A few days ago I noticed the passenger side mirror wouldn’t move to the proper position so I made an appointment with dealers service department to determine why this was happening. My gut feeling was that something was out of alignment and maybe it needed a new part
When I arrived at the dealer they told me that they would need to take it apart. Then they came to see me in the waiting room and asked me to sign an estimate for the cost of diagnosing the motor of front side mirror and I told them that I wouldn’t sign it the way it was because they didn’t mention the issue was with the passenger side view mirror. I had also told them that I didn’t think it was the motor because there was no problem with the drivers side mirror
Finally one of the technicians came to see me and told me someone at a garage probably adjusted it manually to fit in a small space so all he had to do with move it manually so it was in the range of the motor
It is nice to know that tech was so honest and able to solve the problem just by looking at it because he said garages do that frequently.
However I wonder what would have happened if I had agreed to sign that estimate with the wrong info and an estimate for a few hundred dollars just for a diagnosis which wasn’t needed.
Back in the 70’s I had a Plymouth that would stall every time you stopped while it was cold. To avoid that I would start the car and let it warm up (which I hated to do). I took it to the Plymouth dealer and dropped it off. When I went to pick it up they said the service tech wanted to talk to me.
He told me that this car had an electric choke which was sending a signal to shut off the choke. Then he pulled a wire and told me that I could fix that by disconnecting this and laying it on it’s side. He said it might idle a little faster but that was it. Then he put the connector on and said if he left them off, they would charge me. So I pulled the connector and laid it on it’s side and asked if that was right. He said that it was, we closed the hood and I was on my way.
My father, who was a salesman driving all over Florida, said it was better to start driving and don’t do any fast acceleration until it was warm than to sit and idle. I learnded from him and have been driving that way in every car I’ve had since 1975
Attagirl Maven good job! Pays to push back when you doubt, not just swallow the swill.
Now I had an honest mechanic experience long ago. He had diagnosed and said I needed CV shafts (I think they were called), the outboard parts of a front wheel drive, an 83 Camry. I left it with him and went out of town for a few days. When I got back and picked up the car and later looked at the bill, there were no such parts, hundreds of bucks.
Mechanic explained that he had proceeded to remove boots and parts and clean them up and as he was doing, found they were OK so he put 'em back in with new boots of course. I remained his customer as long as he was in biz.