Rant: And people wonder why they feel being fleeced by “mechanics”.

AITA?

So I took the Galaxie in to the local recommended shop for an alignment/fix the crooked steering wheel/pull to the right. Walk in. Dude behind the counter is shuffling through a legal pad covered in some chicken scratch notes on both sides. Finally acknowledged us and stated how this day had already started out for E36 M3 and doesn't know wtf is going on appointment wise. He takes the pertinent info after telling him "here for an alignment because the steering wheel is off.". Explain what it's doing and said in a phone call previously to set up this appointment, that the person on the other end stated that they may not have OE specs for said model. It was iterated that if I have specs in mind to make it known when we drop the car off.

Ok fine.

Front office guy then states they just got a newer model machine and "it should have them in it". I state "if not, I want 0, 4, and a 1/16.". Deer in headlights. Then he proceeds to still be dumbfounded, so I restate, zero camber, 4 degrees of caster, and a sixteenth inch of toe.

"Toe out right?"

"No, toe in."

"No toe out so it'll handle and be more stable at higher speeds."

"No. Toe in."

Internally, I'm going, "can he really be that stupid?" Apparently affirmative IMO.

Either way, I expect a call stating they won't touch it for a multitude of reasons. None of them involve getting it fixed for the complaint I brought it in for originally. I'm only there because I don't have an alignment machine in my garage.....

I felt like I went to the doctor for a broken finger and all they wanted to focus on was my hypertension and weight.

in another thread someone (i think it was Robbie) used the term "toe and go" to describe the current state of the alignment art. he's not wrong.  

That infuriates me too. These alignment shop owners want to pay some "mechanic" $12/hour and expect them to be a knowledgable, decent wrench. How hard could it be, it's just bolts! Sadly, if the individual turning the wrenches is any good, they move on to something that pays more, and we, as enthusiasts, are stuck with idiots who are stuck working for greedy shiny happy people. 


It takes a bit longer and may even take me a few tries but, I've been doing my own alignments with jack stands, tape measures, chalk, and some string for many years now. I'm definitely not perfect, my Outback still has a bit too much toe out on the front but, I'm too cheap to shell out $100 for an alignment and explain/argue as to why I intentionally have about three degrees of negative camber on the front.

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Which is what I really want.

I even compromised and stated, "Fine. Put it at zero." This tank ain't autocrossing. Even if factory was toe out, no, no, and no.

Meh, I don't think you're the shiny happy person here. But maybe that particular shop isn't cut out to do anything other than "cookie cutter" alignments? 

When I had all the work done last year to my car, they are well known for building engines, fuel/turbo upgrades, suspension work, etc. But they don't have an alignment rack, but they've worked closely with 1 location of a well known, national chain, that is now very familiar with dialing in camber plates, control arms, rear toe arms, etc. 

Looking at your location, if they can't do it maybe you'll have to drive down into Knoxville?

In reply to z31maniac :

Car and myself are in Michigan. The place I dropped it off at actually works on a bunch of the classic stuff that's around.

If it was Knoxville, I know a guy....

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

in another thread someone (i think it was Robbie) used the term "toe and go" to describe the current state of the alignment art. he's not wrong.  

I was a victim of this years ago with my '69 Olds. "Set to toe and let it go!" apparently was this guy's answer instead of asking how it should be aligned. Camber is way off (no shims added) and my tires are worn in the inside now. All because he had no idea how to align an old car. Could have just said something. Nope, took my $100 and smiled.

Alignment guys are generally not encouraged to used their imagination, and that hasn't changed in a very long time.  I took my 82 Camaro for an autocross alignment in 1983, wanted 1 degree neg camber, as much caster as they could get, and normal toe.  Came out with a Caprice alignment, with a degree of camber split that made it want to turn left very agressivly...

Fleeced is a gentle word for what I've heard about.  My ex took her Ford Edge in for rear brakes.   I gave her the pads because I had bought them before the divorce.

Independent repair shop people told her then won't install pads they didn't supply.  Strike one.

Then they told her she needed new rotors.  Strike two.

She had a leaking brake hose - the reason she brought it in.   They had to bleed the system.  

So a line item in the bill was a charge for a quart of brake fluid for like $70.

Then the next line said Brake Bleeding  including fluid - for over $100.

Total bill was close to $1500 for their special pads, unneeded new rotors, brake hose replacement, and double charge for brake fluid bleeding.     

