While living in AZ my car developed an oil leak and the A/C lost its charge so I took the car in to the local dealer who did $3k worth of work. The A/C lost its charge after 6 weeks and the oil leak was actually worse than when I'd taken it in. They said they'd done everything they could without pulling the engine and that if I wanted to go that route it'd be an additional $4k or so to start. Oil being relatively cheap I blew it off and just added quarts as necessary and lived with the pools of oil under the car and smoke clouds that followed freeway driving.
That went on for a couple of years until I got a great recommendation for a mechanic just down the street from me who unfortunately didn't work on the make I own but recommended a guy he really liked. It took the second guy approximately two minutes to locate the oil leak and longer to walk back to the shop to get a socket, ratchet, & extension than to fix it ... for the low low sum of $0.
For anyone who's keeping score:
On the shitlist - Schumacher European in Scottsdale, AZ
The good guys - Wolfgang's VW & Porche in Sunnyvale & Corporate Auto Service in Mountain View
That went on for a couple of years until I got a great recommendation for a mechanic just down the street from me who unfortunately didn't work on the make I own but recommended a guy he really liked. It took the second guy approximately two minutes to locate the oil leak and longer to walk back to the shop to get a socket, ratchet, & extension than to fix it ... for the low low sum of $0.
For anyone who's keeping score:
On the shitlist - Schumacher European in Scottsdale, AZ
The good guys - Wolfgang's VW & Porche in Sunnyvale & Corporate Auto Service in Mountain View
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