How to save thousands on car maintenance guide

Maintaining your car is important to your safety as well as your wallet, and we all know that right?.

My expertise is in automotive engineering., running quality workshops and then later I owned a business supplying high quality auto shop equipment. I have built my own car for the road, and once spent 5 1/2 years rebuilding a vintage grand prix car from the ground up with a dear friend who was a motoring fanatic.

The time spent selling workshop equipment and seeing how motor mechanics used it was a very good way to asses their mechanical engineering ability and informative in seeing how they went about their job working on your car.

Having owned and operated many workshops myself I knew the value of a good customer, I have kept some of them through a dozen different cars, and by offering top service we never wanted for customers.

What was an eye opener for me was how often repairers today replaced genuine high quality OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) consumables with the cheapest rubbish after market copy product available, and pocket the difference in the price!

Most people are amazed when they discover how much they get ripped off for the difference in cost price, eg: You are charged $87 for a part that cost the repairer $16.and is crap.

A "tuneup" for a 4 year old car that has always been serviced at proper intervals by a large dealership costing $1500? This is theft folks! I see it all the time. I got a quote for that amount from a major dealership to tune a Hyundai people mover that was misbehaving with a stuttering motor mis firing that is typical.

The owner had the Auto club mechanic out first. Lucky I was there, he muttered something about the spark plug leads needing replacement, but could not use his own analyzer to prove it up! The likelihood of the problem being the leads was zilch, as the stuttering did not vary with engine load, and therefore most unlikely as spark loss originating at the spark plug leads would mean that heavier engine loads would cause the spark to misfire more, and it did not!

I sent him packing.

I hooked up my standard 20 year old engine analyzer to it. (10 minutes to warm up the analyzer and find the fault)

It was a design fault that should have been fixed under a standard free service but was not done! Gee, and I should be surprised?

I did not bother to go back to the sparkling new Hyundai dealership who missed it in the free service period. Why would they be any better the second time? The truth is they never are better the second time!

I don't do repairs any more, but this was too easy.it cost $39 to fix with one phone call to have my parts expert friend deliver a much cheaper and higher quality Japanese after market part. Oh and it took all of 5 minutes to replace that sucker!

The complaints about maintenance costs is universally very high, yet still does not reflect the real cost to the consumer of driving a dangerous vehicle without having any idea why it is dangerous and no way of finding out. Till now!.

Why you get shredded!

• The car maintenance industry is so saturated that cheating is the only way for many bad operators to stay afloat, and as you would suspect, all areas of maintenance from service to full drive train replacement or engine replacement are full of inflations to take more of your money than you need to spend.

If you follow me so far, I do have real solutions as you will see.

This is a major rort sector of the industry. From Insurers who's terms and conditions are obscure or unfathomable, to repairers who rob on LABOUR and PARTS prices. Your chances of not being robbed are very slim indeed.

the body panel you have had replaced for thousands may be an old one, welded or repaired, your great OEM windscreen is often replaced with one that is supposedly better, but is rubbish and cost half the price of a real one. Air-bag covers are often replaced without fitting the airbag and the warning signals "doctored" to disguise that the $1800 air bag you got charged to replace is in fact missing completely and the warning light in it is now hot-wired to the oil pressure warning light signal. You know nothing unless you have an accident.

Some other hard facts.

Repaint jobs seldom last more than 3 years in most climates, and are almost never as good as the original paint.

The reason for this is that the manufacturer has laid out a base for the paint in layers from the bare metal up, and the process is much more accurate than a human spray painter, as is the equipment used. A very good paint job to copy this procedure costs a few thousand dollars!

Firstly, if you have bought a car recently and have had any large expenses and the vehicle has done under 150000 miles other than normal free maintenance items, think about replacing it. Chances are it will continue to give trouble and eat money.

Design faults are very common in new vehicles, and bad assembly still happens with some.

Some manufacturers do horrible things in design that you pay for.

One European maker has an engine that requires an $1800 timing belt replacement, and worse, it needs one every 80,000klms!

You need to own a car that has not been fitted with rubbish oil and fuel filters or had cheap lubricants, cheap mufflers and brake consumables and sloppy adjustments all it's life to start with.

Constant vigilance is needed to avoid large repairs and that should be a big part of your focus. Preventative maintenance will save damage to major components to a degree that many do not grasp.

• Always ask for a quote

Never get one quote and accept it unless you know what is wrong and the cost to fix it.

