Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4678

Does anyone here know anything about auto repair estimate laws?

I got an estimate to repair the latch in my Civic. The locks move but it is impossible to open the door--both latches do nothing--so I asked around and the guy at the dealership says it's probably a little plastic piece that connects the lock switch to the locking mechanism, which problem affects around 1/4 of all Civics from that model year. Very easy to fix, except it requires the door to be open, and mine was shut fast.

So I take it to the shop I always go to, get a written estimate of $250 for around 4 hours' work and parts.

Called today and the one-day job has turned into a two-day job where the guy claims to have worked on it "all afternoon" and now wants almost $400 for it. I am pretty sure it is illegal to grossly underestimate the cost of the repair and then go ahead with it without calling the customer. But I'm not sure who to talk to next. Also by their numbers the guy had to have worked on the car for around 7 hours, which is unlikely.

Any ideas?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Delaware
Posts: 5704

Better Business Bureau? Legally, you got nothin'. They gave you an ESTIMATE. I would have asked the dealership if there were any "silent recalls" on this item, and what they would have charged. Seems to me that if this is a common problem, they could fix it pretty quickly.

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Registered: Nov 2003
Location: .
Posts: 7835

Squee, they saw you coming, mate. I bet you could have found some grease monkey somewhere that would have happily fixed your minor problem for minimal dollar.

You should have shopped around for a better quote or at least searched the yellow pages for a salvage yard that could have supplied you with a whole used door for maybe 70 bucks.

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Registered: Oct 2002
Location:
Posts: 1213

got a problem with getting into your car like this? might as well practice your 'YEE HAW!'s and have some fun in the mean time.

Attachment: the-dukes-of-hazzard-return-of-the-general-lee-20041011021330092-000.jpg
This has been downloaded 155 time(s).

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Lat: 43° 42' 0 N, Long: 79° 34' 0 W
Posts: 2820

I think that it's a your word against mine without a written estimate. Then again, I don't know law.

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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Oceanside, CA
Posts: 5073

I'm pretty sure they have to call you with a revised estimate and get your OK before going beyond the original cost. At least in CA, there's a little signature box on the repir form which says "I acknowledge the increase from original estimate", or some such.

I, however, know diddly-squat.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16488

1: buy an impressive gun/knife
2: show it to the man in question
3: instant discount
4: win!

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Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 24302

Hawley is so correct on this one that it makes my teeth hurt.

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Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5207

That's just the fixident drying out.

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Registered: Jan 2001
Location: library
Posts: 19562

MAH! HE MAKIN' FUN OH MAH TOOF!

-m

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Registered: Dec 2001
Location: Ducktown, GA
Posts: 1426

Find out what the book hours for that job are.

If the book hours are less, you probably have a case with the general manager of the dealership. If 7 hours is less then the book hours, theres nothing you can really do, and that particular part of that car is all jacked up.

Get him to show you the book hours.

If you don't know, pretty much any job a shop takes in has an entry in the book. Like headlight replacement, .25 hrs, rear main seal, 24 hours, that sort of thing. If the shop takes more than the book hours to do it, it's because the technician does not have the right tools, is not trained well enough, or is just freakin slack. You can beat the book most of the time, and still charge book hours. But if you as a tech go over book hours, you usually just eat it.

I worked at a dealership, and some guys would try going over book hours to cover time they spent working on a comeback ( a failed repair), so they could get paid for the time they spent fixing something a second time.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: in colorado somewhere!
Posts: 25592

Remove interior panel,grab the rod that connects to latch,move it,door opens. Yea. It's a bitch with the door closed but they should know better. They should have made their own tool by now if it's a common problem that slides between the glass and the inside panel and viola,door is open then it's a 5 minute job. I think you had amateurs working on your car. But life sucks. There's little you can do about that. These fools learned something about civics and you payed for that schooling.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: in colorado somewhere!
Posts: 25592

There is something else,though. Find out the job rate(time rate...fuck. It's been so long I forgot what it's called)..find out the book value....how much time according to their civic pay rate book it's supposed to take to do that job. I bet it's a lot less than 4 hours.
(WTF is that called?)

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Veerheenyah
Posts: 3285

The Virginia Automobile Repair Facilities Act
The Virginia Automobile Repair Facilities Act, which must be posted in plain view at all auto repair facilities in Virginia, gives consumer the right:

* to receive a written estimate prior to the commencement of work
* to be given all replaced parts
* to not have the cost of repairs exceed 10% over the estimate without your authorization

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Disgusting den of creepitude
Posts: 9694

quote:

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Originally posted by Hawley Griffin
1: buy an impressive gun/knife
2: show it to the man in question
3: instant discount
4: win!

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Registered: Jan 2003
Location: mediocre apartment
Posts: 2614

If you go back to the dealership, and piss and moan, and generally raise very vocal hell about it, they'll usually try to work with you like restaurants that feed you shit food, though with a bit more resistance. Armed with Vyper's info, you'll be able to talk them down, and even without it you could probably bluff you way into them taking a good deal of cost off, just pretending that those laws exist. There are a lot of other customers they are trying to fleece in the lobby, and they'll be pretty desperate to quite you down.

Just as lagniappe auto repair advice:

Like C_R said, you could have gotten someone at a little corner shop to do this for you, for much less and much faster. NEVER go to the dealer unless your car is under warranty and the repair is covered by the warranty. Dealers rip you a new one both because they are ass hats and people think dealer = good so they charge you rediculous rates. I could have done this job (I've pulled my door panel off a few times to replace my locks after failed buglary attempts, and to fix my crank window that likes to bind up) for a six pack and good company.

