Thread: Rip off of the week

Yep , Not all mechanics are rip off.
There is a reason it is a trade.

Originally Posted by jusepy81

Yep , Not all mechanics are rip off...

Good and honest mechanics are as rare as hen's teeth

And don't trust Google star ratings either if you looking for a mechanic.

Originally Posted by Snap 4T

Good and honest mechanics are as rare as hen's teeth

And don't trust Google star ratings either if you looking for a mechanic.

I disagree
I've found quite a few straight up mechs, auto sparkies and tyre guys

I did however once get a wof from VTNZ Porirua which turned out to be illegitimate because the woman working there was stealing wof stickers and her Mongrel Mob boyfriend was selling them on the black market

I would never use Google ratings for anything - word of mouth works for me

Originally Posted by 308

I disagree
I've found quite a few straight up mechs, auto sparkies and tyre guys

I did however once get a wof from VTNZ Porirua which turned out to be illegitimate because the woman working there was stealing wof stickers and her Mongrel Mob boyfriend was selling them on the black market

I would never use Google ratings for anything - word of mouth works for me

I desire with a local non-franchise mechanic, he’s straight up and has saved me money with his diagnosis of faults that I had erroneously diagnosed as a different more expensive fault.

Originally Posted by Finnwolf

I desire with a local non-franchise mechanic, he’s straight up and has saved me money with his diagnosis of faults that I had erroneously diagnosed as a different more expensive fault.

I don’t ‘desire’ at all -it should have been ’deal’! (bloody autocorrect!)

Originally Posted by jusepy81

Yep , Not all mechanics are rip off.
There is a reason it is a trade.

Not all mechanics are good either heck there's some useless mechanics about in all sizes of out fits these days who can't diagnose simple problems.

Another vote for AliExpress... the bright white headlamp globes that sell for $100+ for a pair at SCA and Repco can be replaced by $15 a pair globes from Ali. And the Chinese ones throw the same pattern and last longer!
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mtayhWX

I had a tinker with a poorly running go-cart engine a couple years back, after it had been given a ‘tune-up’ by a workshop.

It ran a lot better once I reassembled the intake bits in the correct order..

That is true, there are absolute limits to how useful OBDII is.

My own ute is a perfect case in point, no way ODBII or mechanic guestimate could have ever got to the bottom of that without playing the $25K parts swap lottery. It took a lot of datalogging and investigation and research to get to the bottom of the issues it had - multiple individual faults contributing to the same issue and throwing the same series of DTC's. Getting rid of the noise from the electronic problems allowed us to really focus onto the mechanical stuff, which meant that the actual problem could be diagnosed and fixed. Over a couple of years of work - if I wasn't doing it myself no way it would have made financial sense to do the work as is it's marginal with the number of individual parts that got replaced.

But at the end of it the thing is mechanically good enough and runs so well that there isn't any advantage to change it out especially at the price of the new ones. Circa $90K to swap out now, ridiculous $$$.

Yea things have changed a lot as far as the electronics go on vehicles. Advantages of working for a franchise is you get training on that shit you can get a lot of data off vehicles but you need to know what good numbers are and what isnt. Being a small workshop Im self taught on that kind of stuff so not fully up to date but can do a fair bit of it. Work has a scanner and Ive got a couple and do mobile scanning on the side and can do mobile wheel alighnments as well. Builders are rip offs all they are doing is hitting nails in right?

Originally Posted by blip

Yea things have changed a lot as far as the electronics go on vehicles. Advantages of working for a franchise is you get training on that shit you can get a lot of data off vehicles but you need to know what good numbers are and what isnt. Being a small workshop Im self taught on that kind of stuff so not fully up to date but can do a fair bit of it. Work has a scanner and Ive got a couple and do mobile scanning on the side and can do mobile wheel alighnments as well. Builders are rip offs all they are doing is hitting nails in right?

Haha don't you believe it - the builders are getting their apprentices to hit the nails in and charging you full whack

I once had a builder working at my place with his new apprentice. He was going to charge me full hourly rate for both of them, I politely told him to f-off with that idea as a 1st year isn't getting charged out at the tradies rate and also his productivity drops every time he has to stop work to show the appy something. I later found out he had only recently started working for himself so probably had no idea about those things. Had no idea how to hang a door either so I flicked him soon after anyway.

I've now got 1 door frame 10mm lower than the 1 next to it, Just as a permanent reminder to background check tradies better

Years ago a young guy came into the garage with a sugar bag full of gears, shafts, bearings, loose needle rollers, and the (now empty) gearbox casing from a Mk2 Zephyr.
Could I please check it over, put in any new bits needed, and assemble it?
Well yes, no problem. All I had to do was suss out what bit came from where, what bits where missing from his strip down (to save money), and get the new parts needed.
It really would have been quicker if he had just dropped the gearbox in to me straight from the car.
At least I wouldn't have lost any bits, or smacked the crap out of every shaft while dismantling the thing.
As per Dirty Harry..."A man's got to know his limitations".

Originally Posted by Grey Kiwi

Years ago a young guy came into the garage with a sugar bag full of gears, shafts, bearings, loose needle rollers, and the (now empty) gearbox casing from a Mk2 Zephyr.
Could I please check it over, put in any new bits needed, and assemble it?
Well yes, no problem. All I had to do was suss out what bit came from where, what bits where missing from his strip down (to save money), and get the new parts needed.
It really would have been quicker if he had just dropped the gearbox in to me straight from the car.
At least I wouldn't have lost any bits, or smacked the crap out of every shaft while dismantling the thing.
As per Dirty Harry..."A man's got to know his limitations".

Those old gearboxes were so easy to do, the problem as you say is the damage the person that stripped it caused and the damaged and missing parts.
Recently had two tubs of parts dropped off and asked to rebuild it with the parts provided, it was stripped by a specialist and the specialist refused to put it back together.
When I cleaned all the parts up I found several major parts missing and some others damaged.
I had to source some new parts that were needed and not supplied.
Love doing jigsaws.

Also recently had the phone ring while both hands were busy holding something up and putting a bolt or two in to stop it falling on me.
I returned the call when my hands were free, 4 minutes after the call, person says you didn't answer the phone quick enough, so I went elsewhere.
My immediate thought, Thank you I don't want you as a customer, so I just replied "thank you, have a great day".

I could give you quite a few examples of "entitled" customers who think you are just waiting for them to phone or walk in so you can do their job right there and then and pay them for the privilege

Originally Posted by 19Badger

I could give you quite a few examples of "entitled" customers who think you are just waiting for them to phone or walk in so you can do their job right there and then and pay them for the privilege

yea we usually get the campervan and bus owners rolling in 2 weeks befor xmas "my camper has failed its warrant heres a list 5 times longer than the ten commandments i need it fixed before the 20th" fucken annoying they have all year to sort this shit out but wait till the last minute then wonder why they get turned away......and we are the only ones in town that will do that shit told the boss he has to bump the hourly rate up cos no-one else wants to do it.....(we dont either but we all have a price)people with old shitters on the road are gonna be fucked when all us old fucks decide to chuck it in not many of the new ones coming thru the system can think outside the ssquare