[masraum]

Originally Posted by Noah930

Maybe not along the same lines as the above ripoffs, but even the shadetree mechanic within me gets angry at some of the garbage that goes on.

I had a good friend have the alternator die on her Odyssey minivan. She took it to the dealer, and they swapped it out but also charged her for a new radiator, because that supposedly was on its way out as well. Having replaced the alternator in my own Odyssey, I know exactly what happened to require a new alternator--the hamfisted mechanic put a hole in it while trying to remove the alternator. That's exactly why I removed the top two bolts mounting the radiator and canted it forward to give enough clearance to get my hands/tools in there and remove the alternator. And it still was like trying to remove something the size of a coconut from an opening that would only fit a softball. She (my friend) didn't know better, but I was pissed for her.

Many years ago, I had a shop that was swapping a timing belt charge me for 2 broken spark plugs. I have no doubt it was the same thing.

I initially paid for the 2 plugs as it was <$5 and wasn't worth the trouble. Then they gave me some story about the car bucking and shaking and running bad and they needed to pull the head to see if I had bent valves or issues (timing belt had failed). I started out driving with the AC off so I could listen to the motor. Everything seemed fine. About half way home I turned the AC on and the car felt like it thought it was in the rodeo, it was bucking and shaking. Turned the AC off and the issue cleared up again. I got home and started looking around. Turned out that the bolts that held the compressor in were unscrewed by 3/4". I tightened them back up and drove back to the shop. I was pissed. I parked in front of one of the bays and went to find the manager. I told him that they were either completely incompetent or crooked, he could take his pick, and that they were going to refund the cost of the spark plugs and do a few other things as I showed him how the car ran perfectly and described what I'd done to "fix" the various problems that they'd tried to convince me existed. He didn't argue and made the adjustments/refund.