Posts Tagged ‘garage’

Don’t Pay For Your Car Mechanic’s Negligence

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

Once you believe your car mechanic and you do not bother anything next time until something wrong has happened. How many time you have changed your car mechanics or car workshop? Possible if you are paying for your car mechanic’s negligence. Here is a situation that may happen to you:-

I’ve been going to car workshop for a few years and up until now they’ve provided what I would consider to be a good service. Anyway, they serviced my car and I picked it up and took it home. The next morning, there’s a huge pool of oil under the car. I took the car back to the garage and they felt sorry about using wrong washer on the plug.

I took the car home, woke up next day to another pool of oil. I had to use the car to get to work, so I topped the oil up and set off with the intention of dropping the car off at the garage again in the evening. I got to the end of the road and there’s a loud clattering noise coming from the engine bay. I called the garage and they asked me not to drive and the car gets picked up.

Later that afternoon, the garage called back and said ‘It’s not the engine, it’s your steering pump; the bearings have exploded and there’s power steering fluid everywhere. It’s nothing to do with us, you need to pay for getting it transported over, new belts and a new pump’.

Okay, let’s think about this, because to me it doesn’t really make any sense. First of all, they have had two opportunities to spot the leaking fluid and didn’t. Secondly they lied to me about the ‘wrong washer on the sump plug’. Finally, and most importantly, if they had spotted the steering fluid leak in the first place, my pump may well have not died. After all, when I spotted what I thought was an oil leak the pump wasn’t making any bad noises.

I think they have been completely incompetent throughout and I don’t think I should be paying for any of this. As you would expect, the garage doesn’t agree.

Here are some suggestions to reduce chance you need to pay for your car mechanic’s incompetence.

Visit Authorized Garage:

You can not trust car mechanic even if you are using them for long. You must go to authorized car workshop, garages. There are Bosch Car Service centres. They have some standards/criteria to give authorization to small car workshops.

Check Out Car Workshops Reviews:

You can also check out if there is any review available. MeriCAR.com is providing reviews of car workshops and service centres and they are real customers experience.

Using any car mechanics who is just near to your home, is not enough to save your car (or bill).

Source: WeeklyGripe

The Right to Repair Act- Car owners to decide where car is serviced or repaired

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

The car manufacturers sell and service cars through franchised dealers. The car dealers have large infrastructure and they charge heavily. It increases cost of car maintenance. Car owners have no choice during warranty period. Usually car owners prefer get their service done by independent auto repair shop, garage to reduce car maintenance expenses. That is possible once car warranty gets expired.

With advancement of car technologies and complexity of new car systems, there is insufficient information available to independent repair shops. In USA, some car manufactures claim to provide technical information and car manuals with some cost, but still there is a demand of The Right to Repair Act.

Right to Repair Legislation Introduced to US Senate which says:

“The act would require car manufacturers to provide diagnostic and repair information, plus other data, to independent auto repair facilities.

“Consumers should have choices about where to take their cars for repair or maintenance,” says Boxer.

“This legislation is beneficial for smaller, independent auto repair shops that are currently unable to access some information about the cars when that data is held exclusively at the (automobile) dealership”

The need for Right to Repair legislation has become a necessity in order to protect the rights of car owners to decide where and how they have their vehicles serviced, whether at a new car dealer or an independent service facility. Right to Repair ensures that the person who bought the car and not the car company, can decide where that vehicle is repaired and maintained.

The act has not been passed fully in USA yet, but you can see trends globally. You can guess growth of independent auto repair shops in the near future globally.

In India, we can not imagine similar kind of act soon, as car servicing industry is still unorganized and there is no common association which can raise similar demands, but YES, yes…. scenario is changing.

Presently car mechanics change their job frequently, they join independent auto car workshops (or open their own) with a greater role of responsibility and use their experience. Upgrading car mechanics skills is not easy but Indian believed to be smart enough to understand technology (that is not easy though). India needs associations which can train them and raise similar demands of Right to Repair as in another countries. I am looking forward India grow faster >>>>
Source:
RightToRepair.Org
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