Caught on Film: Lying Mechanic vs. Idiot Customer
Friday December 28, 2007
Ever wonder what would happen if two completely worthless people were given a secret CIA truth serum?
The complaints among shop owners and their customers never seem to grow quiet. There's always talk of how much of a pain in the crotch area all of the completely clueless, overly suspicious, accusatory and cheap car owners can be when it comes to fixing their cars. There also seems to be no shortage of far flung accusations of how so-and-so's repair shop is overcharging for parts, padding labor charges, trying to pass off spray-painted used parts as new and fixing things that ain't even broke. It goes both ways, and neither side is any better off at the end of the day.
The complaints among shop owners and their customers never seem to grow quiet. There's always talk of how much of a pain in the crotch area all of the completely clueless, overly suspicious, accusatory and cheap car owners can be when it comes to fixing their cars. There also seems to be no shortage of far flung accusations of how so-and-so's repair shop is overcharging for parts, padding labor charges, trying to pass off spray-painted used parts as new and fixing things that ain't even broke. It goes both ways, and neither side is any better off at the end of the day.
So let's take a paranoid repair shop customer and a less than scrupulous mechanic up to the mother ship and inject them with that super-serum. I don't have a mother ship or any truth serum, but the makers of this hilarious video did, and they caught it all on film. Of course this is a ridiculous exercise in stereotypes and completely abnormal behavior with very little merit and even less truth, but it is kinda funny to watch. I watched it twice.
** Before anybody gets their feelings hurt, please note that this is a comedic interpretation of a situation, not a hidden camera video or anything like that. Mechanics aren't crooks and customers aren't idiots ... usually.
Comments
“He’s adding $600 to the bill for five additional hours of bogus labor.” Yes a funny video that can actually come true. Becoming an educated auto repair consumer can stop you from looking like the customer in this video.
Hilarious indeed!
“Let me tell you what i did to fix your car in such detail that I’ll leave you feeling completely emasculated.” Right on!
Yeah I thought ^^^that part ^^^ was extra funny.
That video was totally funny. I have been having problems with my 92 Cadillac lately. Needed EGR cleaned, ISM control, oil change, transmission hoses that leaked, spark plug wires, plugs, heater core leak, since Nov. 2007. Luckily some of the work I had done by a backyard mech. who I could watch take off and put on the parts. Unfortunately some of the other work was done at a shop and I couldn’t see anything such as the EGR and the turn signals. I now have to take the car back because the mech. at shop who fixed turn signal disabled my Viper car alarm and he doesn’t know how to fix it, also the right turn signal is not catching. He charged me $200 for this nonsense, on top of me having to catch the bus for two days. Now I’m going to leave it again and this time he better have it all fixed or else he’ll be seeing me in small claims court.
hahahahahahaha Ok, so I cannot be accused of being a cheap car owner – generally do whatever they recommend (after checking with my husband who used to be a mechanic to see if it’s legit or not), always get my oil changes, etc. Until… I was about to trade a car in and took it in for an oil change since it was time and I was still undecided on the next car make/model. The shop attendant told me that ALL of my belts were bad – not just bad, cracked, split, etc. Knowing that my husband had just been under the hood a week before, checking vitals to ensure the car would be fine while he was out of town, I found it odd that he would miss something so apparently obvious. I told the shop person not to worry about it, my husband would replace this weekend. On my way home, a loud popping sound… and then just as I got home, the steering wheel began to NOT WORK. I called my husband who laughed hysterically for no less than 5 minutes and, when he could speak again, said, “Oh, so they cut it on you, did they? Old trick, but effective”. Long ago, he’d quit as head mechanic at a dealership because they were encouraged to do similar acts in order to drive business.