I told her yeah, now you know why I spent all that time fixing our cars when we were married (she complained about this EVERY time I spent a Saturday morning doing repairs and maintenance).  

In reply to jharry3 :

This is why I fix my own E36 M3, including my ex wife's fast luxobarge she just bought. I want my kids safe.

"Toe and go" was the standard at the tire shop that my friends worked at, a tire kingdom. I even assisted at least once. For the camber, have someone push on the tire a bit so the numbers look right, print it and seeya later.  This was later in the day, if they were slammed, or just lazy, and more for the people with alignment contracts. 
oh and it was usually just a tire tech doing it, not the mechanic. 
 

the mechanic got paid like 6.50$ for an alignment so i'd pay him 20$ cash and get a really nice alignment. 

My impression is that shop rates are often based on how much the idea of a job needing to be done scares an uneducated person, rather than how much of a PITA a job actually is.

I would rather change brake pads than do an oil change. Dealer shop charged me $180 for an oil change *and* radiator fluid change. Saved me getting under a car, dealing with messes, or dealing with disposal.

They said it needed new brake pads and rear rotors and quoted >$1000. LOL.

Beer Baron said:

My impression is that shop rates are often based on how much the idea of a job needing to be done scares an uneducated person, rather than how much of a PITA a job actually is.

I would rather change brake pads than do an oil change. Dealer shop charged me $180 for an oil change *and* radiator fluid change. Saved me getting under a car, dealing with messes, or dealing with disposal.

They said it needed new brake pads and rear rotors and quoted >$1000. LOL.

Every shop seems to want to change rotors for a brake job.  I don't know if they are counting on the customers to be idiots or if there is some industry wide liability issue that scares them into requiring new rotors (both?).   Rotors rarely wear out on daily drivers unless you are metal to metal.  Resurfacing is easy-peesy and that's not even necessary most of the time.    But no, new rotors required every pad change.  Chaps me greatly.

I don't know of ANY local shops that will install parts that you bring them. 

From the other side of this complaint.

I have been yelled at by dozens of owners of classic cars with complaints of brake problems or handling issues and when I tell them I won't do anything until they change out their 20+ year old tires first. 

"Those tires have 500 miles on them, they are brand new!" "You are trying to screw me!" "This is ridiculous"

Every one of those people that eventually changed their tires came back to apologize.

I have had people show up with eBay sourced parts that were either DOA or failed within a week. If I don't know the source I usually won't install it.  I will however,  inspect the item and see if it is worth our time to attempt. Chances are the part is significantly cheaper than our labor to install it so, wouldn't you rather only pay for the labor once?

I have a great relationship with our alignment shop. I have listened to them have dozens of conversations saying the car cannot be aligned until the failed components are replaced and heard the customers push back. No amount of resetting the toe will address bad bushings or tie rod ends.

Dewey, Fleecem, and Howe.

Look for an alignment shop with a race car parked out back, even if it's a Saturday  night dirt tracker. Find out when they're least busy, make your appointment for then and be friendly. You'll be amazed at how much better a job they'll do. 

It def depends on the shop......I have a local independent tire store that does my alignments.....my cars are def not "normal" (Classic Minis, new MINI , Audi Allroad) so the young guy that does them loves to get his hands on something other than the pickups and SUVs he does all damn day long!

To that end the shop allows me to walk back to the rack, I give him the specs I want and show him where the adjusters are and leave him be. When he's done I always tip him a $20......and when I drive out the cars feels dead on perfect.

When his rack was broken down for a bit he sent me to a race shop just around the corner, and that guy is my new go to place for alignment. He not only can do the job, but he understands how a suspension is supposed to work and how to get the most out of what you have without wearing out your tires. Unexpected bonus, he's also about the same price as my tire shop was......

Keith has a point about looking for a race car somewhere around the shop.  Here in Atlanta we have Gran Turismo East.  They do a lot of the club racer and autocross alignment and wheel/tire setup in the area and it shows on whatever I bring them.

That "race car shop" did a fantastic job on my Elise, but at $400 a pop, I'm going with strings next time now that I have a good baseline. They were worth it for the baseline though; previous toe-and-go shops got good OE numbers, but they had to do very weird things with the shims to make it happen. Either my old bushings had sagged enough to need 7 shims on one side and 0 on the other, or their table was leaning to the side quite a bit...

jharry3 said:

Beer Baron said:

My impression is that shop rates are often based on how much the idea of a job needing to be done scares an uneducated person, rather than how much of a PITA a job actually is.

