Dispute with a mechanic

You don't make any money fixing one model of car, unlike enthusiasts who work on exclusively on their own cars. Being a specialist does not make you able to instantly diagnose a fault.

I'm a sparks, I get loads of calls with people who have tripping rcds and I can almost certainly tell you it is either the cooker, kettle, washing machine or pretty much with a heating element causing it through experience, but myself unlike a mechanic doesn't charge to investigate each of these potential faults mainly due to the vast diffrences in Labour times.

I have a suspicion most people who complain about mechanics or anything practical are either office workers or architects, both have a poor grasp how things work :D
 
Maybe that was the specialist advice? Where as a normal place might have pulled the whole lot to bits, or changed the expensive steering rack first.

To me, a specialist garage is one that focuses on certain makes or models compared to a normal garage which look at anything, it doesn't imply they can fix them first time, every time.

With over engineered cars you an expect a merry go round when it comes to tracing faults.
 
Whilst I appreciate that the mechanic's options were simple (change cheapest component first), any BMW "specialist" would have know that this was more likely to be a steering column issue, after all, the BMW forums are littered with such stories
 
MeEsH BaKkA said:
......I have a suspicion most people who complain about mechanics or anything practical are either office workers or architects, both have a poor grasp how things work :D
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So, office workers and architects don't grasp how things work then??

or the problem could be so called specialists like minded to yourself advertise themselves as specialist due to their belief they have a better grasp on how things work and then charge for this grasp/experience when in fact sometimes this far exceeds their ability.

Having an ID tool or fault finder that can read faults for a certain car manufacturer doesn't make the garage a specialist in my opinion.

ps I am not an office worker or an architect and suspect you comment was made tongue in cheek so to speak, hence the :D
 
I have experience exactly this when I had an issue with my E46, he had the car to look at the diagnostics told me it was one thing, cleared the codes and it was fine for a week or two, took it back when the lights came back on (exactly the same lights and symptoms) and he then said it was something else that was actually faulty.

Needless to say I did not get him to do any more work on that car. I also hate garages that work like this, it's total guess work and when it doesn't fix the problem they are just like "oh well".
 
This is why you should discuss up front when you take a car for diagnosis.

"i am paying for diagnosis and fix... if this does not fix the issue what then?" and see how they answer.

Plus always make sure to pay for a diagnosis and make sure the invoice says you have... makes the discussion more one sided when things go wrong :p
 
Django x2 said:
Whilst I appreciate that the mechanic's options were simple (change cheapest component first), any BMW "specialist" would have know that this was more likely to be a steering column issue, after all, the BMW forums are littered with such stories
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This.

It's hardly like it's a tough one to figure out. This is why it's so annoying having to take your car to the dealer or any mechanic in fact. Often, i will walk into their reception with massively more knowledge of the specific issue than they have because i've researched it all for hours on forums etc. A good specialist will already have all of this knowledge and be up to speed with what you're saying straight away. A rubbish specialist will come out with some guff. A pretty main dealer receptionist will look at you blankly.

As Fox says, at least with a main dealer, you don't pay for their lack of knowledge of individual problems, but you do have to wait a long time for them to *finally* get to the issue you knew it was all along. If you live locally to the dealer and they give you a courtesy car - fine, they can take as long as they want.

With a good specialist, they will lay out all your options, but make suggestions that from their experience, "it is very often XYZ that goes on this specific car, causing this problem."

A bad specialist with no knowledge of the problem will do what someone who has never seen the problem would do. Plug it in. Look what the computer says. Replace parts willy nilly at the customers expense. Hell, they could spend 15 minutes Googling it and have about 5 different leads as to what could be at fault. A good (and cheap) place to start is the battery as a low battery can cause this also.
 
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It's not as easy as that.

If the computer says the EGR valve is faulty yet sometimes it is the pressure converter that is faulty what does the mechanic do.

If he uses his experience and replaces the pressure converter and it doesn't fix the issue then he has a an annoyed customer who says why didn't you follow the computer.

It's far better from a defence point of view to follow the computer and use that as your defence rather than your experience as at least with the computer it's black and white.
 
