What’s the deal with some car repair places? I mean really, do they have to lie? You know there wouldn’t be a stereotype about car repair places if this didn’t happen. Several years ago I was in a networking group when we owned our basket business. A person in the group owned a franchised transmission repair shop. He himself admitted that he didn’t know about cars, he just bought it because it was a good franchise. So he said he “trusted” the guys who worked for him to judge the cars and talk to the customers. So we take our Honda there when it hits about 85,000 miles for a transmission service. Just your standard maintenance to keep the car in good condition. They do the service and then tell us that we need a complete transmission overhaul. Okay well the car is pretty old with low mileage, so I guess it’s possible right? We aren’t transmission specialists, right? So we say, “We aren’t having any problems with the car or noticing anything slipping.” The guy says, “You need to do it, your car won’t make it to 100,000 miles like it is.” Hmmmm. So we decide not to fix it right then because of the huge cost and the fact that we weren’t noticing ANY issues with the car. And Mike knows enough about cars to judge that we didn’t need it right away.
So now about 4 years go by and our trusty Honda hits 130,000 miles. So it’s time for a transmission service again – get some fresh fluids and the like. We took it this time to a guy from our church who owns a transmission shop – Robert Johnson Transmission Re-builder Service. He does the service, checks out the car and lets us know that the car is in great shape and that as long as we get the timing belt changed every 100,000 miles our engine should easily make it to 250,000 miles.
Growl!!!! So of course I think back to the other shop that said our car would “never make it” because they just wanted to make $2000 from some people they assumed wouldn’t know better. That is SO ANNOYING!!!!
On a lighter note we found a great mechanic a few years back – so I don’t really have anything to gripe about on that front. Honest, charges a reasonable amount, locally owned and operated. And he gets the car done in the time he says he will. It’s the only place we have taken our cars since we found him. Today he put new brakes on the Honda and told us that everything looks great. If you are in our area I highly recommend Griffin Automotive on Vickery Ave.