<p>Service places and car dealerships are notorious for what they do when they think someone doesn’t have a clue comes into their shop. I am pretty knowledgeable about cars and what car related industries like dealers do, and it often isn’t pretty (the chain service centers were notorious for this, women comes in with a car that basically needed the front tires balanced, a 30 dollar job at most, and they are telling her the car needs basically a new front end, struts/balljoints/etc, a 1500 dollar one…). I have had women friends ask me to talk to service guys, as their older brother/boyfriend/husband (my wife claims I am the world’s biggest cheat who never cheated <em>lol</em>), and you would be amazed how much the story changed, especially after they figured out I had some solid knowledge. I have had some of them pull scams on me, like Sears infamous “lifetime guarantee” struts (folks, spend the money on a pair of Monroe or Gabriel struts elsewhere), I had those, took it into a service center, and they gave me this bs story how the springs were shot and needed replacing…meanwhile, the car had never been in their service bay (it was literally parked exactly where I had left it) and to determine that requires measuring ride height on a flat surface like a concrete bay…they figured I would bite, and I didn’t, because I knew better (later on had it out with their regional service manager, who didn’t even deny what they did, that if they had to honor those warrantees straight up they would lose money…they later ended up on the losing side of a massive lawsuit). </p>
<p>A lot of what dealers do are scams, things like 1000 dollar "rustproofing’ packages and the like are basically that, especially with modern cars that simply don’t rust, and they will try and sell you all these wacked out things that basically don’t pay…and with prices, they will tell you the sticker price reflects “their lowest price” when it doesn’t (there are some dealers, like the late Saturn brand, that had no haggling prices…but even those were not always “it”, because some dealers undercut others, even though that wasn’t supposed to happen, I think that was Saturn policy). The whole car business is kind of shaky, for example they still charge you for an automatic transmission (look on the sticker of any new car), when 90-95% of the cars sold come with automatics, and a standard transmission either is the same cost or costs more (low unit volume and also because of the clutch setup, pedals, etc)…</p>
<p>Best bet on anything is to be prepared. With auto repairs, try to find someone who you have dealt with and has a good reputation, and if they present you with something that appears ridiculous, take it to other places for a second or third opinion and see what they come up with. With buying a car, do your homework on places like cars.com, and also get quotes from dealers over the internet before going in there. I know several people who were quoted X dollars over the internet, went into the dealer, looked at the car and when they were quoted the price, it was thousands more then the internet price (they showed the dealer the internet price, and the manager gave some story how the salesman didn’t know about the internet price [which is crap, because salesmen have to clear prices with the ‘big boss’ who better know], etc, etc…plus the internet price at least gives you a ballpark number to play with…other sites tell you dealer cost, so you know if the clown in the bad suit is telling you the truth when he says “my price is X”.</p>
My daughter was very familiar with bedbugs as a neighbor in her previous apartment had bedbugs, so my daughter had done her research!</p>