20/20 Undercover Investigation on Repair Shop Fraud and Dishonesty

The honest one at the start didn't get enough notoriety for being so awesome and honest

You should recommend the honest mechanic at the beginning who didn’t charge, that’s a shop worth supporting !

As a kid my dad lost his job and he’s vehicle broke down. The mechanic took all his money 💰 and he couldn’t pay the rent. So I decided to buy a book on repairs and became the mechanic for the family. I taught my nephews and son and we don’t worry about crooks.

I am a life long technician. This really really infuriates me that this goes on. I don’t let any of my friends or family take anything to a shop. If I don’t have the tools to make the repair myself (usually the diagnostic computers) I either go with them or have them go to the shop and folks that I trust and use. If it’s not my trusted shop I make sure the shop knows who I am and I’ve already been under the hood and tell them what I found and tell them what I want done so they can’t pull some shit. Shops that do this need to be closed and jailed.

Props to that first shop, it’s nice to see people being honest and treating others with respect

An educated consumer is a salesman's worst nightmare.

When I heard 2020 I was like was this shot in 2020 🤣

I was charged $450 to change 4 brake pads. That was the last time . I do it all my self. I just changed front rotors and brake pads my self yesterday, $168 with tax for all parts. Took me couple hours at very slow pace.

I don't understand why they're not arrested; charging for work that was never done is theft, is it not?

never go to a tire store to fix an engine issue

It took me one time to go to a mechanic when I was 18 to get screwed and never go back to one ever again. I then bought a tool set and started learning everything I needed to keep my cars running and how to repair. I work 60 hour weeks at my job and still have time to make sure my cars are doing good. Learn to do basics and you'll be ok. Oil changes, fixing flats are essential to saving money on having someone else screw your car up and not take responsibility when they do it.

The guy that just plugged it back in and didn't charge anything... Uh, can I use you for my mechanic even though you're thousands of miles away? I mean, seriously, contact the BBB and give this guy the Medal of Honor!

This is why I only work on my car myself.

They should do investigation on attorney & physician's scams.

But seriously, can we give acknowledge the guy that didn't charge her? 👏🏼

This is just as much of an indictment of people in NY/NJ as the auto repair industry, honestly. I’m married into a family of Jersey Italians that work in auto body and it’s amazing the stories they tell of the service side of shops ripping people off.

It never pays to cheat people.  I go to a great mechanic that has a small garage and lives next store, and is willing to work right in front of you and be honest.  Because he knows you will tell others of his Great Service and will do better that way.

Mechanic here, and one gripe I have with this video is with the way they portrayed "gravy work". There are book times for every single job (an industry standard is often Mitchell times) and these are estimates of how long these jobs should take. When you are starting off in the trade, you'll often be slower than these times but still charging the book time, and when you improve you'll find you can beat them. Just because you improve over time in the quality and speed of your work shouldn't mean you should charge less.

I was always told there's three kinds of mechanics. There are the ones that will intentionally rip you off they're the ones that don't know what they're doing and they will rip you off because they'll replace stuff you don't really need. And then there's the honest mechanic and they are very very hard to find

I remember one time my mother got my great grandmas SUV checked out to make sure it was road worthy, and the guy ( mechanic ) lied about the tail light ( don't remember the specifics ) and told my mother how much it would cost to repair, two seconds later after buying a part for the light at AutoZone ( right across the street ) she had the employee take a quick peek at it and it turned out the mechanic was lying. The mechanic seemed ashamed and didn't admit to lying after it was addressed, he refused to address his lie.