I've owned my Saturn long enough that I'm intimately familiar with it. Sometimes, mechanics have taken me for a ride, and on the rare occasion, they have been straightforward with me. However, I'm fairsure I know my car better than they do. Not everyone has that advantage, and I swear when I walk in or others of my friends take their cars in, they see dollar signs walk through the door and calculate just how much they can rip us off. At least the bad ones do.
A few weeks back, there was this awful grinding noise when I would turn. All the online diagnostics and discussion boards pointed to the CV axle. My friend Jay and I spent four hours and 100 miles on his car trying to get tools or leverage to remove the part. Then, I took it to a shop, where a mechanic told me I needed two engine motor mounts and that my axle was fine. So, I swapped the struts, the strut mounts, and the motor mounts, and took my car over for an alignment.
That's where I met the unethical mechanics. They put my car up on the wrack and then told me I need to buy a set of bolts for $160 so they could align the wheels (a $70 job) and that it would cost me $95 in labor to install the bolts. Now, they must have thought I was born yesterday, because not three days before, I had myself taken out the struts and knew it would take them all of five minutes to swap the bolts since THEY HAD TO REMOVE THEM ANYWAY to align the wheels. Plus, Jay had seen the bolts and his, and he told me mine looked better than his, the age of my car notwithstanding.
As soon as possible, I took the car to Sears, where they did the job for $75 and aligned the wheels to within factory specifications. That's quite impressive given that the frame is bent. Eat that, Ted Wiens Firestone.
Earlier this evening, a friend of mine reported on Facebook that she had to have her wheel bearings repacked. I am not really sure what that means, because the only bearings I know of are in the CV joint, and if that fails, it's best just to replace the part and go from there. Packing the joint is probably more in labor (I wouldn't want to do it), and so they took her for a ride.
I do not look much like a mechanic, but I know a few things. In fact, I look like a typical scientist, and people are frequently surprised when I return with tools and know how to use them to fix small things at work instead of waiting on maintenance. When I do my own work and I break something, at least I know that something broke and hopefully what. When you take it to a mechanic, because the car isn't their car, they don't care, and they frequently cause other problems through inattention if not through outright sabotage. Plus, they find other things you 'need'. They pulled the cam bolt scam on my dad, and his $50 alignment multiplied to a $500 job, after the familiarity discount. For $300 I can buy the lasers and do the alignment myself. Too bad the HOA won't let me run a business out of my house.
Any entity of man is only as ethical as the people of which it is comprised. Unfortunately, there are enough 'bad mechanics' in every industry that we either distrust everyone or hate the industry, even if we never access it (like investment brokerages or luxury yachts or gold watch fobs).
Meanwhile, the car drives quieter and better than it has for many years (I put the alignment off for a LONG time). It's also a more comfy ride, not that anyone knows since people don't like riding in my car. I recognize the sounds my Saturn makes, and I know which to ignore and to which I should hearken. There are even still a few original parts, like the paintjob ;). I'm grateful for good friends and an inventive father who have kept me on the road through some unexpected setbacks like broken motor mounts. Oh, and I am still getting 36mpg average. Eat that Toyota.
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