Man, some people!

OK, I work in a higher-end European repair shop as a tech. Today I get this NICE looking 96 RUF 911. It's in for an oil change and A/C check. I'm given the oil for the oil change (all 11 quarts of it) and it's the off-brand oil that you'd buy at your local gas station!! Huh! Are you serious! Then he's told the A/C needs a new high pressure fitting, not the whole line but the new fitting. I think it's like $150 for the fitting and the evac/recharge work. He doesn't want to put $150 into his RUF 911! Then we tell him we typically recommend a basic safety inspection on cars that come through the doors, it's $20. He says, "No, I'll be fine. It's a seasonal car I don't need a safety inspection." Wow man! You've got a car I dreamed about for years and you balk at $170 to fix your A/C and have your car, the one that's been sitting for months inspected to make sure it's safe? Jeez!

don't worry.. sooner or later that car will be in for some VERY expensive repairs.. hopefully not from going through a hedge backwards

"I'll be fine. It's a seasonal car...." all the more reason, I would think, to take you up on a simple (underpriced?) inspection.

My brother-in-law is also like this shmuck. He has owned several high end sedans since I've known him, but drew the line when his Infiniti J30 needed new tires with less than 30,000 miles on the odo. Even worse, the dealer told him replacement tires would cost over a hundred dollars per tire. He took it to one of those "discount tire stores" and bought some mid-priced all seasons for the J....and never went back to the dealer again.

If you came at me with something called "Basic safety inspection" I would think scam.

At my sisters 20 year reunion, one of her classmates, a lawyer from Dallas, brought his M5 out to the beach. And to make sure we could all hear the stereo, he left the windows down, and the sunroof open. Heavy sea air from the Gulf of Mexico, and about a 10mph breeze combined with flour like sand, make for possibly the only M5 I wouldn't take if you paid ME.

so whats the problem with sea air and the windows down? one afternoon at the beach is going to ruin a car?

Mea, lots of folks spend more than they've got to get the status symbol car they can't afford. Then they simply can't pay to maintain it.

Di Fatta Brothers here is our Ferrari shop, and the tales he can tell about Ferrari maintenance and repairs by folks like this are downright comical.

My buddy owns a european car repair shop, no domestics, no japanese.

The people that come in with a $2000 VW bug or a crusty Triumph just say "fix what you can, bill me". The 911 guys, especially the one with two race only 911s and a group of high dollar motorcycles are just what you described Dr. Tighter'n a nun's butt. You hate to see them walk through the door because they also know everything.

Dan

MrJoshua wrote: If you came at me with something called "Basic safety inspection" I would think scam.

It's called a "basic safety inspection" because we offer 4 different levels, from the basic level that is, well pretty basic up to a full bumper-to-bumper that takes 2.5 hours and covers more than most people could imagine. And this shop has a stellar reputation.

In reply to Strizzo:

It wasn't during the day. We started at 8 at night. And if you've ever been to the Texas Gulf Coast at night...

racerfink wrote: In reply to Strizzo: It wasn't during the day. We started at 8 at night. And if you've ever been to the Texas Gulf Coast at night...

uh, i live on the gulf coast, and camp on the beach quite a bit as well. is my car worthless now? all the people that live on galveston island, are their cars worthless, too?

I think he means it filled up with sand... which is certainly different than living by the beach.

The only car I ever drove on a beach was a 1969 AMC Ambassador. It had rusty floors and rust in the doors, so the sand fell back out.

Strizzo wrote: all the people that live on galveston island, are their cars worthless, too?

Yes, actually.

integraguy wrote: Even worse, the dealer told him replacement tires would cost over a hundred dollars per tire.

heck I pay more than a$100 / tire for my '91 CRX.... sheesh....

how do you think they got so rich?

i'd assume that most of them inherited their $$$$

MrJoshua wrote: If you came at me with something called "Basic safety inspection" I would think scam.

I love it when you guys come to my shop. I make waaaay more money changing rotors and calipers than I would just putting pads in and turning the rotors.

DrBoost wrote: OK, I work in a higher-end European repair shop as a tech. Today I get this NICE looking 96 RUF 911....

Echoes most of my experiences with people who own older higher-end... anything, really. They buy OOH SHINY and then don't realize that if you have a beast, you must FEED the beast.

This is why there are $800 LS400s, or as I like to think of them, 1UZ-FE donors. I'm waiting for someone to start buying them up to turn into drift cars, myself.

This is of course assuming that "it was $50k when new so it is still worth $20k" isn't in their mindset...

