Peoples stories of getting scammed by car mechanics

Here are Peoples stories of getting scammed by car mechanics. It’s terrible what these car mechanic shops do to people to scam them.

They didn’t mention the names of these car mechanic shops, but there were so many of them, I decided to list them.

I thought they only scam women, but no, they scam men too.

I don’t have time to put quotes around everyone story, just note that they aren’t mine.

1. Dealership Technicians or as I like to call them Oil Change techs are the worst of the lot IMO. My father took his 4 year old car for its 48,000Kms service the only thing they had to do by the Maintenance book was change oil + Air filter. Now this is where the fun starts they told my father that the spark plugs needed changing, as well as the in-tank Fuel filter, to which my father asked them is this by the book as my car has only got 20,000Kms on it, they told him yes its what is stated in the maintenance manual. After waiting for 4 hours my father went into the workshop and said what the hell is going on and why is it taking so long? One of techs told him sorry but we did not have the correct tool to remove the fuel pump cover on the tank, and that it would take another hour or so. So another 2 hours passed before they let my father know that his car was finished, my mother went to get into the passengers seat only to find a rag soaked with petrol sitting on her seat, which made the whole car stink of Fuel vapors.
   So then my father asked WhyTF was a petrol soaked rag left on the passengers seat, the idiot useless tech told him oh sorry for that I forgot to remove it, so they had to open all the doors including tailgate on his SUV to air the car out which took another hour for the smell to dissipate enough so they could drive home, so they wasted 7 hours at this Dealership service center. Then when they arrived home I went out to greet them and could smell petrol vapors coming from the car, I told my dad to open everything and let it air out for a few hours 4 to be exact. The next day my father took my mother to a doctors appointment some 30kms away, and whilst returning home he refueled the car to full at our local IGA some 1km away, jumped in the car but the fuel gauge was only showing 3/4 full which has never happened before after fueling/topping the car up, and once again there was a bad fuel smell. Then I heard their car enter our driveway and went outside only to smell the most prevalent smell of Petrol I have ever smelt from a vehicle. If you have got this far I am sure you will want to read the rest.
   I told my father that it smells that bad of fuel that the seal on the tank must be leaking profoundly to which it was, I got straight on the phone to the service center and asked to speak with head of the service department, after telling him that his mechanic turned my dads car into a ticking time bomb, and letting him know if this problem is not fixed I will pay them a visit myself with my car, and that there is no way I am driving the ticking time bomb which they created back to the dealership. He told me that he would send a truck to pick the car up fix the problem and have it trucked back to us which he did in a matter of 3 days. I also let him know what he needs to refund my father $315 which he was charged extra for work which should not have been carried out, let alone making the vehicle a time bomb in the process, to which he has agreed to refund. So in the end it has been sorted out only after I let them know in a discreet manner that if I had to come down to the dealer there would be some Claret/blood leaking out of Mechanic and the Manager funny how when your direct with people they seem to want to fix all their mistakes.
2. My sis recently gave us her old Mazda 3 and I asked about the right headlight, well she said a while back she was informed by the techs that it wasn’t possible without removing the whole assembly (a process, lot of labor); so she had to have them do it for her. I sent her back a video of me just popping the hood, tugging the rubber boot off, and swapping the bulb. It was all accessible, but she never knew better.

   They charged her $200 goddamn dollars.

   Back in my 20s my friend dropped his car off at PepBoys for an oil change. Those mfs called him back and said his timing chain was bad. I raised a storm like wtf were they doing looking at any of that?! They even told him that it was already replaced so if he didn’t pay the $150 he couldn’t get his car back. He caved cuz he didn’t want “drama”, I was so mad I wanted to walk in with a baseball bat and start getting answers.

3. I do all my own maintenance and repairs, but my 2003 Toyota Sequoia was involved with the Takata airbag recall. I had to take it to the dealership, unfortunately. I even asked them if I could just get the parts, do the change out myself, and then return the old ones to the dealership for them to send back to the manufacturer. Even though I am no longer in the field, I maintain my ASE Certifications and my Pennsylvania State Inspection license. The dealership refused and said they had to do it.

   Of course, they tried to sell me just about every service under the sun: brake fluid, power steering, coolant and transmission flushes, timing belt and water pump even though I had already changed it 10,000 miles beforehand, spark plugs, etc. When I got my car back, the airbag wasn’t sitting correctly on the steering wheel, and I had a clunky rattle when I drove over bumps from the passenger side dashboard. I took the car home, disgusted because I knew that I was going to have to do the job myself anyway.

   Sure enough, the airbag on the steering wheel was loose and not lined up properly, and it was the same story with the passenger side airbag… and it was missing hardware. I had to end up pulling one of the remaining bolts out of the airbag and go to the hardware store to find bolts of the same pitch, length, and grade so I could make sure my passenger side airbag was properly secured.

4. Dude I’m in a fight with a shop right now over something like this. They charged me $75 to change my oil and I’m fine paying them cause they’ve always been ok. They know me, but I had to send my husband cause I’m working. They just added more oil to my car and called that an oil change. My husband came home and said “hey they said your brake and power steering fluids dirty, do you want me to make another appointment?” No…no the f**k I don’t want to change my brand new brake fluid or change the power steering that doesn’t need to be changed. That’s when I went to go look at my car and pulled out the oil stick to find muddied new oil. I was and am still pissed
5. I am a former Dealership Automotive Technician. Many other techs, as well as myself, were honest and did our best to take care of our customers, but there were a lot of dishonest guys out there who purposely damaged components and outright lied and claimed to perform services that thry never did and charged the customer for it. It always incensed me because first and foremost, it was disrespectful to the customer, but also their untrustworthy behavior hurt my reputation and the reputation of every other decent technician. Although I am no longer a dealership technician and now work on trains, I never bring my own cars to a shop because I don’t trust them. That experience also makes me untrusting of professionals in other service industries as well. The behavior of this TV repair tech in this video just further reinforces that feeling for me.
6. Toyota where I am (Pennsylvania) broke my van and then blamed me saying that it was already broken. They refused to repair it. I am disabled and can’t even change my own oil and I am really tired of paying hundreds for simple issues. My last issue was that I had new hoses put on when I had the timing belt done. They didn’t do the cam seals even though I paid for that. They threw away my old clamps and used generic Chinese clamps that keep coming loose. When I checked the hoses, they were not the brand of hoses that I specified and also the cheap hoses had cut into them. I called and nobody returned my call even though I left my info. I get really irritated at people taking advantage, I used to do all my own work. Short of rebuilding a transmission or machining engine parts I did most everything on my own vehicles.
7. the Seat dealer here, who is now no longer a Seat dealer (wonder why), was a shady mofo. He “repaired” my bust head gasket without leveling the head, causing the gasket to go bust again (gee). Right when he charged me 100 bucks for a liter of coolant and 2 minutes of looking under the hood is when I walked out and went to an independant local garage that has since serviced all my cars.
8. the thrird party support for mad catz cyborg never repair my fly 5 cyborg fly stick, scammers
9. My parents moved away from their German car brand that has been his choice of brand for multiple decades but switch in his older age because the dealer keep finding things to repair or replace, he is not stupid. He is going to another brand just to get away from this way of thinking, of course he has friends that has different car brands and share their stories. I don’t understand how businesses can be so shortsighted

So that wraps up my article of peoples stories of getting scammed by car mechanics.

It’s just terrible how so many people scam people these days, but it’s no surprise to me due to the evils tearing down society and killig off Humanity and Our Mother Earth.

Michelle