I am so sick of mechanic's!

[79raven]

Seems every mechanic I have been to lately have decided I am a free lunch.
The straw thats broken my back:
Call up 2 workshops to get a quote to replace upper and lower ball joints on my Ef.
Garage 263 I chose to call as I know the guy who owns it and he is a good mechanic, but I have never had work done by him. He quotes " no change out of $400".
I call Active automotive who use to service my company car. I know Mal the owner. I asked him for a quote for the same work ( upper/lower ball joints) and he quotes $400, so I go with him as I have had work done by him before. I call up last week to book it in and find out how much extra for a rack boot while they are there, Mal says we can cover that for you included in the $400 and I thank him for taking care of me. I take the car down today and the work is done for me. When I go back to pick the car up and pay the bill I am shocked when one of Mals mechanic tells me the total is $693.46! His answer was " I hope you knew the quote you got was for each side and Mal has already cut a fair bit off to get it under $700".
Why would I want to know the price of half the job I wanted done? Would it not be better to have the total like I asked?
This is not the first mechanic who has done this, I got screwed with the tickford head install, the suspension install and also the new tyres I got put on. Its bad enough to charge $90 an hour let alone hide the total prices. Now I am faced with a delema, I already have had to not pay a weeks rent to get the ball joints done, but now I have had to dip into 2 weeks rent because of the inflated workshop price and I still have to find $300 to pay my kids Christmas lay-by by the 17th of this month or my 3 kids under 7 go without. I have lost my job due to injuries that happened at work ( former boss refuses to pay compo and I have no claim because I didnt sign a piece of paper I did not know existed) 2 months ago and am on the dole, how the hell does any mechanic who knows this expect me to come up with double the quotes price?
Anyone on here who owns a workshop and does what these have done should be ashamed. I personally will never go back to active auto now, Mal can get bent and he misses out on any further work I wanted to get done.... all for the sake of a few extra dollars in his pocket

[Jim Goose]

You can if you want take it up with the ACCC, even if your quote was verbal.

A lot of people do that sort of thing, they will give you a price and later once its done will say.. oh but that was without GST. As far as i know thats illegal to quote without GST.. but people still do it.

Or they tell you.. oh there extra council/ disposal fees on that.. blah blah blah... sadly it seems being honest in a lot of businesses is something frowned upon.

[lilmattie]

It's pretty harsh to throw it in for *all* mechanics. You'll find people like that across all the industries.

Find the good ones, and give them your business. If you were up near west Brisbane I could point you to a few.

[Stefan]

Speak to Mal and pay the 400 as quoted. tell him you don't have anymore and that is why you got the quote.

He's obviously lying, why if the quote as 400 per side is the total under $700? and not the full $800?

Unfortunately the car industry is full of shonks, I've met my fair share. I had one quote me a job 18 months ago, then take a substantial deposit for materials 15 months ago, i got sick of waiting now I've got the job done somewhere else he's bitching about giving me back my money. Seems me geting the ***** after waiting over a year is unreasonable. Worst part is he is actually fixing his F#### up which is somehow my fault too...

[blueoval]

Did you tell Mal what you thought of his service/prices to his face? I know I would have, and I would have calmly said that what he has done was unprofessional, and that you are going to look into it further with the appropriate authorities.

Not that any of that will mean crap to him, but at least you could express your concerns to him directly and voice your concerns rather than on here.

Not being privy to the conversation makes it hard for us to take a stand and offer advice as we are hearing it from one side. Not saying what you said isnt true, just that unless we were there to see/hear what was said and how it was said, it is difficult to honestly provide unbiased advice.

[xisled]

It is a bad situation you got shafted.

Next time get everything written on a quote. I feel for you specially coming to Christmas.

Go online to every single review page you can and tell your review. Mention to the owner to are doing this, may change his mind and give you the verbal quote price.

[blueoval]

http://www.notgoodenough.org/

[Fiesta_Man69]

The best ever thing a car enthuiast can do is not a track day, an advanced driving course or cane a GT3.... It's finding a mechanic you can trust.

