Your car is UNSAFE!

[coldcupofjoe]

Dear Miss Ignorant,

YES!! I'm 100% POSITIVE your car needs new brakes! You have no brake pads! Your rotors are deeply scored! They're so badly damaged they can't be turned! Your calipers are leaking everywhere they CAN! Yes! I know it's expensive! But wrecking your car because you're too cheap to get your brakes fixed will be MUCH MUCH more expensive!

Just because I'm young does NOT mean that I don't know what I'm talking about. There are 5 other techs downstairs that will tell you the SAME EXACT THING I just did. That patch on my shoulder, ya know, that blue one that says ASE on it. That means I'm ASE certified. Do you see underneath it where it lists 5 different things? Now look right in the middle. Do you see where it says BRAKES? YES! I'm ASE certified in BRAKES! I also have NATEF certification in BRAKES! That mean I have hands on training in, you guessed it, BRAKES! THAT MEANS I KNOW WHAT THE HELL I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!

Yes, you do have to sign the release of liability before I will give you your car back. I would rather be yelled at and threatened by you and your husband then be sued because I let you drive away with your car in the condition it's in. My boss will tell you the same exact thing! If you insist on driving your car home, but you will not sign the release of liability I will disable your vehicle so it cannot be driven. AT ALL! Until I as in ME and NO ONE ELSE fixes it.

And I swear on whatever personal deity you subscribe to that if you POKE ME AGAIN I will BREAK your finger, and ANY OTHERS that get in my way.

Have a nice day.

Signed, Your friendly local auto tech.

[Mikaiyawa]

OMG

thank you for sticking to your guns. that idiot is gonna get someone Killed, and probalby not herself.

Mieka

[Crazeyal]

Uh..

Finger poking = assault.

Call the cops next time.

[Tria]

So.... Does she need new brakes? *Ducks*

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

thank you for sticking to your guns. that idiot is gonna get someone Killed, and probalby not herself.

There's always the winding mountain road with no guard rail separating the road from the sheer drop off.

[looney_librarian]

I would find out what her insurance provider is and give them a call. Would love to see what they would say about her not wanting her brakes to be fixed.

[coldcupofjoe]

There's always the winding mountain road with no guard rail separating the road from the sheer drop off.

Not anywhere near here there's not. The closest thing we have to a mountain is the pile of dirt in the alley behind the dealership.

[Spiffy McMoron]

YES!! I'm 100% POSITIVE your car needs new brakes! You have no brake pads! Your rotors are deeply scored! They're so badly damaged they can't be turned! Your calipers are leaking everywhere they CAN! Yes! I know it's expensive! But wrecking your car because you're too cheap to get your brakes fixed will be MUCH MUCH more expensive!

This story reminds me of a customer we got into the shop back at Canadian Tire. Customer comes in with his Ford Tarus, wants his brakes inspected, so the tech pulls off the wheels...and finds the worst maintained brakes I'd ever seen!

It needed front pads, rotors, calipers, rear shoes, rear wheel cylinders, and the drums needed to be turned...$1500 worth of work on a car that probably wasn't worth that much to begin with. To give you an idea as to how bad it was, I went out to the shop and was able to flake off part of this guys brake rotor.

We were instructed by the owner of the store that the car was NOT to leave the shop unless it was attached to a tow truck.

[earl colby pottinger]

Age or Cost?

Just because I'm young does NOT mean that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Was the customer disagreeing with you mostly because of the costs, or because of your age.

I ask because in the late '80s the computer store I use to work for have a number of teenagers working in the store section. It was always a laugh to hear some 40-60 year old business man complaining that they wanted an older person with more experience with the software/computer, only to have pointed out to them that the software/computer was only on the market for the last year or two and that the 17 year had used it from day one, and it would be IMPOSSIBLE to find anyone with more experience no matter what their age.

No, it was not that our store's employees were doing anything wrong, there just are sucky customers out there who refuse to believe that someone half their age know more than them do.

[Bluenomi]

Generally I trust car mechanics. They usually know what they are talking about. And if it is something like my brakes I certainly listen. Carefully, with my credit card in hand. And usually reply with 'Do whatever you need to do"

That woman is nuts. She wants to drive around with no brakes????

[Sylvia727]

Generally I trust car mechanics. They usually know what they are talking about. And if it is something like my brakes I certainly listen. Carefully, with my credit card in hand. And usually reply with 'Do whatever you need to do"

The car mechanics near me all take advantage of women. Presumably, they lie to uninformed males as well, but there's a distinct aura of condescendment and superiority. I just know that any minute one of them is going to call me "little lady". Once, they told my mother that it would be $200 to fix a car door that wouldn't click shut. She bought a $7 magnet at Walmart and snapped it into the appropriate groove. Another told my female cousin that her tires were shot and she needed new ones before she had an accident. The tires were about six months old, and had just been rotated for the snow. Luckily, we found a garage about 40 minutes away that is honest and does great work.

There's no excuse for yelling and screaming at the OP, but there is one tiny nugget of possibility that she had another, better reason to doubt you than your age. She's still a genitalia-suckling douchenozzle for handling this the way she did, of course, but maybe just maybe....

[Crazeyal]

Generally I trust car mechanics.

No offense.. But..

NO.

I apologize to the mechanics on the board, and coldcupofjoe especially.. But experience has taught me to NEVER take a mechanic at their word.

The person detailed here was a MORON. If I walked into a repairshop and I got THAT sort of response, I would have either got the car towed to get a second opinion, or gotten it driveable before attempting. Getting loud and ASSAULTING THE MECHANIC because you disagree withthe diagnosis you came in for is socially and morally unacceptable.

[bigjimaz]

When I worked for XXXX¹ Oil Corp. their orders were to upsell everything. If someone wanted regular gas, we were to tell them about the advantages of premium. If they wanted their windshield washed, we had to try to sell them wiper blades. If they wanted the cheap Atlas tires, we were to try to sell them the higher priced ones. If they wanted an oil change, we were told to tell them that their air cleaner was bad or they needed a tranny fluid change. (we even kept a can each of bad oil and tranny fluid to "prove our point") That turned me off to the thought of upselling ever since.

¹ Fill in the blank: ____ of Mexico. Use that word to replace the X's.

That said, anyone not replacing their brakes when they are that bad is doing nothing more than playing Russian Roulette with their lives, and with the lives of anyone else near them when they finally quit working.

[myswtghst]

I just make it a point to find the mechanics I trust. I usually will have my dad go in with me, as he knows better than I do, but make sure the techs know that he is behind me, though it's my car and my money. I'm just happy I have two shops in the area I trust - both the dealership I bought the car from, and a smaller shop for more cosmetic/smaller repairs.

And Joe - that woman was a raging idiot. I'd agree that it'd be for the best if she killed herself, but knowing the world, she'd have run over an innocent instead.

[ArenaBoy]

That woman is nuts. She wants to drive around with no brakes????

Random trivia time: The lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers had a car with no brakes. For him to stop he would tap the curb.