Streetwiseguy wrote:

MrJoshua wrote: If you came at me with something called "Basic safety inspection" I would think scam.

I love it when you guys come to my shop. I make waaaay more money changing rotors and calipers than I would just putting pads in and turning the rotors.

Funny thing is, if they decline the inspection we do it anyway at no charge. Once they see that they usually drop their guard. The shop has been rated #1 in Michigan for like 5 years running.

I didn't think a Ruf 911 had any $150 parts

um, yeah.. id decline a "safety inspection" as well. As soon as the car goes into a shop most people go into automatic "defense" mode, knowing that most shops will try and nickle and dime you to death. doesn't matter how much jingle you have in your wallet, no one wants that uneasy "are they trying to screw me?" feeling, and that terminology screams it...

the smart shop owners Ive known, did this inspection for free while they were performing whatever work the vehicle was there for in the first place. the really smart ones then put what they find into a work sheet, with items by priority and price. then they went over it with the car owner, gave them a copy, and ended the conversation with " you've got the items we are concerned with, please take care of them, if not here, someplace else, but please dont ignore (insert highest priority items here)." with out fail, they got at least some of the work items, usually all, either at that moment or with in a week. follow up calls dont hurt either. yep, they lost some too, but definitely made up for it later on . PPI's would be exception, but should be credited later if the new owner has the work done there, thats just good business practice i think.

let face it, inspections are generally designed to generate work for the shop, that's not a bad thing, but there also hedging for future business, and should invest a bit of time, on the shops dime for that, not charge the customer. they'll make it back 100 fold on just gaining a few good new customers anyway, and develop trust, which always translates into word of mouth recommendations and more business..

924guy wrote: um, yeah.. id decline a "safety inspection" as well. As soon as the car goes into a shop most people go into automatic "defense" mode, knowing that most shops will try and nickle and dime you to death. doesn't matter how much jingle you have in your wallet, no one wants that uneasy "are they trying to screw me?" feeling, and that terminology screams it... the smart shop owners Ive known, did this inspection for free while they were performing whatever work the vehicle was there for in the first place. the *really* smart ones then put what they find into a work sheet, with items by priority and price. then they went over it with the car owner, gave them a copy, and ended the conversation with " you've got the items we are concerned with, please take care of them, if not here, someplace else, but please dont ignore (insert highest priority items here)." with out fail, they got at least some of the work items, usually all, either at that moment or with in a week. follow up calls dont hurt either. yep, they lost some too, but definitely made up for it later on . PPI's would be exception, but should be credited later if the new owner has the work done there, thats just good business practice i think. let face it, inspections are generally designed to generate work for the shop, that's not a bad thing, but there also hedging for future business, and should invest a bit of time, on the shops dime for that, not charge the customer. they'll make it back 100 fold on just gaining a few good new customers anyway, and develop trust, which always translates into word of mouth recommendations and more business..

When I owned my Cadillac and couldn't do some of the trickier repairs in college, I had a shop down the street work on it and this is exactly how they approached me, several months later when the items they had prioritiezed became failures or near failures I knew who to take it back to since they already had the list. To this day I still recommend that shop to any of my friends of which at least 3 have patroned and enjoyed the experience. It helped they also didn't BS repairs in terms of cost or time, or try to tack on things, what I would call kicking you while you're down.

The best memory I have is when they actually helped me at no cost to me or them. At the end of gradschool, when I dropped a brake caliper bolt (my fault), they were nice enough to get it on the rack immediatley and take a look even moved another car off the rack, tell me what to get and where, and when I returned an hour later they threw it back up there and put it on and didn't charge me. I know it wasn't a big deal, but at that moment in time it was (giving master's presentation that day) to me. Honesty instead of sales, to me, is my number one priority in a shop, I'm with 924guy on this.

aussiesmg wrote: I didn't think a Ruf 911 had any $150 parts

The cigarette lighter might be 150$.

mndsm wrote:

aussiesmg wrote: I didn't think a Ruf 911 had any $150 parts

The cigarette lighter might be 150$.

It's just a Beetle

I got a free multi-point inspection from a Mazda dealer a while back. They told me my battery was about to die and "wouldn't make it through the winter". I figured I'd take my chances, and I did eventually have to replace the battery...about a decade later, after I installed my 11:1 engine. It cranked a bit slow.

And that's the sort of thing that makes people shy away from a "basic safety inspection". Too many incompetent or crooked people make life difficult for the good shops.