Twisted Six

Wow Steve............. I played a trick on our local Nissan dealership a couple years ago to prove to my father that they don't know how to troubleshoot anything anymore. I put a bad fuse in the fuse panel for the AT control, which causes the car not to shift at all. I know this because some time earlier, I found this out doing battle with my old automatic tranny. I took it to the dealership playing deaf and dumb, half expecting them to find it. The service writer comes up to me half an hour later and tells me I need a remanufactured automatic transmission. I asked him if they checked everything just to be sure, since that was a lot of money for a new one...... He continues to say that they even connected the computer, and it indicated evenything electrical was OK, which is not possible since it didn't even have power, and it won't even light up, let alone give out codes. Of course my dad is right there with me. I tell the service manager to give me this in writing, so he does... I then ask him to go get his boss, I want to show them something....... A few minutes later, he shows up with one of the owners of the dealership. I show him the written estimate for $3000 for a reman auto tranny installed. He's like "ok", what's the question... I reached into my pocket and pulled a good fuse out. The service manager had a kind of puzzled look on his face, whereas the owner knew right then he'd been had... I changed out the fuses, and then told them to go take the car for a drive and tell me I needed a new automatic transmission... The service manager said "We'd have caught it eventually". I said when? $3000.00 later when it wasnt even necessary? The owner/partner just apologized, but I got the feeling he really didn't give a shit. I told the owner that I really hoped he didnt encourage this practice, as its taking advantage of a LOT of naive people who just need their cars fixed, and that if it's not done intentionally, they need to train their mechanics to troubleshoot instead of just hanging parts... Since then, I've never taken a vehicle to a dealership, or a shop where I didn't know the owner or mechanic on a personal level.

Sorry for the long read, it just seemed worth mentioning.

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