[fordomatic]

All the people on here saying there are good mechanics about? I would really love to know where they are because i have only ever had one good mechanic. Every other mechanic i have ever used has screwed me over. I even caught ford in Townsville doing fishtails in my BAXR8 a few years ago.

The latest one for me was an exhaust joint verbally quoting and shaking my hand on it, to install extractors for $400. get there and he says, "bigger job than expected mate $650." he also scraped the crap out of my front bar but i had no poof. I made sure i got my old cats back off him, got $80 for them. Sooooooo over it

[79raven]

Thats another thing fordomatic, the car had over a 1/4 of a tank when they got the car at 8.30am this morning and when I jumped into it at 5.30 this arvo it was empty.

Mal was not there, he had to be somewhere when it was time for me to collect the car, leaving one of his workers to deal with what he knew was coming. I could not have a go at the mechanic because he was just given a job to do i.e inform me Id been shafted. I will be calling in tomorrow as I made sure I was told when Mal will be in tomorrow. He will cop it, but me being calm is not a common thing when I get taken for a ride.

You guys are right too about finding a good mechanic. I thought I had one in Mal, but it turns out I was wrong. Funny thing is he wants me to do a pest inspection on his home when I recover from my injuries because he doesn't trust anyone else to do it..... and he was after mates rates. Yeah ill give the ***** mates rates.

Your right too lilmattie, it happens in every industry but it just seems I am drawn to dodgy mechanics. In the many years I have had my license I have come across 1 good mechanic and he was a mate of my ex's father, so when she became an ex I lost out ( not to mention he is in Vic and I am in NSW).

I will definitely look into the accc and will check out the links you guys provided, but not right now. Tonight I feel that low I dont know weather to cry or look for something/one to break. Instead I have half a bottle of Johnny red in the shed thats been sitting since I gave up drinking about 10 years ago. Im going to crack it and get ****ed. Thanks for all the posts, I didn't expect any reply's and just posted it to get it off my chest. Its nice to know you guys give a ****, so thank you.
Tomorrows a new day

[BENT_8]

5 o'clock shock...nothing new here.

FWIW, i had the outer CV's and all four CV boots replaced inc. alignment on my Jackaroo for $660 last month.
I couldnt do this myself so left it in the hands of a professional.

To do this job is more labor intensive than ball joints and the parts are dearer too.

[Franco Cozzo]

You'll find a lot of business either;

- Won't give people quotes over the phone.
- Will under quote to get work in the door.

The workshop I do some weekend work for won't quote people over the phone, because what happens is they get a price then ring up everyone else in the area to shop around. Ok fair enough, if they want to shop around that is no problem. What we say to them is bring the car in, we'll have a look and we'll quote on it then when we have checked out the car, as it also helps to give an accurate quote, rather than saying we do electric brakes for X amount of dollars, then the customer brings in something you have never worked on before, or something which is a known pain in the *** to do electric brakes on, and you have to honour that price you gave over the phone even though you're going to lose out on it, or 9/10 times it will end in fights.

Another workshop we know of will under quote people on the phone, or leave out details, to get a customer in the door then the bill goes up when the customer comes to collect their car at the end of the day and they might not contest it like the OP, go home with their tail between their legs.

Some business owners will try to justify it because for some reason they think there is no money in the industry so they try to rip people off who don't see it coming, but to be honest, most of the time the money issue is that they have issues running their business efficiently, the money is certainly there. Things like they carry excess stock of things easily obtainable, inefficient workshop plan, have their workers leaving the job every 5 seconds to look for consumables they need etc, it all ads up in the end with idle time. This is what we're working hard to eliminate at my main job.

When I'm at the other workshop and I find something is up with a customers car, I ring them up right away and inform them, and give them some options and it works out good for us too, because if you let something go out the door without telling them because you think they won't pay for it or will be a difficult customer, and 3 weeks later it turns out to be a problem, the customer comes back in and blames you for it because it only played up after you worked on the car, so its your fault.

