Friday, 1 June 2012

Your car service costs could be doctored

For most vehicle owners, the most dreaded time is when the car needs service. At that time, you would hear certain individuals complaining that service costs are high when all they do is leave their vehicles in a garage with the mechanic. Now, if the mechanic is an individual and not part of an established garage then there could be a high possibility that your 'high service costs' are doctored and since most people are ignorant of even the model of their cars, I would say they deserve to be duped.
I will outline some of the innovative ways your mechanics can use to squeeze extra fees out of you, but to do so I will use the Toyota NZE as an apparatus to gauge how much one can get conned.
Some of the ways you get conned are as followed:
1. This is probably the most common, you as the car owner, is represented by a quotation of how much your car will cost to do a basic service so that you can give the mechanic the cash to go purchase the items required. The quote probably looks something like:
Oil filter - ksh500
Air filter - ksh800
Engine oil 4lts - ksh1800
Spark plugs - ksh2000 for a set of 4pcs.
Brake pads - ksh1800

TOTAL - KSH6900

You should note that this is NOT a quote for genuine items but for replacement parts except for the plugs and oil even then there are many fakes. This is an average of what the quote should actually look like:
Oil filter - ksh150
Air filter - ksh350
Engine oil 4lts Shell/Total - ksh1500
Spark plugs 4pcs Denso Toyota Genuine - ksh1200
Brake pads (Japanese quality) - ksh1500

TOTAL - KSH4700

So the mechanic gets himself a bonus of ksh2200. He may even present you with a receipt with an ETR receipt on it, many shops engage in this type of deals with them.

2. The mechanic will tweak with all sorts of things in your car to convince you there is a problem after his 'analysis' he gives you a rough quote of how much it will cost. Lets say you go with him to the shop and purchase all these items, usually mountings and suspension parts, the total of these items comes to ksh30,000. You will be satisfied that you have not been robbed, so you leave the mechanic to work on the car. Now that is where  you actually get robbed. He will go back to the car, fix the places he was tweaking with and replace what actually needs to be replaced then return the other items to the shop and gets a refund. Out of your ksh30,000 purchase he probably only used ksh8,000. You have unknowingly paid for his rent.
Once again the shop he took you to buy the items are in an alliance with him to carry out this kind of deals.

3. The term 'Genuine' is usually abused. Genuine in the parts industry does not necessarily mean Toyota Genuine parts, for example, an oil filter's make could be Nitoyo, that makes it a genuine Nitoyo filter, if the filter is made locally and packaged Nitoyo by other parties than the dealers, those filters are fakes of the Nitoyo filter. There are many fakes in the market especially for suspension parts, spark plugs, brake pads, shock absorbers and Engine oil and lubricants. I would encourage most people to shopping for their own parts because what happens if you send the mechanic, he will charge you for the genuine and put the fake in the car.

These are just some of the ways car owners are duped. Your car will serve you as well as you take care of it. That is why you can see a vehicle, KAC number plates looking cleaner than  KBP. I will try my best to inform you of many ways to take care of your car, until next time, happy driving and God bless.

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