The vast majority of us have had to pay to repair a car at some point. Ideally, the labor is skilled, and the quote is affordable. But that’s not always the case, so I ask you—what is the worst repair quote (or bill!) you’ve had from a mechanic?
As car enthusiasts, a great many of us take pride in doing our own wrenching. At the same time, we can find ourselves in situations where we can’t do our own work. Maybe we don’t have the space, or the weird, obscure manufacturer tool to do some odd and challenging job. In those times, we have to hand the job over to a professional and trust that they do it correctly and for a fair price.
I’ve had some nasty ones over the years. When I crashed my first car into a curb in 2008, I sheared the Watts linkage right off the differential. The quote to replace the differential was over $1000, which was a truly insane figure for a 17-year-old me. This was perfectly justified on the mechanic’s side—it cost $800 for a wrecker diff, and took a couple of hours of labor to install. Instead, I elected to go a cheaper route—asking if they’d instead merely replace the damaged back plate on the diff, and refix the Watts linkage. They quoted me $300. Reasonable, right?
Only, things didn’t stay reasonable. The workshop was right next to the caravan park we were staying in, and we saw the car sitting outside for most of the day. It could have been inside the shop for an hour or two at most. Only, the mechanic then rang me at five o’clock with a long story about how hard it had been to remove the bolts on the diff cover and how they’d spent “all day” working on it.
I knew this didn’t check out, since I’d seen the car hadn’t even been in the workshop for most of the day. I rustled up my friends and went down to the office to discuss the problem. The mechanic retold the same unconvincing story to four unimpressed teens. His efforts to pad the bill would come to naught; the problem was that I simply didn’t have any more money.
After the fourth time, I flatly stated I had $400 and not a cent more, the mechanic gave up. I paid the bill and we left, pissed that someone had tried to bilk us for more money.
I’ve had a few nasty experiences since. The most recent from the mechanic working on my Audi TT. He suggested replacing the wipers, which was suspect enough given I knew they were in peak form. He wanted $130 to do the job, particularly shocking given you can get a set for under $50 and most parts shops around here fit them for free. Offering to change the cabin filter for $125 also felt pretty egregious. There was also the time ten years ago when a Mazda dealer wanted to charge me four figures for a cam angle sensor. That sucked, too.
These are my tales, though, and this is Autopian Asks. So I turn to you—what is the worst quote you’ve had from a mechanic, and what went down?
Image credits: Lewin Day (provided)
I dropped my wife’s ’17 Renegade off at a shop a couple weeks ago after I noticed oil on the bottom of the block during the last oil change. I ask em to just take a look at everything quick while it’s on the lift, I can’t do much with a jack at home.
Next day, I get an estimate for $1400.
Plate light out: $11. Declined.
Right motor mount: $476. Accepted after talking with my wife.
Here’s the kicker: THE oil leak was from the pan itself, and they wanted $900 to replace it. Pan, gasket, and 6 quarts of Mobil 1. Plus labor.
So of course because I work at a parts store, I find out that no, they did not use an OEM motor mount….because they bought it from my store. They couldn’t really explain why that price was so high. Maybe it was because the OE oil pan is almost 300 bucks, and the replacement I found was 50.
I got the pan, gasket, 6 quarts of oil and a tube of RTV for $130. Just got to set aside a not crappy weekend day to do it.
Educate yourselves about what you drive, and don’t be afraid to question your mechanic. Not all of them are stand up people.
Not quite what’s being asked, but the worst quote I ever received was on my dad’s truck. He had a 2002 Tundra TRD with 120k original miles, and I really could have used a truck for an impending move. He left it to me when he passed, and I had my mom drop it off at the mechanic to diagnose a small coolant leak pooling in the valley of the engine, just to make sure it would be fine for me to make the trip diagonally across eastern Nebraska and western Kansas. The quote the mechanic gave me was “run away from this truck”…the frame was rusted to the point where the suspension joined the frame in a big unidentifiable rust-colored mound. Potato chip-sized flakes of rust were falling off of it. Because money was tight, I left the truck with my mom to get what she could out of it, which was about 20% of what it would have sold for in Colorado. And I keep thinking I would have brought it with me to the desert and it would have been fine…except maybe it wouldn’t have been fine.