Even if they don't want to get the potential problem waiting to happen fixed, at least you tell them and they know its something coming up in the future, and its in the back of their mind when it goes south that maybe it wasn't us who caused it.

Also, what we do in our little workshop community is if we have a customer who needs mechanical work, we don't do it ourselves even though we can, we sent it over to the mechanic next door and share the work around, and he sends electrical work our way, when we see a customer who needs new tyres, we ring them up and tell them, and then if they agree the car goes round the corner to the tyre shop around the corner, who again finds cars with mechanical/electrical problems and they come back to us

[GTPete]

Can you pay by credit card so you get your car back then dispute the charge with your credit card company?

[mik]

the price ($693.00)sounds ok to me, seems strange to me he would quote a price in the first place he would almost make no money out of? perhaps he had mental block and quoted wrongly.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

You'll find a lot of business either;

- Won't give people quotes over the phone.
- Will under quote to get work in the door.

The workshop I do some weekend work for won't quote people over the phone, because what happens is they get a price then ring up everyone else in the area to shop around. Ok fair enough, if they want to shop around that is no problem. What we say to them is bring the car in, we'll have a look and we'll quote on it then when we have checked out the car, as it also helps to give an accurate quote, rather than saying we do electric brakes for X amount of dollars, then the customer brings in something you have never worked on before, or something which is a known pain in the *** to do electric brakes on, and you have to honour that price you gave over the phone even though you're going to lose out on it, or 9/10 times it will end in fights.

WTF? If I ring up for a price on XYZ, would any mechanic with half a brain not say "what type of car?" then he would know if he's worked on it?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Stefan

WTF? If I ring up for a price on XYZ, would any mechanic with half a brain not say "what type of car?" then he would know if he's worked on it?

I'm an auto elec and you get people asking for "What price for electric brakes?" as some workshops will advertise a flat rate to suck people in and I'd rather see the car first so I can plan out where to run my wires.

Not only that but say if someone comes in for a starter motor or any other simple job, you don't know if they've got other aftermarket accessories in the way of the job which have to come out or become a massive pain in the ***.

Either come in for a quote, or go somewhere else.

I guess with servicing not much is going to vary for a mechanic etc.

[BHDOGS]

geez mate thats steep i took my own upper controls arms off got old ball joints and got new ball joints pressed in for 50 bucks all up 90 dollars its just 4 bolts.

[BHDOGS]

also what annoys me for quotes is when they say something like 300 bucks then you ask how much they charge an hour for work 50 bucks say so even if it takes you one hour they get 6 hours worth of money for it just an example but to me time spent on doing the job is how much to do the job minus parts ect.

[Falcman0o7]

Bugger mechanics!

[XARATE]

Im with you big damo, it impossible to quote even something as simple as electric brakes.
Someone can ring up and say "how much to fit electric brakes to my 2012 volvo"
Firstly its a new car there are bugger all of them out there and even less coming into the workshop to know its ins and outs
The you need to consider the type of electric brake unit required. Big bulky screw to the dash type? Simple knob and light redarc unit that takes up no space? How about a electric over hydraulic unit with a pedel mounted pressure sensor (thats a a 2 minute job on some cars and an hour on others)
Then u have to consider where to run the wires, has it got a chassis to male your life easy or do you have to pull a million fragile plastic panels off and run the wiring through the car.
Also where do you get the power supply from? Not the ignition switch in most new car cause most have push buttons now, thats easy solved though just go to the battery.
Getting through the fire is a pain in the *** and thats if the battery is even under the bonnet

But dont forget the brake signal wire! Cant go off the pedal switch the ecu wont like that. Cant tap off the brake lights either ecu wont like it

And once you have it all wired up you find that the brake unit is holding the brake lights on with the key off

Im an auto elec and the trade is a minefield of trouble
QUOTING IS NOT EASY

But yes i think op has been screwed over you should of been quoted for the full job not half of one

[Itsme]

Feel sorry for you, pay him off in installments when you can.... or just pay him the $400 and tell him F#@% *$
Hard lesson for all but next time get the quote written & signed, at least this way you you are protected if they try to jack up price.

