I hate car dealership service waiting areas.
It’s not the dealers’ fault. They try to make them nice. They have hot coffee and complimentary bottled water, free wi-fi and bulletin boards full of thank you notes from stranded motorists grateful for the fine service they received. One of our local dealers even has a nice grandmotherly lady on staff who pops popcorn, makes sandwiches and has snacks available. This is what they do so that you don’t feel so bad about the $500 car repair estimate (it always seems like it’s at least $500) that will be coming to you shortly in the hand of the kind looking service adviser you can’t help but trust.
Yesterday afternoon, I was in the car dealership service waiting room area. It was time for an oil change and tire rotation. But also, the service advisor told me, they should do some additional work. It’s a 90,000 mile service, he told me, “A bigger one.”
In car dealer speak, that means they also recommended that we change the cabin and engine air filters.
My husband told me it takes him less than five minutes to change those filters himself.
So I politely declined the service at the dealer, went to the auto parts store, and bought the filters. The service advisor was not happy about this, but by changing these ourselves, we saved quite a bit.
I guess it’s not dishonest for a car dealer to charge such a relatively high fee for five minutes of work. They have to pay their employees and keep the business running. There’s something about the price, though, that doesn’t sit quite right with me.
It probably didn’t help that earlier in the week we took our second car to a local mechanic that was highly recommended. Years ago, he serviced my dad’s car. After he looked at the car, he said it would be nearly $600 to fix it. I told him that I would need to talk it over with my husband before we gave them the go ahead. I’m lucky that my husband is handy with cars and knows how to fix things, that his dad taught him about engines and how they work. He has saved us thousands of dollars over the years in car repairs.
My husband thought this repair would take him a couple of hours. After we bought the parts ourselves, we ended up saving $350 or so. That’s after we paid the mechanic $90 for the diagnosis, his rate for an hour of work and how long it took him to figure the problem out. Is that true? It seems a little high. Maybe they round up as a matter of course.
Repair shops feel dangerous to me. It would be so easy for them to take advantage. In my conversation with the shop employee who quoted the $600 repair cost, I felt sick. Not just because of the high price of the repair, but on some deeper level, because it seemed wrong somehow. I felt nauseous; my cheeks were flushed. After I declined the work, I was so happy to get into my malfunctioning but still drivable car and get out of there.
I am learning that my body sometimes realizes truths before my mind does. Maybe God was in my sick stomach, my red cheeks. Maybe God gave me the strength to say no. Or maybe this is just another example of how I am still hooked by the Power Program, and the idea that someone would dare to overcharge us is infuriating to me.
I’m not sure. I’m glad that my husband can do the repairs, that we saved the money. I feel sad that other people are spending so much for a cabin air filter that they could buy at the parts store and change in a minute or two. That seems unjust. I don’t mind paying a reasonable price for parts and repairs, but right now I don’t know if that is even possible. I don’t know what it will take for me to feel safe at a car dealership service center or a mechanic’s shop. More than a recommendation from a friend, a free bottle of water, or a bag of popcorn.
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