My wife has a 2012 sequoia. When we bought it used the steering felt a little loose, like the steering wheel would shake when you would hit a bump. It eventually turned out to be steering shaft that had a little too much play in it. Anyway, before I figured that out I had replaced the shocks, because the toyota shocks were cheap, and completely went over the front end. Everything on the front end was tight; ball joints, tie rod ends, etc… Nothing needed to be replaced. I took it to the local toyota dealership to have an alignment and tire rotation done and asked them to check the steering because it has a little play in it. I explained to the service guy what all I had checked myself. He comes back with an estimate for over three grand for new control arms, shocks, tie rod ends, etc… I first informed him that the shocks were brand new with shocks I had purchased from them and if they were going to cover them under warranty since they were now worn out. I then let him know that if he could put it on a lift and show me that any of the parts he just listed were actually worn I would be more than happy for them to replace them. This is where the backtracking started. They said they couldn’t perform the alignment because all of this stuff was worn so bad. I said just give me the keys and I’ll take it somewhere that won’t try to rip me off. I ended up taking it to a large truck shop that’s local to me and they aligned it no problem, said the whole front end looked good and even test drove it and recommended checking the steering shaft as the culprit for the looseness I was having. Will never go back to the local toyota place.
Car was a 2005 Lexus RX 350 with 242,000 miles. I was the 2nd owner. Bought it for $3,500 from my wife’s great uncle. It was dinged up, some minor rust on the tailgate. Not bad for a CT car, but it definitely had issues. Leaked…everything. Couldn’t hold an alignment.
Battery died one day (in a rainstorm) and the hood latch was stuck shut. Got it towed to a reputable independent shop. They fixed what I needed ($700) and then gave me the recommended services: $7500. The front end needed a rebuild, gaskets were leaking oil, the power steering pump was falling apart, the rear shocks were shot (I had called that one, but Uncle’s shop insisted it was fine), and there was a laundry list of other nonsense.
I ignored everything, drove it six more months, and then sold it cheap to a car flipper for $2000 cash when we moved out of state. Good riddance. Totally turned me off buying a Lexus again. Further confirmed never buy a car from family.
You are turned off by Lexus because you bought one with 242,000 miles and it needed parts that are normally worn out way before 242,000 miles?You should probably buy a Dodge or Hyundai.
96 Jetta. The windshield wiper lever was physically broken. You could get the wipers to go once, but you could not turn them on.
Called the nearest dealer since this it was the quickest way to get a dealer part installed (I’m assuming no aftermarket option here…)
$100 for the part and a hour labor. Awesome. Here I come.
Bring it in, let them know I spoke with someone on the phone, just replace the wiper switch. Thanks.
Maybe 2 hours later, they call me up to the counter. “We’ve diagnosed the problem as well as these other things” Leaky head gasket, manky hoses, this and that in the engine compartment, brake pads are low (that car WAS a mess)
No, no, just the wiper switch. Ok, $350 please.
Hold up. Yeah, we needed to diagnose it. No you didn’t. You only needed to do what I asked and replace the visibly broken wiper switch. Still had to diagnose it. I am not paying for your diagnostic time that you clearly spent looking at other things nowhere near the actual issue here.
Back and forth like this until I had to get loud, a rarity for me, and got the attention of everyone else in the waiting room at which point they gave me some sort of a coupon that took my cost back to ~$200.
Fuckin sheisty. This was the last time I ever took a car that was out of warranty to a dealer for service. (it was also my last VW)
Jeep dealer quoted me $4500 to do brake pads on a renegade that I’d bought new for my wife with less than 10,000 miles on it at the time of repair. I took it to my regular mechanic and they sent the bill to chrysler as a warranty repair since the brakes failed as a result of the shitty calipers not because of misuse or anything my wife or I had done. We’d owned the car for less than a year when all that happened. Chrysler wasn’t happy but they paid the bill.
A close second was my dad’s old mechanic that clumsily leaned on the fuel rail for my mazda b4000 and destroyed it. He wasn’t even supposed to be working on anything near that as he was just supposed to be installing a trailer brake and wiring it up. He then tried to charge me for the rail he broke, the matching one on the other side, six injectors, a full set of intake manifold gaskets, and 5 hours of additional labor. All told he wanted 3k because he was an idiot. He ended up backing off after he came under investigation for faking emissions tests so I only ended up paying for the work I’d hired him to do. He ended up losing his licensing and his son took over, never heard of a problem since and my dad still uses that shop, it’s been 10 years now.
