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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2odR4t5
I sort of like cars, I was raised helping my dad fix them, they’re not really mysterious to me. But they’re stupid expensive and stressful.
My current car is pretty new. 2013 I think, 2014 maybe. I am super up on the maintenance, I take it in as soon as it needs a service, I don’t skip any. I’m like super up on it.
Over the summer I took it in for an oil change and figured it probably needed new front brakes. It cost $900. Ugh. They also said, hmmm your tires are a little thin, you might need to replace those soonish. I said I mean, they pass inspection, right? They said yeah, but, you’re gonna be sad in the ice. I said yeah, well, if that’s a problem I’ll get new tires. (Thinking, not from you. There’s a local tire place with a good reputation and multiple locations and I’ve used them to fix flats before. If you buy their tires they do rotations for free. Dude bought snow tires from them, they store the other tires for free. When I hit a curb and tore my sidewall I got a tire from them, and they were like “oh gosh you’ve got AWD we might have to do all four” and then the guy came out with a ruler and measured with me right there and was like “hey no the wear’s close enough, we can just do one! Phew! We gotta special-order exactly the right one but we can do it!” So like. Yeah.) (When you’re car shopping, consider that, if you buy an AWD car, you can’t replace one tire, you must have all four be perfectly identical, within a couple of 32nds of an inch of wear, so. All-Wheel Drive is Not Worth It, take it from me!)
I brought my car back in this time, actually slightly early for its next service– because the inspection was up and I was like, I might as well get it done at the same time as the inspection. So I did.
They were like oh, your brakes, they’re pretty low, they might need replacing, best to do them now. I was like wait the ones I just had done? No no, the rear ones.
I had the rear ones done already. The car was still under warranty it was so new, and the rear brakes were grinding, I had like 20,000 miles on the car, and I took it in, and they did my rear brakes and they were like whew good thing you came in still under warranty that would’ve been expensive! and i was like oh yah I’m so glad! wow! really that’s free? and they were like oh yah! car warranty!
… Oh, said the guy on the phone just now. Uh, well. Lemme scroll back that far. Uhh… they didn’t… replace your brakes. They took the rotors off, ground them down to be even, then put them back on rotated for better wear.
Really, I said icily. They did not tell me that. I asked them pretty specifically, and they said, oh, we replaced your rear brakes. I don’t know what question I was supposed to ask to find out that by “replaced” they meant “took off and put back on again”. That seems extremely sketchy to me. You commented just now when I dropped my car off how conscientious I am about maintenance. Does it not strike you that someone conscientious about maintenance would wish to know the details of how her brakes were “fixed” so that she could make informed decisions going forward about her car’s maintenance? I would possibly have requested a replacement last year when you were doing my front brakes, had I known I was riding around on resurfaced, reused old rotors in the back. I can handle balding tires but I don’t like to fuck with brakes, I have extensive experience in cars with bad brakes. [surely i’ve told the saga of driving my old minivan 300 miles with both brake lines busted.]
Yeah, the guy said uneasily, that’s, yeah, I’m sorry about that, we’ll see if we can do anything for you, gosh.
They could not do anything for me, the brake job cost about a hundred dollars more than they’d quoted me, and altogether the service was $600 more than they’d told me when I dropped the car off.
I’m going to send the guy one last email letting him know that I’ll be doing my future maintenance elsewhere, and if he could be a dear and send me a summary of my services so that I know what other sketchy fucking shit they’ve done so that I can begin my new maintenance program with another shop on an informed basis, that’d be super nice.
Also my tires that were so bald last summer that I couldn’t possibly survive a winter?
No mention of that this time! Hm could it be that they were just trying to sell me tires? Gosh it’s a dealership and they have sales quotas don’t they. Hmmmmm.
Everyone said “don’t go to the dealership for your maintenance they’re overpriced and shady” and I was like “but they’re so nice to me!” No. No, don’t do it, my friends.
There’s a mechanic on the corner of my street who knows a fair bit about Subarus. I’ll use them instead. (They don’t sell tires. They say oh get ‘em at Dunn like everyone else, they’ve got all kinds.)
I’m going to close it out by pointing out that my dude just bought a Mazda from them and was about to take it in for its first service (he’d scheduled it for today but forgot to reply to the confirmation email so inadvertently canceled it) and is now reconsidering that idea, and looking for another local mechanic that handles Mazdas. Because that’s also true.