The problem is most car issues aren't a simple "oh it's that part, lets replace it" fix, especially these days with everything becoming more reliant on sensors and electrics.

While I agree that it's stupid in this day and age that the customer picks up the tab for parts that possibly weren't to blame for the issue and in hindsight the garage should keep the original part just in case it wasn't that and they can swap it back. That's just not practical as they would have a shed load of parts sitting around just in case it's not that.

At least they followed the book and replaced cheapest first and didn't sting you with a massive bill for another part that might not have fixed it either. The fact they are offering free labour on the steering too suggests that they are aware of the hassle and thought they would help out
 
Orionaut said:
Explain how one might test for an intermittent fault! (Which sensor/ecu faults frequently are)
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I'm not a mechanic but for a lot of car issues a simple Google will bring up owners forums where advice on diagnosing specific faults is often given. Was a test even attempted in this case?
 
Hades said:
I'm not a mechanic but for a lot of car issues a simple Google will bring up owners forums where advice on diagnosing specific faults is often given. Was a test even attempted in this case?
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No way are you proposing a mechanic starts involving google into customer repairs.

You go on the manufacturers TIS program and proceed from there and carry out their procedures.

Not Barry off google.
 
pepsilol said:
No way are you proposing a mechanic starts involving google into customer repairs.

You go on the manufacturers TIS program and proceed from there and carry out their procedures.

Not Barry off google.
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I would be inclined to agree, if i hadn't witnessed Barry off Google **** all over TIS so many times it hurts.

Besides, not all mechanics have that, especially independent ones. I don't see the problem using Google to point them in the right direction, especially considering that if the OP's mechanic had done just that, he would actually have a bit of an idea as to what to do.

Google is another resource and to ignore it because it isn't "official" is dumb.
 
I'll be the first to admit if I've got something in that I'm not sure about then Google does get loaded up to point me towards possible causes if my own diagnostics gear either doesn't ****ing communicate with the car or it's too "unique" to have OBD comms.
 
I'd probably be a bit worried, rightly or wrongly, if I took my car somewhere and they came back to me saying 'Right, I went on Google yeah, and on golfownersrus.com it says that usually it's the donkey gasket rubbing against the unicorn flanges in the engine bay, so i'm swapping all the gaskets and then your heated seats should work perfectly' :p
 
Kenai said:
I'd probably be a bit worried, rightly or wrongly, if I took my car somewhere and they came back to me saying 'Right, I went on Google yeah, and on golfownersrus.com it says that usually it's the donkey gasket rubbing against the unicorn flanges in the engine bay, so i'm swapping all the gaskets and then your heated seats should work perfectly' :p
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Yea, it's much more comforting when they just guess and get it wrong and hand you the bill :D
 
pepsilol said:
No way are you proposing a mechanic starts involving google into customer repairs.

You go on the manufacturers TIS program and proceed from there and carry out their procedures.

Not Barry off google.
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There are owners on forums that know way, way more than a lot of 'mechanics'. If you take the car in my sig I wouldn't trust VW to know anything about it nowadays but some of the owners and enthusiasts know them like the back of their hands.

I'm not suggesting they google for instructions on how to remove or repair items and ignore what any other diagnostic tools or manuals say. I'm suggesting that where there may be an ambiguous reason for a fault code they use it as an additional source of knowledge. There are often good tips on how to test individual components such as checking voltage across pins on sensors, etc. In other words trying techniques used before fitters blindly trusted a computer readout. If used in conjunction with modern diagnosis tools it seems to me like the fitter would get a more accurate diagnostic.

The alternative is to simply try replacing parts and bill the customer.
 
Thanks for the input everyone.

So conclusions are
- I pay for it because its very difficult for the mechanic to know what the exact problem is with modern cars and he just followed the diagnostics which is standard protocol
- I pay for it because there is nothing I can do about it now and most mechanics rip you off this way.

I am going to just assume the first so i don't feel like I'm being ripped off.

Anyway the part was just under 400+vat.

So worst case scenario if this fixes the problem is that I paid for a CAS module I didn't need for £250+vat. Not the end of the world I guess.
 
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