When my Elise had an Acura TL on lease – basically a brand new car – every time she brought it in for an oil change they wanted to do $900 of extra service, I always told her just say no! When she would get home it was usually just for inspections and not really doing anything at all. She liked the car, liked the sales guy, but hated this part of the experience – so she hasn’t gotten an Acura since. Initially she went to Saab due to the free maintenance and then moved to Mazda – I think she is on her fifth. She now has me take the Mazda’s in for service, the last time they wanted $300 for a brake flush for a car with 20k miles – once home I looked up the Mazda service schedule and for a U.S. car with normal usage brake fluid flushing was/is not required.
The Infiniti dealer for my mom’s G37 is somehow worse. They replaced the brand new high-end wiper blades I had just installed for $36 for their pos ones – they charged us to make the car worse. The last time I was there for an oil change, they wanted to replace the spark plugs – which the car needs, but they wanted $1,500 for a job that was going to take their tech an hour to do – the service writer is an idiot, if they had put a more reasonable, unreasonable offer in place I would have done it. So instead of getting me to pay $500 for a $300 job, they lost the job – and I am sure sent the tech home early – the place was dead.
Lewis Ford in Fayetteville, AR quoted me $1875 all in to replace the timing chain and water pump on my SHO. Go to pick it up…. $3442.22. I will never, ever, ever set foot on their premises again.
My Fit was just out of warranty when I drove through some not so deep water that pulled the fasteners out of the big mid-car belly pan. I went to Honda and they wanted $720 for a new pan. Even the service advisor said check an indy mechanic.
I went to the mechanic my Dad used to go to and they charged me $39.00 for fasteners. They remembered my father who had stopped driving 20 years before, so I go to them all the time. Honest and excellent: Dick Carroll, Dunedin, FL.
Infiniti dealer quoted over $600 to fix a wiper problem in which the passenger-side wiper only swept every other time the driver-side swept. Looked on the internet and discovered that the linkage between the two wiper arms is known to go bad around the age of my car. There was a link to replacement parts on Amazon for ~$30. Took about an hour to install, most of which was learning how to take the cowl plastic off to get to the wiper linkage.
Another one,about 7-8 years ago my father in law takes his 2003 35k mile Tacoma to local Toyota dealer for “free yearly inspection” and calls me telling me it needs a catalytic converter and they gave him a $3300 estimate.They also offered him 5k trade in value on a new Toyota.I called the local exhaust shop and got a converter installed for $300 dollars and that was the last time any of us visited that particular dealership.
Pretty much the only thing I go to a mechanic for is things I can’t do like mount wheels, but I’d like to share 2 unbelievably good experiences I’ve had with Mazda dealerships. I bought an RX8 new and both took unbelievably good care of it and also drove it as hard as it could. At about 40K miles I go to the dealership flat out stating that I’ve been autocrossing and tracking the car and have been having issues with the oil overheating and the synchro’s grinding. I went there to ask them what fluid they use in their race prepped cars and hopefully buy it. Instead they said they’d take a look at the car, gave me a loaner, and called me up about 6 hours later saying they got authorization from Mazda to replace the transmission and fill it up with the recommended Amsoil instead of the ordinary fluid.
72K in and I’ve moneyshifted the car twice already and gotten it well above 14K RPM. Only issue I had was if the car is fully warm, it can be next to impossible to start as I imagine my apex seals look like crescent moons instead of a flat bar and you don’t get enough compression below idle as the oil film is too thin to properly seal. Ask them to do a compression test to verify or give me their diagnosis as I was excited to pull the engine and attempt to rebuild my first rotary, had the money already set aside for the rebuild and a good used engine for when I inevitably fail. They call me the next morning and I don’t have any word other than confusion to describe what I heard and felt. Mazda inexplicably authorized an engine replacement despite my car being well out of warranty, and when I asked how much or what I have to do to keep the old engine they said I can’t, Mazda specifically wants it sent back to them. I was shocked, surprised, confused, happy, and disappointed all at the same time.
The first dealership, Jon Finger Mazda no longer exists but were really good. My parents would take their Camry and Forrester to them over the Toyota/Subaru dealer as it tended to cost a lot less, get better quality of work, and the parts came from the Toyota dealership down the street anyways, but now at the inter-dealer discounted rate. Second dealership is neither good nor bad so won’t mention their name and I think it was Mazda corporate that got involved and still don’t understand how / why.
edit – I should mention that mine was a VERY early build, it was the 13th one pre-ordered in my state and based on the VIN likely roughly the 1050th one produced. Maybe they were tracking the early ones to learn from customer experiences?
Not more than an hour ago, I was quoted $330.66 to change four spark plugs on a Honda Civic. I was quick to reply with exactly where and how far to shove said spark plugs.