Remember, small shops around the corner and up the block RELY on repeat business and word of mouth advertising. They cannot afford, in general, to muck it up or charge you insane amounts. Ask around, especially among car guys, to find who they trust their cars to, when they take them in. When you take your car to these shops, be sure to say so-and-so sent you. Build a raport with them.

In Baton Rouge, I would drive across town to use the service station by my parent's house because they knew me, my car, my keys, everything on sight. If they couldn't fix it, I didn't get charged. They would recommend someone that could. I took my car in once to get the clutch changed, they found my exhaust manifold was leaking, did some research and found out that there was a recall on those parts and after changing my clutch, sent me to the dealership to get it all done for free, including some emissions testing, new plugs, new oil, and new transmission oil. Saved me a lot of money, and cost them business, but they know it means I'd keep going back to them and refer my friends to them, too.

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Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Oceanside, CA
Posts: 5073

I just had an epic experience which has convinced me that I *must* learn something about car mechanics, so I am no longer a completely helpless doofus.

I bought my car used, and bought a service plan which supposedly covers the vast majority of parts for two years. After about a year, the transmission started having problems.

I took it to a transmission shop which diagnosed it as needing to be rebuilt, did so (and the insurance paid for it), and gave it back to me. That whole process took two months, mostly waiting for the insurance company to agree to pay.

A new problem then emerged, so I took it back. They sat on it for a while (weeks), then told me it needed some sort of unusual part (internal wire harness?) which was backordered, and they'd call me when it came in.
A month later, they called and said "we've jury-rigged a repair, you can have it back while we wait for the part". I got it back and waited for a month, during which time the problem reappeared and got worse.

I finally called, and they told me that the part had come in, but they had lost the lease on their building and had to move. They'd call me once they got moved in.

A month goes by (I'm using a borrowed car during all this). I call the shop, and am told that the guy who was working on my car took most of the equipment and left, starting a new business somewhwre, and they had no forwarding address or phone number.

I took the car to another shop, where they found that the torque converter the first guy had put in during the rebuild was grinding down and filling the transmission with tiny metal shavings, and the whole thing had to be disassembled and cleaned out, at an estimated cost of $2000. Assuming the insurance would not want to pay for the transmission to be rebuilt again, I tracked down the first guy, who said that the work had been done under the previous business, and he had no obligation to fix it.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I called the insurance company, who (blessings upon them) told me that my contract was with *them*, and their obligation was to fix the transmission when it broke, regardless of why it broke. After being satisfied that the first business really no longer existed, they authorized the new guy to do the work on their dime.

So theorietically I should have my car, complete with twice-rebuilt ransmission, back in a few days...SEVEN MONTHS after this whole thing began. I paid $1500 for the two-year service contract, and by my counting, it has saved me almost $4000 at this point.

I figure that if I had even half a clue about what a torque converter or internal wire harness were, and whether these symptoms could even possibly be related to those, or if I weren't a totally passive doofus, I could have avoided about four months of this mess.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Delaware
Posts: 5704

quote:

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Originally posted by willimo
*snip*

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Registered: Jan 2003
Location: mediocre apartment
Posts: 2614

Whoops, I missed that line. I still stand by what I said, though.

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Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Insatiation
Posts: 8980

Next time take your damned car to LF. He can fix anything. You could pay him off with your girlfriend's unwashed socks.

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Registered: Sep 2000
Location: The Bottom of the Toyem Pole
Posts: 9453

I had a brake pedal sink to the floor conveniently a block from a Midas dealership. I pulled into the lot and they looked at it. I forget the terminology and parts involved, but it was going to be a major repair, most likely. I authorized a big bill, something like $450 IIRC. I get a call a few hours later and the manager explains that they misdiagnosed the problem and that it was only going to cost me $80. I almost wept. Not because of the money saved, but because they could have taken the full larger bill and I wouldn't have known any better. They did the right thing.

Moral: You should have had Midas fix your door.

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Registered: Aug 2001
Location: Hilbert Space
Posts: 35561

I bought a couple of new tyres in Pepboys and had them put on the wheels there, in the course of which they lost my keys and opened the door into a pillar. I told them to get the keys and they found them somewhere, then called them over to look at the driver's door, which was all crumpled at the edges. I called the manager over and he looked at it and called the mechanic over, who said that it had already been like that. I pointed out that I'd have noticed if I'd smashed my own door but, in any case, there was red paint on the smashed up door that mysteriously matched the colour of the pillars in their shop. The manager told me to send them the bill for having it fixed; he wasn't best pleased when it came back at $1500 for a new skin and respray (with no incentive to shop around, I just phoned the dealership that sold it to us and asked them who they used) plus the cost of a hire car*. They paid up, however.

Meanwhile, about forty miles after I left the dealership (at this stage, the door was still crumpled) one of the new tyres exploded while I was doing 70mph or so on the interstate on the way to a job interview, tread and walls completely seperated. I did get a pair of better tyres of out it, but it was more excitement that I'd wanted for the day.

I doubt that I shall be using Pepboys again (I only used them in the first place because I could walk to Barnes and Noble from their shop for while I was waiting).

Meanwhile, our local mechanics here took the car in for a couple of problems where I thought that I knew what was up (warped rotor on the front causing vibration particularly whilst breaking going downhill and a coolant leak, from the smell) and completely misdiagnosed those problems. To be fair, they did phone a little while after we got the car back, while we were still checking, to ask if we were happy and when I said no, they took it back and did the right work on it at their expense (well, mine, because I'd already paid something, but it wasn't an unfair expense).

Mechanics are clearly shysters who lose your keys, fuck your car body up then lie about it in face of strong evidence and fix things that don't need fixing in the hope that you're too stupid to complain.

*Pepboys are cheap bastards. Aveo from Enterprise: only marginally better than walking.

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