I am convinced that a professional, honest shop that does competent quality repairs and stands behind their work is the best bargain that any consumer can find. By trying to do repairs on the cheap with cheap parts most DIYers or people who use shade tree mechanics to do their work wind up with cars that never quite run right, that never quite handle right, that have neglected repair, and they wind up having to get rid of the vehicle before it would have be necessary and get further in debt with a different vehicle. Here are examples.
A DIYer came to us who had been going to AZ and having the vehicle scanned that was running bad and buying and installing parts accordingly. He told us all of the parts he had installed. I estimated he has spent $350-$400 in parts, not counting his time, gasoline at almost $4.00 per gallon, and his labor. We repair his vehicle for $50.00 it was a vacuum leak. The entity that profited in this business was AZ who offered free code reading which most DIYer's think is diagnosis and sold $350-$400 worth of parts that were not needed.
A person recently had a leaking water pump on a Toyota Camry. He told us that within the last 90 days his friend who was a shade tree mechanic had put a timing belt on for him but never once mentioned also replacing the water pump. Now he was looking at doing the same thing all over.
How about the customer whose "brother" tried to change a headlight on a Subaru and wound up doing $200 worth of damage by taking thingss apart and losing parts.
How about the Jeep that her sister's boy friend who was a "mechanic" charged over $900 to do a repair to fix a coolant leak. He charged more for the repair he was suppose to have done then we would have. However, it didn't fix the vehicle. We found a leaking freeze plug on the back side of the engine that he had tried to fill with JB Weld. Evidently, he misdiagnosed the problem and did an unneeded repair and in the process discovered the true leak and tried to fix it will JB Weld. This woman wound up paying over $1600 for a repair because she tried to save money that should have cost less than half of that.
How about the countless people who can put on brake pads but do not understand why there are minimum machine to and minimum discard specifications. Have you saw the car with brake calipers over extended because the rotors are too thin? Have you saw the car with bad ball joints and tie rod ends because the brakes have pullsated so bad for so long that it has literally shaken the front end loose. Also a lot of DIYers wind up tear up and losing as much stuff as they fix.
The list is endless.
It is my opinion that these people wind up spending more in the end for less and have a car that is never right.