Subaru is the worst in my personal experience. Several years ago I had gone ahead and changed the air filter since it was filthy and because I knew they would want to do it on the oil change that was scheduled in a week or so. $15 instead of their $70. At the oil change appointment the service advisor brought a filthy filter to me and said they were going to change it and they could give me $10 off as part of the appointment. I said “I don’t know where you got that but if you look at my filter you’ll see it’s clean since I just changed it. How about I show your manager my receipt for it?”
He looked like someone walked on his grave, apologized, and gave me 10% off the oil change. I never went back to that dealer, and my wife kept that car in the divorce so I don’t know who she goes to now, but definitely not them.
Recently bought a WRX, the O2 sensor went bad, the shop I normally use didn’t want to mess with it so I went to the dealership. While I was waiting I get a text saying my car needs $8,000 worth of work, I just bought the thing so I am starting to panic, the advisor said the battery sensing plug was messed up and to fix it the ENTIRE engine harness had to be replaced. I asked to see what they were talking about, so we walked into the shop, it was a small plastic plug about the size of my pinky finger the previous owner had wrapped in electrical tape so i asked if we can just wrap it back up, the mechanic shrugs but wraps it back, that was 2 years ago still never had an issue even though the advisor was like you need to get this fixed sooner rather than later. Never went back.
Or, you know, depinning the connector and replacing it? Sometimes there’s a weird connector but I have a hard time believing they couldn’t find a replacement if they tried. Some mechanics are just parts replacers and that’s it. My friend had a muffler break off on his Civic and the mechanic gave him a straight faced $1500 quote because they “couldn’t get a repair kit” and wanted to just replace all the parts. New pipe with resonator and new muffler is what they wanted to do. I welded it back on at home in an hour instead.
Subaru is the worst in my personal experience. Several years ago I had gone ahead and changed the air filter since it was filthy and because I knew they would want to do it on the oil change that was scheduled in a week or so. $15 instead of their $70. At the oil change appointment the service advisor brought a filthy filter to me and said they were going to change it and they could give me $10 off as part of the appointment. I said “I don’t know where you got that but if you look at my filter you’ll see it’s clean since I just changed it. How about I show your manager my receipt for it?”
He looked like someone walked on his grave, apologized, and gave me 10% off the oil change. I never went back to that dealer, and my wife kept that car in the divorce so I don’t know who she goes to now, but definitely not them.
Recently bought a WRX, the O2 sensor went bad, the shop I normally use didn’t want to mess with it so I went to the dealership. While I was waiting I get a text saying my car needs $8,000 worth of work, I just bought the thing so I am starting to panic, the advisor said the battery sensing plug was messed up and to fix it the ENTIRE engine harness had to be replaced. I asked to see what they were talking about, so we walked into the shop, it was a small plastic plug about the size of my pinky finger the previous owner had wrapped in electrical tape so i asked if we can just wrap it back up, the mechanic shrugs but wraps it back, that was 2 years ago still never had an issue even though the advisor was like you need to get this fixed sooner rather than later. Never went back.
Or, you know, depinning the connector and replacing it? Sometimes there’s a weird connector but I have a hard time believing they couldn’t find a replacement if they tried. Some mechanics are just parts replacers and that’s it. My friend had a muffler break off on his Civic and the mechanic gave him a straight faced $1500 quote because they “couldn’t get a repair kit” and wanted to just replace all the parts. New pipe with resonator and new muffler is what they wanted to do. I welded it back on at home in an hour instead.
Older BMW and Mercedes. The plastic in the engine bay turns into expensive RNG repair add ons as you take it apart. Audi too really