Avoid Car Repair Rip-Offs

You've taken your car to a repair shop after noticing that it pulls sharply to the right whenever you hit the brakes. The mechanic tells you that your front disc brakes need to be adjusted, asks you to leave your car and says he'll call with an estimate. What should you do?

The short answer: Find another repair shop. Front disc brakes are self-adjusting, which means that something else—maybe a problem with the left front caliper—is causing your car to pull to the right. But like most unscrupulous repair shops, this one preys on—and profits from—the fact that relatively few drivers have a clue about what's under the hood, let alone how to fix it.

As a consequence, national figures indicate Americans spend more than $20 billion a year on faulty or unnecessary auto repairs.

Auto repair rip-offs, in fact, consistently rank among the top five consumer complaints in many states, according to the Consumer Federation of America. Older Americans are often targeted because they are perceived as having more money. They also tend to be more concerned than younger drivers about issues of safety and liability.

The California Bureau of Automotive Repair, one of the most aggressive such state agencies in the nation, gets 25,000 or so complaints a year. And because most victims don't even realize they've been defrauded, that's undoubtedly just the tip of the dipstick.

According to Richard Mundy, the deputy chief of the agency, many of the complaints involve bait-and-switch routines that begin with advertised "specials" that seem too good to be true—for example, $99 for a brake reline. "They say they'll do a particular service for a price, and the price escalates for your model or car, or they'll sell you something additional," Mundy says. "Very rarely does someone get the service for the price that's advertised."

Virtually all auto repair scams, in fact, are variations on the same schemes: pressuring customers to agree to repairs that aren't needed, unnecessarily replacing parts or charging for services that were never performed.

In a recent undercover investigation by a Canadian consumer organization, a test vehicle with an intentionally disconnected vacuum hose was taken to 37 repair shops in three cities. The cost of repairs ranged from zero to $613; seven shops replaced brand-new parts that were working perfectly.

So how do you protect yourself against auto repair fraud? Here's some advice from the experts:

• Find a good auto repair shop before you need one. "Go to somebody you know," says John Nielsen, the director of AAA's Approved Auto Repair program. "Don't wait until you're broken down to find a shop." (As part of the program, AAA-approved facilities agree to adhere to its judgment in any dispute involving a member.)
• Protect your rights as you go. Get a written estimate before authorizing repairs, request that all replaced parts be returned and insist on a detailed invoice of work done, including an itemized description of parts and labor charges.
• For major repairs, get a second—or even a third—opinion. An unscrupulous mechanic may seek to frighten customers by saying something like, "It's lucky you made it into the shop because your faulty brakes need to be replaced before they cause an accident and kill someone," according to the Office of the District Attorney of Los Angeles. A second opinion might show the truth about what's really needed in this case.