Would You Like to Super Size that...

[George Selby]

At 04:30 PM 12/31/03 -0500, you wrote:
>However- I think a lot of the bad rap regarding items "popping up" at
>the time of recall are not actually scams on the part of the dealer.


I deal with this a lot.  Some one brings their car in.  I see about 10 
things wrong with it, from dangerous to merely annoying.  I tell 
them.  They don't get it fixed.  About 1-6 months later they return to have 
the very thing I say repaired, and it always costs more because they waited.

I think a lot of this has to do with how well you trust your servicing 
mechanic.  If I took my car anywhere for the first time, I would be very 
suspicious of any extra work suggested.  If I took my car there for every 
service for 5 years, I would be more inclined to believe them.

One thing that adds to your credibility is a foreseen catastrophic 
failure.  One recent example I can thing of: ball joints.  Whenever I take 
a front wheel off a car, I examine the tie rod ends and the ball joints for 
wear or cracked seals, then once the wheel is back on I check for wear in 
the joints, ends and bearings.  I tell people they need to replace this or 
that part because the front wheel could fall off the car at any time 
without warning.  They ignore me as usual.  Well, it finally 
happened.  Someone's wheel fell off after I warned them about their ball 
joints.  Fortunately, he was going very slow at the time.  After I fixed 
his truck, though, I got several other peoples cars in for similar 
service.  Seems I had told them about ball joints in the past, and now they 
are getting worried.



George Selby