garage. They got my attention by advertising inexpensive oil changes. I used them for several things besides that, including brake and tire jobs, and never had a problem with them.

Then one time, unknown to me, it had changed ownership. I brought it back in for a brake job, and after that, the brakes didn't seem to be working right. It seemed like I had to push extra hard to get the brakes to work, and the parking brake didn't work at all. I called them back, explained what was going on, and they told me to bring it back in and they'd fix it. When I got it back, nothing had changed. They didn't charge me to bring it back in, but it was still a hassle taking the time to bring it in and wait, plus it wasn't exactly safe driving it like that.

After about the third or fourth time, I decided to cut my losses and get the problem fixed right. I took it to a dealer that specialized in the brand of car I was driving at the time. A little more pricey, but I figured they'd know what they were doing. After they took my car in and looked at it, they came out and told me the unthinkable -- the rear brakes were completely missing! How the hell the other place did that, and how they didn't know that, and what they were actually doing when they were supposedly working on it, I'll never know, and I'm not sure I want to know. After that, everything was fine, but I was not happy.

I called the other place and told them what had happened, and they told me I'd have to talk to the manager to get reimbursed. Conveniently, the manager never seemed to be around. Eventually I just gave up, which is what I'm sure they wanted. Not surprisingly after that, the place changed hands again. I guess I wasn't the only one they ripped off, because when the place re-opened, there was something on the sign outside that said, "Those other guys are gone!"

[Sapphire Silk]

You should have called the Attorney General. They handle this kind of thing. You would have been reimbursed, and they would have been cited.

[protege]

My grandmother never had problems with her mechanic. Mainly because he came highly recommended by one of her friends. A friend, who happened to work at a bank, and had some *serious* connections in town. Connections, that could have easily shut down the garage

She started going there, after the local Oldsmobile dealer screwed her over on some repairs. All it needed was to have the brakes adjusted. It didn't need the drums replaced! She had the work done because he was a neighbor, and he pressured her into it. Bastard.

[Kittish]

I am going to throttle my grandparent's mechanic

I see what you did there.

[Parrothead]

I see what you did there.

...That was actually an unintended pun, really.

But update (ish): apparently, the last people who worked on the car were the dealership. Yeah. I'm going to keep going to the little, locally owned garage that found the problems and has been working with me to fix them.