• Ask for the quote to include that only OEM or equivalent spec replacements are to be used
  

• Insist that all evidence of the maintenance remains until you inspect the parts, packaging,  or OEM docket  for the parts replaced. Ask them to leave all the worn or otherwise unservicable replaced consumables for your inspection prior to disposal.

• Tell them upfront that you will not pay for any extra's above their quote without prior notification..
  

You must find a decent maintenance place.

I know and have met hundreds of people who love their mechanic. I look at the condition of their car, and what they have paid for repairs and know one thing for sure.

He loves them! Often taking thousands of dollars in repairs because he had failed to carry out the car maintenance schedule and/or has not replaced consumables with quality items that fit and work to standards set down by the manufacturer. Your car is wrecked, he has money for work not done and you have been robbed of your vehicles unexpired mileage as well as your money!

Cars are an emotional attachment and so are car mechanics. The majority of cars maintained by "my wonderful" mechanic that I see are dangerously unsafe due to missed or bad maintenance.

A good service industry pro will give you a free quote, tell you all about your car that he can gleen from looking at it, and will usually point something out to you that you had missed in service.

The guy who tries to make you fix the brakes before you leave is often the right guy to deal with, if he shows you evidence of caring about your safety and explains why you need the repair.

What you need to know is if what your mechanic says is the truth!

.To be honest, a lot can go wrong in maintenance that is unexpected, but what is expected is that you are informed about why any problem has arisen

Here are a couple of examples of what does happen.

You go to Ford or GM or wherever you bought it and ask for the brakes to be repaired as your brake light is on and get a quote for $1800.

You reckon OK it will all be genuine parts and fixed by the repairers appointed by the manufacturer to do so as a dealer.

The $1800 quote is based on doing the whole works, your ABS and any other bolt on brake equalising systems are serviced, the whole system flushed and cleaned, new rubbers throughout new discs and brake pads all round.

What may happen.

When you leave the dealership your car goes around the corner to a cheap brake specialist to spends about one tenth of that by estimating what does not need attention in his opinion, not the manufacturers.

You get back what you could have had done for $300, except it cost you $1800.

When the brakes crap themselves inside a year, the poor old customer goes back and does it all again! So sad.

Here is what I do.

search the net for my vehicle maintenance.

Track down recommended quality replacement parts to solve design problems if I am to keep the vehicle.

With this knowledge try to locate mechanics that know about these replacements.

Now here is the same brake job when I get it done.

I get a quote to replace components with often better quality components that are better priced or even the same as OEM.

For example some wheel bearings are $80 genuine from the dealership, but $26 from a bearing supplier for the same product.

If your mechanic does not know this market well, find another mechanic, it is essential that he has this knowledge. There are hundreds of solutions to OEM designed weak parts.

Take charge.

If your mechanic knows more than you do, you have to have trust. I can't teach you all I know about cars on this hub, but I can tell you a few things about good service, and you can contrast that with your experience.

External signs your mechanic or repairer sucks!

• You have a problem that has been "fixed" twice.

• You have not been told to replace something untill you can hear it!

• You had what seemed like a minor problem that cost you a grand to fix.

• You have had an oil or fluid leak and he has not mentioned it.
• You were charged more than quoted
• You were charged for major repairs on a car less than 5 years old.
  

The real expert can be spotted if you know what to look for, and with all my experience I have found it is one thing alone that ensures your car is maintained as it should be.

Attitude towards you!

Only the best mechanics can work on all sorts of cars all day and never get sloppy or take short-cuts that are long term expensive for you the car owner..

It is often a thankless job in large or small businesses as there is often little positive feedback for good work.either from employees or the customers.

Here are some more questions to ask yourself.

Does your mechanic actively recommend non OEM parts that are better replacements than OEM or the same but cheaper? With some vehicles and some parts this is a wise way to save money. You need to do some research to establish what is available as replacements for your make and model.

Does he take an active interest in you and your families safety, and is the reliability of your vehicle important to him? If your mechanic comments on your driving style and relates it to front brake wear, you have someone interested in your safety.

Does the bill always match the quote even when the time used is longer than costed?

(In a workshop you get problems with tight bolts ans rusted threads that may take longer, but a good shop wears the cost, unless your car has been looked after elsewhere, as the mechanics should have seen the problem coming during previous inspection, so it is their fault.)

Is he using the correct high quality lubricants, filters and consumable parts like brake pads etc to the specs of your vehicle?