We have moles in the industry, clandestine servants of automotive justice who seek to keep money from leaving your wallets through deception. Ok, it's not quite that exciting, but we've seen lots of honest mechanics and former technicians surface to offer insight into the occasionally below-board tactics of bad shops. This report stood out as especially interesting, coming from a man who's spent most of his life in the automotive parts and repair industry. He offers some great tips:

• Become informed/educated. Regardless of item, be it automobile, home, TV, computer, etc., an informed consumer stands a far better chance of getting honest repairs than someone who just drops the car off and writes a check for repairs they are told they need.
• Dealerships. A technician in a dealership works on billable labor hours and follows shop policy and a published flat-rate manual. If the manual indicates that it takes 6 hours to change the heater core in your 2004 Chevrolet, then 6 hours will be what you are billed for. The down side to that is that in order for the tech performing the work to earn their minimum commission, (yes, they do not work on a straight hourly wage) they have to produce approximately 100 billable hours per week during a 40-hour work week. Since typically "beating flat-rate" can't be done on a consistent basis, dealerships introduced the "special packages," that put a tech in the out of sight, out of mind consumer zone. Under the car. Cooling system, exhaust, transmission, shock, strut, tire and brake specials all designed to get the consumer's car on the rack for a closer inspection. If you ask for the special, be sure to bring the coupon that advertised that special, and ALWAYS get a 2nd opinion if the tech indicates that once they got your car on the rack, more problems were found.
• I've seen tech training classes where they were taught to squirt oil on the shocks or struts, and then inform the customer that those expensive suspension components were leaking hydraulic fluid and would require replacement, and then obviously a 4-wheel wheel alignment must be done to insure the quality of the new components.
• Subscribe to your make/model consumer and enthusiast websites and blogs. There is a world of information there and normally there is an administrator to keep comments in line and many of them have excellent search engines by topic/component.
• Purchase a repair manual. Even if you don't tackle the repairs yourself, you'll learn and become at least familiar with the systems and repairs of your car.

  There's much more, but these tips should at least get some of you off in the right direction.

The tactics he's describing aren't the norm, but these things do happen. If you're aware of these worst case scenarios, you won't be an easy victim and slimeballs will move on to the next poor sucker, leaving you with a proper repair and money in your pocket.

Crooks never rest when it comes to brewing new ways to con innocent people out of their hard earned cash. Just when the public gets wise to a scam, another one is hatched and the cycle begins anew. All we can do is try to keep up, and maybe one day we'll get a step or two ahead of the tidal wave of swindles and hoodwinks that plague the auto repair industry.

The latest repair scam to rear its head is especially egregious because of its choice of victims. While this one could be pulled on any unwary driver, con men have set their sights on the elderly. Older drivers are often more trusting of firm promises and official-seeming garb or paperwork which makes them easy targets for scumbags, but the fact that so often they are living on a fixed income makes it much worse. It goes something like this. The con man spots an elderly driver on the road and flags him down, telling him there is something wrong with his car and it might be dangerous to continue driving. The crook then jacks up the car and loosens the lug nuts, causing the wheel to wobble. He then assures the driver that he can fix the car on the spot for much less than a repair shop, all he needs is a small fee and the money to buy the part. You see where this is going: fake part replacement, miracle car cure, money changes hands, scam succesful.

There's one rule that will help you avoid this and many other scams -- never let somebody fix your car in a parking lot, it's never a good plan. To read more about this scam, check out this article in the The Coloradoan.

It's always fascinating to peer into the legal spaghetti bowl and try to figure out what's going on. In the realm of auto repair, there is a never ending stream of outdated laws, new laws, and law suits. Most are small potatoes, but when the activity around a specific issue reaches a dull roar, insurance commissions usually spring into action. At the very least the laws in question and the legal hum surrounding them are examined. Sometimes this sparks a change in policy or legislation. I came across this article in the ABRN newsletter and thought it was an interesting window into current activity between repair shops and the insurance industry in New York. Check out this excerpt from a question and answer session:

Q: May an insurer recommend or suggest a particular facility for motor vehicle repairs if not expressly requested by the insured?
A: No. Insurance law prohibits an insurer from recommending or suggesting a particular facility for repairs in the absence of an express request from the insured. Any previous opinions issued by the Insurance Department to the contrary should no longer be followed.

Q: Must an insurer, as part of a good faith negotiation, negotiate labor rates?
A: Yes. A good faith negotiation, like a good faith settlement offer, should be inclusive of all elements of the cost of the repair, including labor rates.

Q: If an insured elects to have a vehicle repaired in a facility other than that recommended by the insurer, is the insurer financially responsible for any excess repair cost over the cost that the recommended facility would have changed?
A: The department has opined that if an insurer makes a good faith offer to the insured to pay for the cost of repair, and, after providing the insured with the prescribed notice of rights letter, identifies a facility that will repair the damage at the cost estimated by the insurer, the insurer is not obligated to pay for any repair cost that exceeds the amount of the good faith offer required by regulation. However, at least one court has held that an insured may be awarded the balance of the repair costs if the insured establishes that the excess cost was necessary to restore the vehicle.

Even these little bits of information as answered by the New York Insurance Department speak volumes about how the industry works on both sides of the issue. Remember, the more you know, the less likely it will be that anyone can take advantage of you!

Every field has a few topics that, although they're of little overall importance, are the subject of great lunchtime debate. In the realm of auto repair, it's the glove. We're not entirely alone. Gloves have had some pivotal roles to play in recent history. Michael Jackson lost one and created the dumbest fashion trend in history. O.J. lost one and created the dumbest jury in history. Mechanics aren't making it into the books with our endless debates on gloves (and tools, and cars, and fluids, and ... it never ends), but we have plenty to say on the subject and choose our sides ferociously. Should you wear gloves? If so, which gloves should you wear, expensive specialty gloves or inexpensive generic work gloves? Sure, the questions seem simple, but it's the simplest of questions that seem to garner the most complex web of answers and opinions. Check out The Great Glove Debate for some serious information overload.