A friend of mine needed his car serviced, so he asked me to picked him up after he dropped off his car at the repair shop. It would take three to four hours, so our plan was to go to some places in the vicinity and then go back there to pick up his car. Two hours or so later, while we're in the car driving, my friend's cell phone rang, so he answered the call. It was the service department calling him about the car.
At first everything seemed fine, but I heard him curse in a low voice. What happened next really caught me off-guard.
"That's crap!" he suddenly sit up and yelled into the cell phone.
"What do you mean the break light doesn't work? That's crap! I know the break light works and you know that, so don't give me that kind of crap ... I'm not spending 700 dollars just for the break pads, ..." he kept shouting.
Then I heard some voices from the phone. I guess the poor guy (or the sneaky guy) from the shop tried to explain the situation, but my friend apparently didn't buy any of it. Near the end of the call, he told him not to do anything not agreed upon when they first talked and we'd be there in 40 minutes.
After the call ended, he was still upset. "I know I shouldn't go to a dealer but I still went, and this is what I get. I asked for an inspection and they wanted to charge me 700 dollars. For what?!... What do they think I am?" Well, I've known him for quite some time, but this outburst was a first.
We had a quick stop at the dealer afterwards. On our way back to his place, I followed his car, and I noticed his car's break lights worked perfectly fine. So after we arrived at his place and parked our cars, I told him about the lights.
He said, "See, they could have just told me the park break needs work but they had to lie."
"What?"
"I went there for the transmission oil and I also asked for an inspection(*1). They know it's not much money so they had to find something in my car. I know the park break needs serious work, but they could've just told me that. But no! They had to lie. And 700 dollars for the break pads? What do they think I am?!"
"So, did they do any of those..."
"No, I asked them not to, and they didn't remove the old inspection sticker."
"?" I looked at him puzzled.
"Normally if a car doesn't pass the inspection, they'd put a 'failed' sticker on, but they didn't even do that."
"So did they charge you for the inspection if they didn't put the new sticker on?"
"No. They only charged me for the transmission oil."
I can only guess they realized they were busted, so they didn't charge him for the inspection. I must give it to him for being tough; after all, he could have been conned. As a matter of fact, he saved me from a similar con job before. I'll tell that story some other time.
(*1) Referring to Massachusetts state inspection. It's required by law. One of the test items is break lights.
What do you think I am?
