Unusual Phone Call

[xrac]

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[ncautoshop]

I've got a dealer that got the exact offer she's looking for from a new tech. Wrong oil filter hard start turned into 4k spent with the "tech" and I vote we're going to be somewhere around $1,900 just to get the truck safe enough to not burn to the ground.

Injector washers jammed in, injectors loose. Hydrolocked cylinder.

Missing wiring harness cover. Brittle harness, wires melted together.

Vgt solenoid busted wires bare.

 

Not to mention the 20+ stripped bolts, missing heat shields & oil leaks. Not sure what the other guy actually damaged and what was already done. Dealer won't even communicate with us on the job but we've "CYA" paper worked the whole job to death!

Sometimes savings isn't saving.

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[mmotley]

I would have said sure. Get authorization for 1 hour diag, diagnose the concern, then doubled whatever the labor guide told me to make up for your parts.

[Gonzo]

Today what sounded like an older woman called. She was nice enough and said not to get mad at what she was going to ask so she had evidently called other shops and had gotten some less than nice answers. First she told me she was looking to find a shop that wouldn't use book labor but would just look at her car and tell her a flat labor cost to do a job. Second she wanted a shop that would not put any markup on parts. My gut said this was a customer I didn't want so here is what I told her, "Not Our Shop".

 

What this poor lady doesn't understand is that someone who will work like this probably works under the shade tree, has few tools and no serious diagnostic tools. Won't stand behind their work and has no access to tools like Identifix or Mitchell than can sometimes be priceless. If she finds otherwise she will be very fortunate.

I've had this exact same thing happen many times over the years. The best I can tell is these are the type of people who believe that we mark parts up, charge diagnostics, bump labor costs because we are all so... so rich that we don't need to try and lower the cost for someone just so we can keep our bays full.

 

These are the type of people who ... over generations of their kind, have come to the conclusion that "It ain't that difficult to fix cars and any shade tree can tackle the problem so cheap is the only way I'll get it done."

 

My answer to them is, "I don't work for free, and I don't think asking me to do it for free shows any respect to my business or my trade.... good day to you and goodbye."

[Jeff]

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[alfredauto]

Frustrating call at best. We do occasionally install customer's supplied parts with "NO WARRANTY" clearly stated every step of the way. I explain it is a bad investment. It's dumb for me to do it but sometimes I feel for people. If I'm not making money I'm working for free, so I might as well play with my puppy dog at home and make the same profit. 80% of the time these losers can turn into real customers so I hate saying no, but if it turns out they are taking advantage of me I'm not opposed to firing them as a customer.

[xrac]

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