Vehicle Repair Drama

About seven years ago my husband Mr. Transportation bought a brand new Toyota pick up. This was a big deal for him because he’d only purchased used vehicles in the past. When he purchased this vehicle it was after a lot of research, and his plan was to use this truck until it died. He said this would be his first and only new vehicle.

Late last year the truck started acting up, giving the Check Engine light. He’d take it in to our favorite mechanic. The mechanic would “fix” something, and we thought the problem would be resolved, and then a month or two later the problem would reappear. As a side note: we were dealing with this issue as I was doing my own car search. The Toyota minivan was my runner-up choice, and everyone kept telling me, “You’d be dumb not to go with Toyota. They’re super reliable.” Hmm, really? Because that is not my current experience.

Our favorite mechanic finally leveled with us and suggested we take it into a dealership mechanic because they have all the diagnostic tools, specifically the database. So we did. They were like, “Sorry, bro, you need a new engine.” !?!?!? On a seven year old vehicle!?!?!?

Part of the reason I call my husband Mr. Transportation is that he calls himself a transportation professional, which always makes me laugh. He says it in such a way that one should assume that expertise in one mode of transportation automatically translates into expertise in ALL modes of transportation. But the other reason I call him Mr. Transportation is that he is endlessly fascinated with how vehicles work. He owns several old pieces of machinery and spends his off-time tinkering with them and watching YouTube videos about how to repair/restore them. He knows a thing or two. (growth)

So when the dealership told him he needed to replace the engine, he was skeptical. He knew what the symptoms were and had some idea of what the problem was (he told me in detail what he thought the problem was, but this is where I generally nod and smile and start thinking about my To Do list or some other item of great importance). He told them, “[Don’t be lazy.] Take the head off the engine and tell me if the entire engine is junk or if it’s just the head.” The part in brackets was only said to me but hopefully was inferred by the dealership.

They did take the engine apart and found it was only a small part of the engine that needed to be replaced. That meant we spent about half what they were originally proposing as the cost. However, the repair was still close to five figures. It was not cheap! We think (hope) it was just rotten luck that this part went bad, the one-in-a-million piece that went bad despite all of Toyota’s QA processes.

Mr. Transportation got the vehicle back, took it out for one afternoon, and came home fuming. He said, “They didn’t replace the fasteners! The truck is rattling, and I pop the hood, and it’s obvious where the fasteners used to be. They’re not there anymore.”

When he called the dealership, he explained how terrible this makes them look. He told the rep, “If your mechanics can’t do the most basic tasks and replace the fasteners, I have to wonder what other corners they cut. We paid you a lot of money to repair the vehicle. At this point, I’m wondering if I need to take my truck to another dealership and contact Toyota’s corporate office and have your certification investigated.”

The dealership was extremely apologetic. They had the lead mechanic go over the truck with a fine-toothed comb. They fixed the problems (such as various brackets that were not tightened down) that the previous mechanic had missed, and they replaced a couple of parts that would have come due to be replaced in the next year, all at their cost. (I mean, there was a cost on our end: lost time due to phone calls and shuttling back and forth to the dealership, not to mention the emotional toll, but they took on the financial cost).

The reasons I love this story, are a) twice Mr. Transportation’s growth activities helped us come out of this situation somewhat positively, and b) given that most of us distrust mechanics largely because of the information gap (autonomy, and if your interactions with a mechanic become acutely stressful—safety), there’s a certain satisfaction seeing one get caught being shady/lazy and having to pay a price for it. As I explained to Mr. Transportation, if it had been me, I would have been convinced that something was wrong with the car when I heard a rattle, but if I brought it up to the mechanic, he would probably swear up and down that the car was fine. And unless the car died during a drive, I would have no proof that anything was wrong. Thus, generally speaking, our expectation is that, having so much less knowledge than the mechanic, he can and will get away with poor behavior. In this case, Mr. Transportation had the information to hold the mechanic accountable, which made the outcome exceed the expectation for this event.

Have you had any rough experiences with a car mechanic? What was the outcome? How did you resolve the problem?

Notes:

• A 2023 survey showed that 78% of respondents distrust some mechanics.