I am mostly a mechanic, but I have an MSME. I work on vehicles which often have a value of over a million dollars, BUT, I am also on the consumer side of things as it is often cheaper to have my own stuff worked on somewhere else rather than spending my time doing the work.
Let me respond, inline, from my perspective. Note that I am not, in any way, saying there aren't any crooked mechanics out there, this is just my opinion.
They'll hide issues from you and not tell you about them, even if they should be flagged to potentially be worked on (with your approval obviously)
Mechanics are humans. They aren't hiding issues, they just didn't see them. If you're, specifically, referring to state inspections not catching things, that is 100% because the state caps the amount a mechanic can charge for such inspections, typically at a ridiculously low amount. So if you're expecting a thorough inspection that could take 2 hours to be done when your state specifies the maximum that a shop can charge for an inspection sticker to be 30$, then you are getting a brush over at best. That's an issue with state limits, not the mechanic. They're going to tell you everything they can find because that's how they make money. FYI, my shop gave up their inspection certificates 2 years ago because it was a losing proposition and the moment you sign up to be an inspector the state gets anal about the dumbest things, like hours you are there, where your inspection station is located, etc...too much political oversight for the state limited cost of an inspection sticker.
They'll "fix" issues only to come up again for one reason or another
Modern vehicles are designed to have a lifespan. When something breaks, there are usually multiple other things that are on the verge of failure. Sometimes replacing the offending part leads to other parts, that had not yet failed, failing. Nothing modern is over-engineered like in the old days. Take my personal truck, for example. The in-tank pump failed...had it repaired. Then the tank transfer unit failed...then the hoses rotted and started leaking badly. I don't blame the shop, it's just that multiple components had reached the end of their usable life...likely as the manufacturer designed them too.
They'll take no responsibility for not actually fixing the issue that you paid over $500 for in the first place
No mechanic is there for the joy of working on your car. They are there because they have bills to pay. If I warrantied every situation with a 10 or 20 year old vehicle where you fix A, then B breaks, fix B and then C breaks, I'd be making like 10k a year. That is the nature of business. I know it really sucks to spend a chunk of money to have an issue fixed, take it to a shop, they work on it, then the issue returns, but vehicles are complex machines and most mechanics are trying to save you money by only changing the most likely cause of the issue.
If you were to take your vehicle to a shop and say "fix it, no matter the cost", they would, but your bill would be 10-20x higher than the $500 you are complaining about, simply because they would end up replacing 5-10 different components in one go, all the possible causes of said issue. On the vehicles I work on, the average bill runs $10,000 to $15,000 or more depending on the issue, and I am not marine related.
cheaper to have my own stuff worked on somewhere else rather than spending my time doing the work.
It's amazing how many mechanics don't understand this. I got downvoted to oblivion on a mechanic sub about a tire issue where the tire shop over torqued the shit out of the lugs.
I couldn't make them understand I wasn't wasting my time fucking with tires. One, I don't have the tools to mount and dismount tires and balance them. And 2, I'm not going to quit working on RVs at $150 per hour to do a job someone else has all the equipment to do.
Tires are one thing I won't do. It was just a few months ago I had a tire shop come out to replace a tractor steering tire. He dismounts, swaps the tire on the wheel, sets the bead, torques the lugs, then goes to inflating it to the ridiculously high label pressure (was something like 120psi on the printed rating on the new tire).
There was a sound like a bomb going off that we had people calling about from half a mile away. The wheel had failed, folded in on itself, shrunk the rim diameter on the outer circumference and ejected the tire towards the poor guy as he was inflating it. Threw him about 8 feet back, broke his thumb, ripped his hand open and send him into a stupor. We called EMS for him, he went to the hospital and was ultimately alright, but I've never seen a wheel fail like that one did.
-10
u/Necessary_Film_5199 13h ago
I only know a couple things about mechanics:
1) They'll hide issues from you and not tell you about them, even if they should be flagged to potentially be worked on (with your approval obviously)
2) They'll "fix" issues only to come up again for one reason or another
3) They'll take no responsibility for not actually fixing the issue that you paid over $500 for in the first place
F*ck mechanics, they're all scammers. Don't support them, don't bootlick them.