"William Sommerwerck" wrote in message
...
Would you be happy for a car mechanic to shotgun a fault on your
car, with you paying for his time and all the parts he is unnecessarily
fitting?

It's commonly done. Had a girlfriend a few years back who took her car
in because it was overheating. They called with the estimate (of many
hundreds of dollars), saying they had determined that it needed a new
radiator, new water pump, new thermostat, and new hoses.

I went down there and asked them how they had determined the radiator
fault, and they claimed to have pressure-tested it. A 15-second look
under the hood confirmed my suspicion that they had not.

I took the car and replaced the thermostat -- $12 and 1/2 hour -- and it
served her for several more years.

The shop in question is consistently voted winner of the annual
"Reader's Poll" in our local rag.

Oddly, I don't think they operate that way solely to cheat the customer
financially. I think they're more driven by not wanting any return
complaints. That's why the "Readers" like them -- "they fixed it right
the first time!!"

There's also the possibility that a comprehensive makes it possible to
offer
a "lifetime" warranty on the repair.


I drove around town for the next 3 months with a giant sign in my back
window:
"Richard's Auto: As Crooked As the Day is Long."
I got a lot of stories from people who saw the sign, about their own bad
experiences there.

It goes without saying that if a service shop claims that lots of things
need fixing, it's probably not telling the truth.

Thirty years ago I worked part-time -- at $6/hour -- for Chestnut Hill
Audio
in Philadelphia. The owner said to me "You're not as fast as the other
people I use -- but nothing you repair comes back."

I had a holy horror of callbacks. It costs the business money, and it
makes
the business and the service tech look bad.

By the way, I never shotgunned anything I repaired there, because nothing
seemed to need it.



Which is precisely what I'm saying. Yes, there are some items - notably
switch mode power supplies - where it is often prudent, or even recommended
by the manufacturer, to replace a whole raft of parts, but for most general
repairs, the cause of the problem should be correctly diagnosed, and the
(usually) one faulty component replaced.

Arfa