Sneaky Mechanics

We had to take in the Accord for it's yearly safety and emissions testing. A few miles from our home was a new Tunex and we had a coupon to get the safety inspection done for free. So we took it in. First of all, they were slow. We had it in by 1 and Bryan called at 4. The guy told us we didn't pass the safety and that we had a leak in the power steering rack. The part alone would be $300, but he had to look up labor. I called back at 5--he was still looking up labor. Finally, he calls back, we're expecting a bill of $700. He tells us it will be over $1,200 to fix.

SHOCK!

I keep telling myself, it's okay, at least we don't have to put it on a credit card. We tell Tunex that we'll come get the car. We call a couple of other places to get quotes.

Matson Auto and Marine calls us back and gives us a total below $1,000. An improvement. But then he asks Bryan, "Does it leak?" Bryan replies, "No, not at all. We have a slow oil leak but nothing else." The guy at Matson (in Riverton by Albertsons) then tells Bryan you should only fail the safety if it's REALLY leaking. So we take the car in that night so he can check it in the morning.

The next morning I get a call from Matson saying, "There is no leak, just a little grease and that's not even leaking." He proceeds to tell me that there is an oil leak and a few other things wrong but it's probably not worth fixing because the car has over 180,000 miles on it. So our car passes the safety inspection.

Bryan goes to get the car and is told that we should report Tunex because this isn't a little mistake. It isn't a mistake at all. According to him the inspector at Tunex was dishonest and couldn't possibly have done this by accident. Matson doesn't charge us anything for checking. Bryan presents him with some doughnuts and our thanks. Bryan also mentions that we will be using him from now on for our auto repairs.

The moral of the story--don't go to the Tunex in Herriman off of 134,000 and Bangerter, and question mechanics if you're suspicious. I don't know that we were suspicious but we didn't want to pay $1,200. The funny thing--if Tunex had told us it was under $1,000 we probably would have just had them fix it and not called anyone else. That's where greed gets you!