OMG, this is worse than when I was at a Honda parts counter buying a f’ing $26 bolt and overheard someone quoting a lady $1200 to replace the front brake pads. Just the pads! No rotors, calipers, brake bleeding, or anything else, and she immediately accepted.
I made a good side living in college doing basic brake jobs, belts, and oil changes. I had a place to work, hydraulic jack, stands, and a relatively equipped tool box. I even replaced sway bar end links, a leaf spring pack, alternators, starters, lock acutators, window regulators.
I hope it involved so far that he tasted them.
My dad is the greatest person ever. Kind, considerate,etc… But he did not suffer fools. I’m told he once got kicked out a lumber yard (after being ignored for a time) for asking whose **** he needed to suck to get service.
My brother inherited his bluntness, I’m the diplomat by nature.
Sometimes I wish I could be so blunt.
He was the most patient man ever… But when that patience was finally overcome…
I’ve been trying to control my temper, and have been mostly successful. I stopped myself before going to far.
That’s a little more than I was quoted for the spark plugs on my Mazda3. I replaced them and the plug boots in my garage for about $60.
Recently got a quote for $8k to fix an exhaust leak, and it wasn’t even from a dealership
A roommate was quoted $60 to install a battery in his Buick. I was like that’s dumb, I’ll do it for free.
Shop had already installed it even though he said he would buy just the battery from them so they pettily wasted their time to take it out and pushed the car into a parking spot.
Install was a bit of a pain sitting underneath a cross brace that had to be removed first, but it was about principle at that point.
Sunk cost fallacy at work. I WILL FIX THIS MYSELF EVEN IF IT KILLS ME.
Good thing it wasn’t a 17 Escape…battery requires removing several things including the wipers, cowl cover thingy, air filter box… and even then, it was a tough to extract out of its protective box. And then, you have to use a dongle thing to reset the battery management.
Noticed the newer model has the battery back up front for easy removal.
Recently went in for oil change at local Mazda dealer for my 6.They quoted me $712.56 for front brakes and rotors.I did the job myself plus 2 new calipers for $277.
German car shop: $400/hr for a “specialized” tech who knows how to work on W124 climate control systems. 2h min “evaluation” just to figure out what they’ll be charging you for.
On a car I bought for $2700.
Tbf those automatic climate controls are fiddly, they seem to crap out, and they stay that way. I haven’t owned or test driven a MB from that period with functioning AC.
I took a car with hail damage to a highly reputable body shop. They wrote up a quote for several thousand dollars.
When I looked at the details, the work was “take the panels off the car and send them to a hail repair shop”.
Needless to say I did not use them for the work.
Twenty-plus years ago I got a quotes from independent mechanics to replace the Nivomat self-adjusting rear suspension in my 1992 Volvo 960. The range was $1,200-$1,500. An outrageous sum but that’s was the going rate.
Self-leveling suspension, usually on the rear, has been outrageously expensive to fix ever since it existed, I have made the experience myself twice: First on a 1987 (I think) Mitsubishi Galant (this year was called the Sapporo in some countries), which had it front and rear, but only the front had failed on mine. The price for replacement shocks was over 3000$ for both sides. On the Jaguar it was only on the rear, a hydraulic system (the Mitsubishi had a pneumatic system), and Jaguar stopped producing spare parts for it, and instead sold a conversion kit which included new springs and new shocks, also for thousands. The only cars with affordable self-leveling suspension are probably the pre-2000 Citroen with their hydro-pneumatic system: since they had been building these systems since the fifties, and installed on millions of cars, all of the components were cheap and easy to swap.
Not going to name the shop because I really want to like them. They are near my house, and had a good reputation. I think employee turnover got the better of them, but now I don’t take my cars there, but here’s the story…
I took my 1993 Miata there for state inspection. They called to let me know it failed. Why did it fail? There was rust underneath and they couldn’t fix it. They literally failed the car and refused to do anything about it. I know the car inside and out and the whole thing sounded fishy. It’s got typical NA Miata rust behind the doors where the top drains, but nothing on the suspension or unibody frame.
I told them to put a rejection sticker on it and I picked it up, brought it home and crawled underneath, and sure enough, aside from some very light surface rust, it was super clean underneath.
I called the shop where I take my 1968 Olds, which is more like a trusted family to me, but it’s also a 30 minute drive away, and asked them to take a look at it. They passed it immediately and confirmed there was nothing wrong and no reason to fail the car.