[The Yeti]

What industry are you from, 79Raven?

So I can simply hate every one in it even though I may only know 1 or 2 people in it who are less than perfect?

[Vincenzo]

Being on a Pension I have to be careful with my money. I do not mind paying $100/hr for labour so long as the work is done and the work is needed. Case in point: quoted $200 to hardwire video system into car. Car sat on the road for 55 minutes before entering workshop and exited after 61 minutes - they still charged $200. I wrote a letter to the manager explaining all this and was offered either a store credit of $100 or $100 refund.

As for a good mechanic I have found it depends on how you are dressed as to how you are treated. I have got work done and gone in dressed in good trousers and open neck shirt. No discount and told extra work needed to be done. Same place, almost identical work but went in carrying my 18 month old Grand Daughter on my hip. This got me a 30% discount as a good bloke. I have now found a great mechanic whose clientele are either females or pensioners. He was suggested because he does what he says and if extra work is needed he rings you and lets you know beforehand.

Good / great mechanics do exist.

[falconnut]

yikes take it to small claims or something.

[turbotrana]

It every trade out there. Maybe more so with mechanics but too many -ankers in this world. But as consumers you need to do your bit also to cover yourself.

[mungdungas]

i have a mate who has opened a motorbike repair shop recently & it has been a learning process for me to watch him offer cheap hrly rate & service`s.You would have thought that owners would flock to him but not so,it seems that if your cheaper than everyone else they suspect you of being dodgy so he raised his prices & low & behold his work shop is overflowing.His customers wouldnt belive that he could do good work using good quality stock at a price under what other workshops were charging.The moral of the story is that the less reputable business will try to get away with what ever they can because they know that most owners will just pay up or not come back if they question it but very few will peruse it with the authorities & if they have a steady flow of regular customers the walk inn`s get fleeced as it wont affect the bottom line at the end of the week.Ever wondered why toyota & other manufacturers are now going for fixed price services?....even dealer workshops are ripping customers off.

[wrongwaynorris]

Originally Posted by mik

the price ($693.00)sounds ok to me, seems strange to me he would quote a price in the first place he would almost make no money out of? perhaps he had mental block and quoted wrongly.

Whether the price sounds alright ( which coincidentally it doesn't ) is an irrelevance , the fact the actual bill was nearly double and they then tried to make out they were doing poor Raven a favour is whats at issue here . Also I do NOT believe for one second they quoted per side in the first place . If a woman rings a hairdresser do they quote to do half her hair , if you ring Bob Jane for a set of tyres do they quote on two ?

[P6LTD351]

You were quoted $400. Pay $400 and not a cent more. Not just mechanics mate. All industries do this. I'm getting a kitchen done and their prices to install keep going up every day that they're here. I just smile and nod. Little do they know that they won't be getting any more than the initial written quote. If you quote something; stick to it. If a business makes a mistake and finds out it costs more - too bad. Get better at quoting then.

[GT0132]

Originally Posted by 79raven

. Funny thing is he wants me to do a pest inspection on his home when I recover from my injuries because he doesn't trust anyone else to do it..... and he was after mates rates. Yeah ill give the ***** mates rates.

Then do a quote for him and when its time for him to hand over the Johnny cash say to him, Oh and by the way mate, that price I quoted was per room , not for the whole house"

As a matter of interest, the $400 the first bloke quoted was that also per side?...May pay to check

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by 79raven

I have lost my job due to injuries that happened at work ( former boss refuses to pay compo and I have no claim because I didnt sign a piece of paper I did not know existed) 2 months ago and am on the dole,

have you talked to anyone about this? workcover? industry lawyers? union? centerlink?