Four Ways to Protect Yourself From Mechanic Scams
Car repair scams are extremely common, with half of respondents to a recent survey admitting to having experienced someone trying to sell them unnecessary repairs . Auto mechanics, of course, put many of us at a disadvantage because many people lack basic knowledge of car repair and maintenance , so we have to take the mechanics at their word.
But you don’t have to be a mechanic to avoid most common car repair scams. You just need to take a few simple steps.
Read the manual
The simplest thing you can do to avoid being scammed by a mechanic is to read the manual that came with your car. It will detail the maintenance schedule you should follow and indicate when filters and fluids need to be changed. Knowing this schedule can clue you in when your mechanic insists that you need a “fluid flush” to keep your car running well – for example, many new cars have “lifetime” transmission fluid that doesn’t need to be changed at all, or just the car passed after 100,000 km.
Some auto repair shops lure you in with super cheap oil changes or tune-ups where they actually lose money, and then offer you a full engine flush for a nice upsell. But if you know how long your liquid is rated to last, you can be prepared to get tricky.
Take photos
Before you take your car to a mechanic, take a few photos – inside and out, including the engine. This will record the condition of the car before the mechanic picked it up, which can generally be useful if further damage occurs when the car is received. But it also gives you the opportunity to find out whether certain parts were actually replaced as promised (and that nothing was replaced without your knowledge, such as a new battery being replaced on a rusty old clunker), and allows you to compare new parts to old ones. It also serves as a reminder to check things like oil caps and battery belts to make sure no steps have been missed.
Change filters
If you have basic mechanic skills, a great way to spot a cheater is to replace the air and oil filters before going to the store or mark them somehow with a felt-tip pen. This will help protect against one of the simplest scams : pulling out a dirty air filter and telling you that you definitely need to replace yours. If you know your filters are brand new and they’re handling it, you’ll know right away that you can’t trust anything these people tell you.
Ask for old part(s)
Finally, if your mechanic tells you something expensive needs to be replaced, an easy way to protect yourself from being scammed is to ask to pick up the old part (in many areas, you actually have a legal right to those parts). This allows you to see the wear yourself and prevents a rogue mechanic from billing you for a replacement part that he didn’t even bother to replace. Even if you don’t know the difference between a worn brake pad and a brand new one, simply asking for the old part will make the mechanic notice that you’re paying attention to it.