As for the WHY?! on this one, it seems a bit puzzling that they would reject a car for no reason then not make up an expensive repair to fleece me over. I think this was more petty than that. I had the car in about a month earlier to have the AC fixed and when I went to pick it up, the belt squealed loudly when I started it. I was able to reproduce the belt squeal for them and they had no clue how to fix it. The tech who worked on it looked really pissed and mouthed off at his boss in front of me, so I’m guessing the whole thing got him in trouble and someone there decided they didn’t want to mess with my car anymore.
The rejection sticker was probably illegal, and I probably could have called and gotten their state inspection license taken away, but like I said, I really want to like these guys. I think they just had a couple of bad employees.
Anyway, I thought this would be more interesting than other times when stuff was just plain expensive. That happens to everyone. To me, this was worse.
Hiring bad employees is a pretty good reason to not like those guys. The test is to bring your inspection issue to management and see what happens. If your theory is correct, that’s an incredibly petty thing to do and the don’t deserve the reputation they say they have. A 30 minute drive to avoid that crap seems like a very small price to pay.
1990 Pontiac Sunbird with the 3-speed automatic. Torque converter clutch solenoid went out in 2023, causing the car to buck, lurch, and stall every time I came to a stop. Called multiple shops. Most turned me down completely. “We don’t work on cars that old.” One shop finally agreed to do it and said it’d be $600.00.
My friend who used to race J-bodies on a local dirt track back in the day ended up helping me fix it in his driveway.
$200 for an air filter. $150 for the cabin air filter.
Thanks bud. I’ll take the complimentary oil change and do that one myself.
$166 for 24 swollen lug nuts. That was parts only – labor was free.
a) I didn’t know “swollen lug nuts” was actually a thing. (It is – some manufacturers use a two piece lug nut with an inner steel core and a chromed cover, and the different metals in contact cause corrosion that deforms the lug nut to the point where the socket won’t fit on it without some percussive persuasion.)
b) The plan was for OEM replacements, that in enough time would eventually have the same problem.
A ~$40 Amazon purchase of one piece lug nuts and a walk around the truck with the impact wrench resolved the issue.
Ford two-piece lugs are why I own an air chisel. Fuckers were completely rounded off so I had to chisel the shell to expose the good metal underneath.
Impacts and 12 point sockets are the criminal here.
I use a lug wrench so that’s a no on both.
I used 6 points on a breaker bar.
All my Toyotas and the Acura use these. I have a new set of Toyota lugs in the shed, waiting in the wings. I do all my own brakes and tire rotations so I catch the issue early. Use a torque wrench for final tightening, not an impact gun. I honestly usually loosen mine with a breaker bar as well, 6 point, not 12 point. I see more issues with impact rounding than corrosion/expansion.
Toyota uses a “mag” type flat lug with a washer. I give mine a shot of oil prior to install. I lightly anti-sieze my wheel studs, torque to 85 or 90 ft/lb with a 1/2″ drive torque wrench. I have zero issues with rotor warpage. As soon as my car is out of the shop from inspection or tire work, I’m loosening and retorquing every wheel lug within days.
Yeah, I need to loosen them and re-tighten with the torque wrench. That will happen this weekend.
Recently my daughter called me about a CEL on her 2015 Honda Fit. I recommended she take it to her local Honda dealer service center, just a few blocks away, in case it was something simple. They diagnosed failing fuel injectors (a known issue for 2015 Fits) and quoted $3400+ for replacement.
I suggested she take the car to my trusted independent Honda mechanic for a second opinion, even though it’s a 100+ mile trip. My mechanic diagnosed the same FI problem and installed new injectors for a total of less than $1200.
I own a 2015 Fit, and I wouldn’t go near my dealer. Love my mechanic.
When they started taking dipsticks off of automatics back in the early 2000s, and I had 2003 Explorer V8 (worst car I’ve ever owned). It was one of the first fords that didn’t have a trans dipstick, and I did get a chuckle when I would have someone else change the oil because I was too busy/lazy to do it.
Every single time they would tell me “we checked the transmission fluid and it was dirty” and try to upsell me. I would say “that’s interesting, can you please show me where you checked it?”….
Checking it is very easy. The transmission oil drain plug has a center check plug in it that comes out. A little fluid will always drain.
Yeah you are correct… but these were instances that they didn’t do that. And i neglected to mention that they said they “checked the dipstick”, and it was at quick lube places, not dealers or good indie shops.