Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

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survivor
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Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 11:41 am

Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

Post by survivor » Fri Oct 14, 2016 7:12 pm

Hi everyone,

I have a round to the garage today to make some break change and something happened that I would like to share/ask you guys' opinions.

Well. I realised that break pad and rotors need to be changed both front and rear so I called Viking Motors garage for the quote. They told me changing only break pads would cost something like 215 E for parts and work. So I thought I would ordered the parts online and just later pay for the labor work, which they said for at least 3 times, 2 times on the phone and one at the office, it would take about 1 hour and 30mins.

So today i went there today with the parts and high confidence for the better life of the car's breaks. After 30mins, the guy (guy number 1) belled me as I was sitting the cafe nearby, waiting and he said the front parts (rotors and pads) are incorrect and tried to give me a deal with the garage's parts for 275E or something like that, which I immediately turned down. By this time, the car had been in the garage for 30 mins. Instantly, I was feeling jumpy like sitting on fire, so I returned to the garage seeing just 1 guy working on the car.

Waiting in the office for another 15mins, they called me for payment and to my absolute surprise, I was asked to pay 2 hours of labor work.

I said: Why is that? It was only about 1 hour, as checking my wristwatch.
He said (guy number 2): there were two guys working on your car. So you have to pay 2 hours. He flipped the screen to show me their complex calculating system of labor work and continued: You see. It could have been 2hours and 30mins but you pay 2 hours (random discount?)

I immediately realised this is a rip off so I put on a protest.
Me: Common It was 1 hr. How can you charge me for 2 hour work. If there had been 3, 4 guys working on my car, I would have ended up paying 3 or 4 times?
He said( the guy number 3) replied in a calmer tone than guy number 2: well. We had one free guy so he came to help. So you will have to pay double.

I said to myself, what the f*** is this nonsense and so I sat there in silence for a while and so the guy number 2 turned and asked me if I'd pay by card or cash. There is no way I'd pay for this nonsense and ridiculous fraud as I thought to myself angrily but said only the same thing above that this doesnt make sense etc... So he exploded, yelling at me: Now you pay 150E for 2 hours and the rest is the job of the police..bla bla bla.
Guy number 3 tried to soften me up by showing me the English system where they calculate the working hour. etc. Angrily inside and feeling so disappointed, I reluctantly paid the jokers for the nonsense. ( final work: changing rear break pads and rotors, dissembling front wheels to measure and find out my parts were incorrect size = 2 hours of labor when in fact it was less than an hour)

PS: meanwhile, the guy number 1 as I met firstly in the office and told me the 3rd time it would take about 1.5 hour secretly disappeared. AND rewind the story abit, when I first arrived there in the office, the guy number 2 turned the screen to show the guy number 1 my appointment and he was like: ahhhhhh, like this is the dude, this is the dude. @@.

So, that was my today's story. I understand mechanics and garages want to earn living and profit from selling parts and legal activities, and yet, treating customers like this garage would make life better? Are other garages like this? what are your opinion and thinking? Please let me know.



Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

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Pursuivant
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Re: Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

Post by Pursuivant » Mon Oct 17, 2016 12:50 am

You went to a chain restaurant when you should have gone to greasy spoon.
"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."

survivor
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Sep 05, 2011 11:41 am

Re: Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

Post by survivor » Thu Oct 20, 2016 12:58 am

Pursuivant wrote:You went to a chain restaurant when you should have gone to greasy spoon.
I dont happen to know many good garage around so I came back to this garage after charging up the air conditioning once before, assuming that they are honest and in fact, well.. No.
Anw, now the car is dragging and I have another headache. :( What greasy spoon are you suggesting?

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Piet
Posts: 556
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 3:45 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

Post by Piet » Thu Oct 20, 2016 12:45 pm

The moral lesson to be learned from this is a universal lesson, never ever trust any car dealer, garage or repair shop.

As an example I would like to take the car of a friend as an example, this car is from 1981 and in showroom condition (just changed the 4 doors and the rims 8) )
It is in perfect technical condition and passes the yearly mandatory safety check with flying colors and on every occasion the inspector makes remarks about the good condition of the car. You want to know why? it has never ever been to the garage or repair shop. Ok that is not totally true, once it was at the shop for a modification of the carburetor by adding a gas vaporizer (LPG) on it, which they wanted to do totally wrong so my friend grabbed the drill out of the hands of the mechanic and did it himself at the shop.

Of course this can only be done if you have the skills to do everything yourself, and have all the tools...so he (and me too) have those both.

My personal experiences with car repair or maintenance shops is very bad as well, it seems that the average repairman does not care about cars at all and there is a universal law about repairs here in Finland (maybe other countries too :wink: ) that it should be fixed now fast and at low cost and it does not matter if it breaks down next week again, that means another job and more money.

Sadly this does not help OP other than the advise to learn and do basic maintenance like replacing standard wearing parts himself (like I just changed the shock absorbers on the rear of my 1995 car)

Oh and when learning to do these things it is wise to chose a car that breaks down little and lives long by default (duh) so go for a Toyota or Swedish brand 8) parts are reasonable priced and enough forums and documentation about how to.

Haynes repair manuals are a good help too and trust me, you will earn your tools and books back a thousand fold....or something in that direction.

Or just buy a new car every 3 years :lol:
If god would give us the source code, we could change the world
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Y77
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Re: Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

Post by Y77 » Thu Oct 20, 2016 4:07 pm

I suppose the moral lesson could also be"never ever own a car". Not owning a car for the past 50 years of my life probably saved me many 1000s of euros and lots of problems like the one you've just depicted.
Especially in this country, with the whole summer-winter tires circus and the electricity anti freeze little columns, expensive petrol and expensive car prices and so on, owning a car looks like an extremely bad idea, especially if you live in an urban environment.

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Piet
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Location: Finland

Re: Garage RIP OFF. What is the moral lesson?

Post by Piet » Thu Oct 20, 2016 10:08 pm

Y77 wrote:I suppose the moral lesson could also be"never ever own a car". Not owning a car for the past 50 years of my life probably saved me many 1000s of euros and lots of problems like the one you've just depicted.
Especially in this country, with the whole summer-winter tires circus and the electricity anti freeze little columns, expensive petrol and expensive car prices and so on, owning a car looks like an extremely bad idea, especially if you live in an urban environment.
I think that is very true for the people that do not need to travel, have their needs close to them within walking distance and never need to go in the night to a doctor / emergency healthcare, etc...
Winters might be very cold and being outside long might be unhealthy at certain times, getting your groceries for the whole family (with little kids) might be hard to do going through a big amount of snow
(That said, last 3 winters were very mild compared to the 3 before that).

Further more, this is a very big country, with very distant rural areas where no public transport is available (at regular times) and the Metro seems to take ages to complete :lol: :lol:

So I think the majority of the people in Finland will actually need a car. (although this majority is shrinking quickly with the current rate of urbanization).

And then there are the ones with a hobby like me, damn my life would have been boring, past 40 years, without cars and motorbikes... (and my marriage would not have lasted too I think :lol: :lol: )
If god would give us the source code, we could change the world
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