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Does it seem like your repair bills are higher than they should be? This may be the case. Most people who have been going to a repair shop for a long time that they fully trust may not even realize they are paying too much. I know of several very busy shops that sell their customers some things they may not need or charge a lot more for things than you really should be paying. In some cases, you may bring a vehicle in for a noise that may be caused by a simple sway bar bushing, and the shop sells you a $400.00 set of struts. The shop may even be doing this unknowingly. Sometimes the mechanic may think it’s the struts and replace them and still hear the noise after road testing the vehicle and then do what would have been the inexpensive job. All of the Dodge Caravan type vehicles have this common problem. If the vehicle has over 20K miles on it and has a rattling noise over bumps, it needs sway bar bushing. This consists of a $15.00 part and approximately an hour of labor to install it. A lot cheaper than a set of struts that you did not need!

If you feel you are spending more than you should be, check into it. Take a recent bill and call another shop for an estimate for the same job. You may find that you paid way too much or you may be pleased to find you paid less. Either way, just check it out to be sure you are not being taken advantage of.

There are a lot of cases where you may have a driveability problem and three different mechanics may arrive at three different diagnoses. This all depends on the ability of your shop to diagnose your car properly. Cars today are all about electronics. It costs repair shops a great deal of money to buy scanning equipment and maintain the software that comes with the scanner. Some shops may not be willing to keep their scanners as up to date as they should and this could cost you money. Ask your shop if they have All Data or Mitchell On Demand. These are two very essential vehicle data programs that you absolutely have to have to repair any late model car. They help the technician diagnose all sorts of problems. They have what’s called TSB’s, Technical Service Bulletins. You may tell your mechanic that you have a rattle while going 32 mph around a left hand turn while hitting a bump. This may be a hard thing to find, but if your mechanic checks in all data, he will find a factory update to replace a defective bolt in the frame mount that otherwise he may have spent hours to find, or cost you money by replacing things that you did not need.

Please feel free to call or email my shop with any questions or price comparisons you may need. Hopefully you will find that the shop you have been going to for years is doing the right thing and charging you a fair price for it.

Thanks for listening to my opinions.

Robert Avanti

Phone # 631-462-4416. Email [email protected]

Address: 100 Smithtown Blvd. Smithtown, NY 11787