Auto dent repair BS

That's what dealerships do sadly. Many auto shops try to pull the same thing. They prey on the ignorant because a vehicle is one of those things that they know somebody HAS TO HAVE and when they break people panic and just pay whatever they ask because they need their car back.

Auto shops pull this crap all the time. Many tend to just keep tacking on additional "repair" costs to see how far they can go until you say stop. A few of them tried that with me, I enjoy catching them in the middle of their lies. Not all of them are like that by any means, I know some very reputable shops who do good honest work for an honest price. But some of them are one level above criminals. The majority of people have no idea whats under the hood of their cars or how to fix anything so the shop might as well be speaking an alien language to them.

I work on cars, but sometimes I either don't want to repair something on my vehicle because I know it's a pain and sometimes I don't have time and sometimes I just flat out don't feel like it so I'll take it to the shop. I went to a shop to get a price quote on replacing some ball joints on my truck. They quote me for $1500. I casually ask them why it costs $1500 to replace ball joints. The guy tells me the parts are $800 and it'll be $700 for labor. I ask him to show me where they are buying parts that cost $800. He says it's from their company parts catalog and it's actually cheaper because they buy them in bulk and get the company discount. So I ask him to show me on his computer where he's buying the parts. He's hesitant but he does it and goes to rockauto.com. The cheapest and most well known parts store on the market. He prices them out and it comes to a total of $375 for both lower ball joints and both upper control arms. I ask him where he got the other $425 from and he says he must have misquoted earlier when he gave the quote. I say fine, maybe an honest mistake. I ask him why it costs $700 to replace them? He says they charge $100 per hour and it will take his guys about 7 hours to do it.

7 hours? I ask if he has professional equipment and are his guys certified mechanics and he says yes of course. I say ok then if you have professional equipment that means you have a lift and a ball joint press which means it should take your crew of guys about 30 mins to replace those, maybe an hour at most. Then he says well only one guy will be doing it. Alright fine, 2 hours at most, $200, not $700, wheres the other $500 coming from? He says they give themselves a little bubble in case they run into problems. I say ok so will you refund me the remaining money if it actually doesn't take you 7 hours? He says no they can't do that and I won't find a cheaper service anywhere in town. I say yeah no thanks I'll do it myself. Then he literally throws his hands in the air and says "Sir do you know how to properly do it? You have to have a professional joint press to extract and insert them properly or they won't seat correctly and they must be greased prior and aligned properly using an alignment kit, without the proper procedure being done your tire could literally fall off while driving, I have seen it happen sir it's very dangerous to mess with suspension parts if you aren't professionally trained, I'll make you a deal, $1300".

I smile and say "no thanks" and leave.

lol whatever man, what the hell is a "professional" ball joint press? You mean the thing they'll rent you at autozone for 20 bucks? Trying to spin that technical crap at me. To all the other gear heads out there what do we call a "professional" ball joint press? A big ass hammer.

I go online to rockauto.com, order my stuff, it arrives that weekend and I replace both lower ball joints and upper control arms with hand tools and the truck on jack stands in my driveway in about 2 hours, that includes stopping to drink my beer and talking to the neighbor about how much better my football team is than his.

$1500 for a professional shop to do it. Criminal is what it is. But sadly many folks have no idea what a spark plug even is so they have no choice but to take their vehicles to these shops. Those are who get robbed blind by these types of people and it's sad.

The tire will fall off and roll down the highway on its own if I don't do it right. What the hell lol...

 

And the sad part about it is that I guarantee you weren't the first person he tried to pull that with at your dealership and you won't be the last. Many ignorant folks simply pulled out the credit card and said whatever fix it which is why they continue to operate under such practices.

They aren't even technically "lying" but they just grossly exaggerate the amount of work they HAVE to do to fix something. Your dealership would have actually done all of the stuff they said needed to be done, but they didn't HAVE to.

Hows the old saying go? Walk into an auto shop for an oil change and they are 100% guaranteed to find a list of repairs that need to be done. Or something like that.

I actually had to literally go to a local mom and pop auto shop one day and get my ex girlfriends car out of it. She went in there to get something fixed and the mechanic found something that was "too dangerous to allow her to drive away with" and said he couldn't legally release her car until he repaired it. Now I have heard of that happening before and I honestly don't even know if that's an actual law or just some crap they make up to con people into paying for services. It turns out her rear brakes were worn and that was too dangerous for her to drive away and the shop would be held responsible if she did.

I told the shop owner that I'd fix it when she got home and she wouldn't drive it again until I did. He said no he can't legally allow her to drive it away. I said alright well can she get the car towed home then? He said yeah sure but a tow truck will cost so and so and for a few more dollars they can just replace the brakes for her instead and solve the problem. I said no thank's we'll just tow it. I got my truck, got a tow strap, and dragged her car off of their property, and had her drive it home and I cleaned out the rear drum brakes later on that day. They weren't even worn they were just so dirty and clogged up that the front brakes were doing all the work.