(Your picture was not posted)
I sort of like cars, I was raised helping my dad fix them, they’re not really mysterious to me. But they’re stupid expensive and stressful.
My current car is pretty new. 2013 I think, 2014 maybe. I am super up on the maintenance, I take it in as soon as it needs a service, I don’t skip any. I’m like super up on it.
Over the summer I took it in for an oil change and figured it probably needed new front brakes. It cost $900. Ugh. They also said, hmmm your tires are a little thin, you might need to replace those soonish. I said I mean, they pass inspection, right? They said yeah, but, you’re gonna be sad in the ice. I said yeah, well, if that’s a problem I’ll get new tires. (Thinking, not from you. There’s a local tire place with a good reputation and multiple locations and I’ve used them to fix flats before. If you buy their tires they do rotations for free. Dude bought snow tires from them, they store the other tires for free. When I hit a curb and tore my sidewall I got a tire from them, and they were like “oh gosh you’ve got AWD we might have to do all four” and then the guy came out with a ruler and measured with me right there and was like “hey no the wear’s close enough, we can just do one! Phew! We gotta special-order exactly the right one but we can do it!” So like. Yeah.) (When you’re car shopping, consider that, if you buy an AWD car, you can’t replace one tire, you must have all four be perfectly identical, within a couple of 32nds of an inch of wear, so. All-Wheel Drive is Not Worth It, take it from me!)
I brought my car back in this time, actually slightly early for its next service– because the inspection was up and I was like, I might as well get it done at the same time as the inspection. So I did.
They were like oh, your brakes, they’re pretty low, they might need replacing, best to do them now. I was like wait the ones I just had done? No no, the rear ones.
I had the rear ones done already. The car was still under warranty it was so new, and the rear brakes were grinding, I had like 20,000 miles on the car, and I took it in, and they did my rear brakes and they were like whew good thing you came in still under warranty that would’ve been expensive! and i was like oh yah I’m so glad! wow! really that’s free? and they were like oh yah! car warranty!
… Oh, said the guy on the phone just now. Uh, well. Lemme scroll back that far. Uhh… they didn’t… replace your brakes. They took the rotors off, ground them down to be even, then put them back on rotated for better wear.
Really, I said icily. They did not tell me that. I asked them pretty specifically, and they said, oh, we replaced your rear brakes. I don’t know what question I was supposed to ask to find out that by “replaced” they meant “took off and put back on again”. That seems extremely sketchy to me. You commented just now when I dropped my car off how conscientious I am about maintenance. Does it not strike you that someone conscientious about maintenance would wish to know the details of how her brakes were “fixed” so that she could make informed decisions going forward about her car’s maintenance? I would possibly have requested a replacement last year when you were doing my front brakes, had I known I was riding around on resurfaced, reused old rotors in the back. I can handle balding tires but I don’t like to fuck with brakes, I have extensive experience in cars with bad brakes. [surely i’ve told the saga of driving my old minivan 300 miles with both brake lines busted.]
Yeah, the guy said uneasily, that’s, yeah, I’m sorry about that, we’ll see if we can do anything for you, gosh.
They could not do anything for me, the brake job cost about a hundred dollars more than they’d quoted me, and altogether the service was $600 more than they’d told me when I dropped the car off.
I’m going to send the guy one last email letting him know that I’ll be doing my future maintenance elsewhere, and if he could be a dear and send me a summary of my services so that I know what other sketchy fucking shit they’ve done so that I can begin my new maintenance program with another shop on an informed basis, that’d be super nice.
Also my tires that were so bald last summer that I couldn’t possibly survive a winter?
No mention of that this time! Hm could it be that they were just trying to sell me tires? Gosh it’s a dealership and they have sales quotas don’t they. Hmmmmm.
Everyone said “don’t go to the dealership for your maintenance they’re overpriced and shady” and I was like “but they’re so nice to me!” No. No, don’t do it, my friends.
There’s a mechanic on the corner of my street who knows a fair bit about Subarus. I’ll use them instead. (They don’t sell tires. They say oh get ‘em at Dunn like everyone else, they’ve got all kinds.)
I’m going to close it out by pointing out that my dude just bought a Mazda from them and was about to take it in for its first service (he’d scheduled it for today but forgot to reply to the confirmation email so inadvertently canceled it) and is now reconsidering that idea, and looking for another local mechanic that handles Mazdas. Because that’s also true.
(Your picture was not posted)
