I have never taken a car to a dealership for anything. I buy used, pay cash, and it is usually outside of warranty. Until I buy a new car under warranty, I am not going to a dealership.
No I am sticking with a Silverado with the full size 4 door cab and the 5 foot box. Best that I drive something that suits my age.
No problems in over 15 years and 340k miles. The results speak for themselves. Btw, I've never used a Walmart or 15 minute place. The dealership where I purchased the truck and now a small town repair shop were/are as cheap and much better service.
Don’t get me started. I usually change my own oil but a couple years back I was busy and went to a jiffy lube. They suggested they check all this other **** I should do, the air filter, the radiator flush, etc... I told them no, I do all that stuff on my own, I only want an oil change. Well a few minutes go by and in walks the guy. He said they went ahead and checked the air cleaner and it was dirty so They went ahead and replaced it. I called BS since I had literally changed it myself the last time I changed my oil. Told them I would not pay for that because it was BS and I had specifically asked them not to mess with anything other than the oil. He tried to argue that they had already done the work and it’ll cost extra to put it back, etc... but I wouldn’t have it. It takes them forever to get it back together and I go in to check it out when they say it is ready to go. I immediately notice that one of the vacuum hose ports on the air filter box doesn’t have a hose connected to it. I pointed it out to the mechanic and he says it isn’t supposed to have anything hooked there. About 2 inches away there is a tee with only two tubes connected to it as well. I pointed that out and said that the other end of the missing tube is supposed to connect to that tee, otherwise, why would they have put a tee there to begin with. He finally admits to me that he dropped it into the engine compartment and can’t find it, then proceeds to explain that the tube doesn’t do anything on my car because it has a gas engine. He said that part of the vacuum system only functions on the models that have a Diesel engine but it is cheaper for the manufacturer to just include it on both types so they can all use those parts on both engines instead of having to make a bunch of extra different parts for each engine style. This almost left me speechless and made me furious. I practically screamed that they don’t even make a diesel for this car and even if they did, Diesel engines don’t have a throttle plate, so it is physically impossible for them to create manifold vacuum in the intake system so they have to use a separate vacuum pump to create it and so they wouldn’t even have vacuum lines connected to the intake system. Driving the car without that vacuum tube connected is definitely going to cause a check engine light, will make the brakes barely function because the brake booster functions off manifold vacuum, the air conditioning vents dampers won’t function, and may even damage the engine from running lean due to all the extra air it is sucking in through the open vacuum port. Dude was like well I don’t know what you want me to do because I already looked for the missing tube and can’t find it. I pulled the tee off and said to get in your damn car and drive to the auto parts store and tell them you need some vacuum hose that fits this tee then bring it back here and I will cut a piece to fit it. When it was all said and done (what should’ve been a 15 minute oil change had now taken 2 hours) He handed me the print out of the bill and in addition to the oil change they tried to charge me for replacing the air filter, reinstalling my original air filter, the new air filter (even though I made them take it out keep it), and repairing the vacuum system. I told him no f**king way. I told him I’m not paying for all this other crap that was their fault to begin with, handed him cash for what the oil change costs, plus a little extra that was more than sufficient to cover any taxes and disposal fees, and walked out. I couldn’t believe they tried to charge me for all that crap, any decent company would’ve apologized for their mistake and comped me the oil change for all the trouble I had to go through. After I left I decided to let it be and write off as a learning experience for me and now I know to never again go to one of those drive through 15-minute oil change places and I’ll warn everyone I knew that goes to one that they need to avoid that place like the plague. I thought I was done with that problem for good but turns out I wasn’t. Fast forward 30,000 miles and it’s time to change my air filter. I buy a new air filter grab my 10mm socket and extension open the hood and reach in to open the filter cover. Try lossening the bolt but the socket was too small. I thought that’s odd... I was almost certain that was 10 mm. So I grab my 11mm socket; still too small. Grab the 12mm and it’s too big. I notice at that time that the air filter box is really loose so I go to my shop and grab my little inspection mirror and use to to look down at the bolt and filter box from the side. The bolt is sticking out a good 1” or so from even starting to tighten the filter box cover down and there is a 3/4 inch gap between the filter and the box - and it is on the engine side (aka clean air side) of the filter. The last 30,000 miles I had been essentially driving around with no air filtration. Pulled all the intake system plumbing out to clean it and it was full of dust and even had pieces of leaves and crap in to. Who the heck knows how much damage all that crap getting sucked through my engine caused. I was like why the heck is this this bolt not screwed down all the way and why won’t my sockets fit it. Finally after trying a bunch of sockets and stuff I realized what was going on... it was an SAE sized bolt and sure enough, 7/16 socket fit it perfectly. Thats when it hit me.. the dumbass jiffy lube guy lost the bolt too, so he grabbed whichever out he could find out of the tool box and didn’t even realize that everything on that car uses metric sizes. He then forced it to screw into the wrong sized hole and couldn’t get it to screw all the way in so he just left it. In the process he screwed up the threads so bad that when I tried to loosen it the bolt broke off in the nut. Since the nut was molded into the air filter box I couldn’t just replace it and since it was about 8” deep I couldn’t drill and rethread it, so I ended up having to replace the entire filter housing because the dumb f**k was too lazy to even try and find the right side bolt to replace the one he lost.