They didn't like that much lol. It's sad because the mom and pop shops tend to be the more honest of the auto repair shops. Places like Firestone are flat out crooks. I've always had good experiences with Midas. I remember my car just flat out died one day at a stop sign at night. I was out of town on a Sunday and had to drive back home for work the next day. The car started back up but it worried me because the dash started dimming, the windows started rolling slowly, classic signs of a failing alternator. I didn't have time to order parts and fix it so I pulled into a Midas the next day and asked them to take a look at it and repair it for me.

They had me do the classic test, turn the car on, turn the ac on full blast, lights on bright, radio on, etc. Tested it out and it was fine. They tested the battery and it was fine. They pulled it into the garage and put it on the lift and started checking for things. All in all it took them about an hour to do their checks and they just couldn't find anything. They came out and said "Sir everything checks out...we can't find anything wrong at all I'm guessing it may have just been a random power surge or something or maybe you hit a puddle and water got on it for a split second and killed the car at the stop sign. The alternator was a bit wet we think that may have done it. But everything looks normal, voltage is good etc".

I say well great thats good to know how much do I owe you? Shop owner says "No charge man we didn't do anything we just looked at it." I say "well you guys inspected it and put it on your lift and stuff that doesn't cost anything?" He says "No, I like being able to sleep at night I'm not in the business or charging people for no reason". I said thanks and gave him 50 bucks anyway for actually being an honest man.

Good honest folks are who I appreciate. The slogan that Midas has about not ripping people off seems to be true from my experience. Goodyear is pretty good as well. Firestone are crooks, they would have to literally pay me to let them touch any vehicle I had. I also avoid dealerships like the plague. They overcharge for everything. Unless I have a warranty on my vehicle I'd never take it to a dealership. Then again I also don't buy these new spaceship cars that require all sorts of fancy certified mechanics with special tools and a PhD in electrical engineering just to change the oil.

 

Very good advice Herk.

I always ask to go into the mechanic's bay when they are working on my car. A place that I've noticed gets a lot of flak is a tire chain called Mavis Discount Tire. For some reason people seem to have bad experiences with them but I've always had great experiences with them. Always great friendly down to earth folks who had no problem with letting me hang around the mechanics bay while they worked on my vehicle. I actually had to go in there a few weeks ago to get a set of tires for my mustang. I asked the owner if he minded if I went in there while they had the car on the lift because I don't have a lift at home of course and it's a great time for me to get a good look under it to see if I need to fix anything. He said sure and we went out there and him and his guys lifted it up and walked around it with me and inspected it for a good 20 mins. They pointed out things that I didn't even notice before like small leaks and broken seals. They didn't try to repair anything, they were just replacing tires. They didn't even offer to repair anything because they could obviously tell it's my project car. They even called over a guy from each specific section to take a look at certain things and give their opinion. They even helped me diagnose an oil leak I had to figure out exactly where it was coming from, something that is hard to do on jack stands in my driveway. They gave me a clipboard and I wrote down everything they said. He also sat around and helped me diagnose why the car runs rough when its cold and gave me a list of things to check to figure it out.

I told the owner that I really appreciated it and that I would certainly come back to them first if I ever needed anything that was beyond my skill level. Just good honest folks who aren't trying to rip you off. I wish all shops were as welcoming as they are.

 

The issue with that is supply and demand. Replacing ball joints takes literally 2 hours in a driveway for the mechanically inclined. First time wrench turners can do it but it would take them longer. But lets be realistic, not everybody knows how or cares to learn how to do something like that or is even capable of doing it. So they go to a shop and pay.

No shop should charge more than maybe $300 to repair ball joints, it's really not that hard especially if you have a lift and a press. But if shop A is charging $1000 and shop B wants to beat their price and they charge $800 then they are still ripping you off. They do that because they can because if everybody jacks the price up then all others have to do is lower it a bit to remain competitive. They don't have to lower it to the real world fair price because NOBODY charges a fair price.

It's the same with everything consumer related. Everything we buy is marketed way above what its actually worth. It's all about making a profit by charging a 500% markup on something. Prices are driven by the consumer market as you know. Businesses charge whatever people are actually willing to pay, not what something is actually worth. So if all of them do it then there isn't much people can do to stop it unless they collectively stop shopping altogether demanding lower prices.

A fair price to replace ball joints would be between $400-$500 including parts and labor. But if everyone is charging $1000+ to do it then nobody has to give you a fair price, they simply have to give you a price lower than the other guy did which is still a huge rip off.

I have yet to find a shop that will actually charge me a fair price for something. They have no incentive to do that. I always just try to find the shops that will rip me off the least. Auto shops charge you a "you don't want to do it or you don't know how to do it so you brought it to me" fee which is where how they get away with charging so much.

 

Yeah it will to some extent but even when you walk in there fully armed with information they will usually just pull the trump card of "well the guy down the street is charging X amount of money, you won't find a place cheaper in town than me". And they may very well be right but they are still ripping you off and they know it. They just get away with it and tell you that you're getting a deal because they aren't ripping you off as bad as "the other guy" would.

It sucks but its how the world works. You are basically paying for the convenience rather than the actual service. Same reason why a 2 liter of soda costs less than a 20oz coke because you can't take the 2 liter in the car and drink it with one hand as easily as you can with the smaller bottle.