I would rather change brake pads than do an oil change. Dealer shop charged me $180 for an oil change *and* radiator fluid change. Saved me getting under a car, dealing with messes, or dealing with disposal.

They said it needed new brake pads and rear rotors and quoted >$1000. LOL.

Every shop seems to want to change rotors for a brake job.  I don't know if they are counting on the customers to be idiots or if there is some industry wide liability issue that scares them into requiring new rotors (both?).   Rotors rarely wear out on daily drivers unless you are metal to metal.  Resurfacing is easy-peesy and that's not even necessary most of the time.    But no, new rotors required every pad change.  Chaps me greatly.

I run a shop.  It is not in my interest to do a pad slap, because I pretty much never get a car that doesn't have a ridge around the inner and outer perimeter of the rotor, so the new pads don't have a flat surface to run on, so they create a hot spot, and then you come back and bitch me out because your brakes are shuddering.  You want to do a pad slap? Have at it.

Plus new rotors for most things, of decent quality, are cheap like dirt.

And, I have a rotor lathe.  And a sandblasting cabinet to clean up the pad mounts.  And special grease for the slide pins.

1988RedT2 said:

I don't know of ANY local shops that will install parts that you bring them. 

I had a normal mechanic shop install the Flyin' Miata expansion tank and flush the coolant on my car. Before he even quoted me a price I told him, "I understand you won't provide a warranty on the part/work since it's aftermarket, and I'm ok with that."

He said not a problem and did a great job for a fair price. 

I only did this because this particular shop has a fantastic reputation locally.

As a tech, I wouldn't install parts you brought in for a few reasons:
1 - if the parts wrong who's paying me for the time the car sits on the lift, or the extra time I spend on the car, and the writer contacting you, and the porter pushing your car out back, then back in?  You won't. If I ask you to you'd be on a internet forum complaining about how the mechanic is cheating you because they want more money to fix your car.  
2 - If you're bringing in the parts it's usually because you're cheap. That means you bought cheap parts. When the part fails you're bringing it to me. I'll tell you the part failed and you'll blame me and won't want to pay diag time. Then you'll post on some internet forum about how I'm trying to cheat you

No matter what I was told on the phone I'm not going to tell the service writer to align my car to "I want 0, 4, and a 1/16." Am I sure you're talking camber, caster, toe, or is is caster, camber, toe, or toe, camber, caster? The person you're talking to is more than likely not the technician, it's the service writer. They can take what you said and misconstrue it in many, many ways. 

On the brake issue. Most rotors today aren't made to be turned. If your rotors have been in use for 60K miles (front) or 100K miles (rear) they are probably at the end of the service life.

jharry3 said:

Rotors rarely wear out on daily drivers unless you are metal to metal.  Resurfacing is easy-peesy and that's not even necessary most of the time.    But no, new rotors required every pad change.  Chaps me greatly.

Have you mic'd rotors after 60K miles? How about the runout and parallelism? I'm guessing never. If you said the above statement to me, I'd might you find another shop to do the work. It's hard to work with this level of incorrect information. It chaps me greatly.
And turning drums and rotors is easy, but it's time-consuming, involves expensive equipment and consumables.  Quality rotors are cheap enough now that turning rotors approaches or exceeds 50% of the cost of replacements. At that point, it's a no-brainer.  

RE: rotors and customer supplied parts

Typically anymore the customers best interest is to supply new rotors because if the customers come back with a vibration or uneven pad wear, the shop is eating that repair. If they supply new rotors, they can shift that warranty repair back onto the parts house, even if the warranty is less than the shop's billed labor rate. This only really applies to common commuter vehicles, classics are completely different, IMO. Every shop with a half decent repuation will warranty every repair 12/12.

Customer supplied parts are an instant no warranty item.They are very typically problematic because people in lower socioeconomic classes buy junk and expect caviar and then scream the loudest when it doesn't work. BTDT. Refer back to the statements above. 

Now, if you are installing something non-critical, IE- nothing related to stop or go stuff like above, most shops have no problem doing so. Sometimes the/an upgrade fixes problems with the OE equipment. Would I replace the problematic HPFP in a 6.7 powerstroke for a CP4? Everyday and twice on Sunday. Would I reroute the fuel system on a TDI to avoid total fuel system contamination from a failed HPFP? Again, yes. Is the shop doing you a favor by installing that all aluminum radiator instead of the plastic/aluminum one? Maybe because it's the only available replacement that won't take 3 weeks to get. Etc...