Basically the same story with the drain plug...numerous times...and eventually replaced the full pan.
Many questions: Did they actually change the oil? Did they use the oil I specified? Did they fill to the correct level? Did they put the drain plug back in? Was it tight? Was it too tight? Them bastids love to use an impact wrench for everything! Did they round the flats on the drain plug because 1/2" and 10mm are close enough?
Yes they did I watched them add oil, they showed me on the dipstick, made it home with no indication the oil was low.
Realizing I now have to go to another countries news shows in order to get real poitical news about my country So is this how Venezuelans, Chinese, Cubans, Russians, Iranians feel...perbahs...if they can even get outside news...hhhmmm things to come.... See all the mail boxes broken into and contents stolen in early voting states????...hhhmmmm
I liked that comment just so I could unlike it. But yeah turds like that are the exact reason I do a lot of my own oil and filter changes. We found a good, and I mean good mechanic about 8 years ago and we always put in a little extra on the bill, dude is worth his weight in gold. The horror stories about quick change places.. we had a kid that worked production, basically a gopher, a couple years ago. We were working in Branson on a commercial project and he was driving one of the F250 Diesels and it needed an oil change so I threw him the company card and told him to go get it done. He went to a national chain place, got the oil changed, they told him the filters needed changing so he opted for it. Once again, younger guy. He leaves and gets about a mile away and the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree and the truck just shuts down. I get a phonecall and he is flipping out and getting all kinds of panicky. I drive up to where he is, listen to what he is telling me and the first thing I thought was 'might as well check the oil'. Pull the dip stick and it is bone dry. They forget to put the damn oil in it! We ended up taking them to court over it and finding out that it wasn't the first time this had happened at that location.
All a person can say to that is WOW! Those places will run scams too. I took a rig in to one several years ago to have the oil changed. Typical standard procedure ensues, "you need to change your air filter, you need to change your wiper blades, you need to change your front and rear differential oil". "I'll do it myself, I'll do it myself, I'll do it myself"... Then they bring me a sample of my coolant. Sample is brown with chunks floating around in it, and the sample tool shows that it is so terrible it will freeze at 80°F. Well, I'd had the rig for about a year and hadn't changed or flushed the radiator, so I had no reason to not believe him. But I also had a friend that owned a radiator shop. Several of us would go there on occasion on Friday evenings to BS and have a couple beers. So I tell the guy that I'll get that done too. He pushed really hard for them to do it, didn't give up nearly as easily as he did on the other things. I finally told him that the owner of Julius's Radiator Shop (just down the road) was a friend and naturally I was going to give him the business and there was no convincing me otherwise. So I call my friend and he says to just bring it by next Friday evening and we'd swap it out. I get there and he throws a pan under it and then pulls the drain plug to start dumping the antifreeze. I hear him immediately start cussing and see him scramble to put the plug back in. I go over and look and the pan has nothing but beautiful perfect antifreeze in it. No way the sample I was shown came from my rig. I caught Les Schwab Tires in a scam like that once too, told me I had a bent tie rod and they needed to replace it...had just had replaced a month before.
Yea at this point pretty much the only thing I won’t do myself is a timing belt/bearing/water pump replacement job. I did it once before and while I was successful, it’s just not worth the time and pain in the ass so I’ll just pay the $1,000 to have the dealer do that.
Reading all these stories is making me think that either most mechanic shops are owned by retired politicians or most politicians are retired mechanics
So I was following a guy on the freeway this morning he was pulling a trailer with graphics about his business, I get to work and google I have to purchase his product. He is going to put a wrap on my windows facing the lake that will make them one way glass. No tint, mirror from the outside. 6 siding glass doors all blocked from the outside. I can still do my naked morning yoga in the living room.
