986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners - View Single Post

bwdz · 12-30-2017, 01:55 PM

I am a mechanic and work in a shop. I have quit and walked out of shop who were all out to sell you a bunch of parts, which were usually needed, but did not address the issue that the car came in for. Let me tell you how any shop and I myself operate.
#1. Safety. Even if a car is in for something like an oil change we do a quick inspection and look at the condition of the brakes, steering and suspension components such as ball joints, tie rods, major oil or trans leaks etc.. If a tie rod has play, ball joint has play, brakes are down to nothing or a line or caliper is leaking we are going to tell you as it is required by law and I would not let anyone drive an unsafe car like that down the road at least not without being aware of the danger. This can be accomplished in mere minutes while the oil is draining if you have done it 1000s of times like I have.
#2. Address the customer's concern. Fix what the car is there for. If a car has no major safety issues I am not going to recommend you fix a slight oil leak or replace a worn strut when you are there for a knocking noise or having a window fixed etc.. Our shop policy is that if, in your case, a car is making a specific noise that is the complaint and we do not see it immediately during our quick free inspection we ask for additional diagnosis time which can cost $99-299 depending on how much we have to drive the car or disassemble to isolate the problem. Normally that charge will be applied to the cost of the repair if you chose for us to repair it. That charge is there so that we don't spend hours diagnosing your car and you take it home and replace a component yourself or go somewhere else while we did all the leg work. Any shop recommending a few hundred $ worth of work or in your case 800, should've isolated the source of the noise and then recommended the other worn components be replaced. Suspensions are not so complicated like some internal engine problems where we need to do a tear down before we can tell you how bad it is. Suspensions and noises are fairly easy to test, diagnose and isolate with not much more than a pry bar, hoist and some hoist jacks to load and unload components.
As far as recourse, you don't have much. Typically shops will state on your estimate that they are replacing worn components that need to be done and do not say anything like we warranty that the noise you are talking about will go away. You didn't waste your money, a 20 year old car should have nearly every bushing replaced even if it has no miles as rubber just doesn't hold up all that well.

12-30-2017, 01:55 PM	#16
bwdz Registered User Join Date: May 2016 Location: Northville, MI Posts: 249	I am a mechanic and work in a shop. I have quit and walked out of shop who were all out to sell you a bunch of parts, which were usually needed, but did not address the issue that the car came in for. Let me tell you how any shop and I myself operate. #1. Safety. Even if a car is in for something like an oil change we do a quick inspection and look at the condition of the brakes, steering and suspension components such as ball joints, tie rods, major oil or trans leaks etc.. If a tie rod has play, ball joint has play, brakes are down to nothing or a line or caliper is leaking we are going to tell you as it is required by law and I would not let anyone drive an unsafe car like that down the road at least not without being aware of the danger. This can be accomplished in mere minutes while the oil is draining if you have done it 1000s of times like I have. #2. Address the customer's concern. Fix what the car is there for. If a car has no major safety issues I am not going to recommend you fix a slight oil leak or replace a worn strut when you are there for a knocking noise or having a window fixed etc.. Our shop policy is that if, in your case, a car is making a specific noise that is the complaint and we do not see it immediately during our quick free inspection we ask for additional diagnosis time which can cost $99-299 depending on how much we have to drive the car or disassemble to isolate the problem. Normally that charge will be applied to the cost of the repair if you chose for us to repair it. That charge is there so that we don't spend hours diagnosing your car and you take it home and replace a component yourself or go somewhere else while we did all the leg work. Any shop recommending a few hundred $ worth of work or in your case 800, should've isolated the source of the noise and then recommended the other worn components be replaced. Suspensions are not so complicated like some internal engine problems where we need to do a tear down before we can tell you how bad it is. Suspensions and noises are fairly easy to test, diagnose and isolate with not much more than a pry bar, hoist and some hoist jacks to load and unload components. As far as recourse, you don't have much. Typically shops will state on your estimate that they are replacing worn components that need to be done and do not say anything like we warranty that the noise you are talking about will go away. You didn't waste your money, a 20 year old car should have nearly every bushing replaced even if it has no miles as rubber just doesn't hold up all that well.