Do shops still sabotage cars for profit?

Oh, wow, John and 73Dust and a few others bring the chain stores into it. I'm not gonna bad mouth the guys at the stores, since I've worked with a few 'em that are good at what they do: brakes, exhaust, suspension. Don't ask 'em to do too much more, but they are good at those three things. Anyway, the chain stores have taken the McDonald's approach to auto repair. As we used to call it: "want fries with that?"
Those wonderful courtesy checks looking for maintainance items on jobs like grinding brakes. Sorry, the customer is thinking of the intial problem, not looking to get his or her power steering flushed today, thank you. I refused to do a courtesy check on state inspection. If a state guy walked in the door and saw me pulling an air filter on NYSI, it was my license. Oil changes? Sure. If the boss did his job right and explained the courtesy check at the counter, fine, I'd do one on a brake job. (Sometimes it was a sales tool in Ithaca, NY, where folks want to haggle. "This is what it's going to cost for your brakes, ma'am. No, I don't have any coupons. No, I'm sorry, I can't discount the job, but I do see that you're overdue for an oil change and could use an air filter. Tell you what, you want to do the brakes today, I'll throw an LOF and air filter in for free.") If I heard the boss talking to the customer, not mention the courtesy check and throw one on the clip board anyway, I wouldn't do it. But if a customer came in needing four tires and an alignment or had a weird noise in the rear suspension? Bye bye courtesy check, since I didn't have any real reason to be under the hood. The company had a policy that they wanted to see a courtesy check on every job. Okay, then. I'd take the courtesy check and write "NYSI" across it, or "declined" on it, if I felt that it was warranted. Or if the boss didn't talk to the customer about it, I would, and see if the customer actually wanted it done.
To me, the "want fries with that" mentality is trying to shake the customer of every dime possible, today, not tomorrow, but today. Maybe not sabotage, like 'spaz is talking about, but trying to rip the customer, nonetheless. One of the chain stores here in the northeast even went so far as to advertise "free brake inspection with every oil change!" Now talk about looking for the upsale! It didn't last long, when they realized that people weren't going to wait around for 45 minutes just to get an oil change. And when it dawned on them that the customers really didn't appreciate having some jamb a brake job down their throats on an LOF.
Which is why it was so nice to change environments and go back to the dealerships, where the courtesy check was only done on oil changes and the service writer talked about maintainence items up front.
I like John talking about the dealership where he's at. It makes for contrasting environments. John, the dealership were Brian was my boss, Brian would have had one of his top one of two guys on that engine swap. And it more than likely would have been his top guy. Hyundai only pays warranty claims if the certified guys work on it. The other guy was bronze certified, capable, but insecure. The top guy would have gotten it done quick and right. And no muddying up the claim. Ford? It would have been one of four of his top guys. Myself and three others. And we were the diag guys, too. Someone he could trust to do it right and do it quick. The bottom guys? One was a guy in his 50s just waiting it out until retirement who didn't like to do anything big. One was bitcher who complained that he didn't get paid enough to do those big jobs, then would complain that he knew too much to be constantly stuck with the little jobs. The other guy was an oil change guy who bounced between the line and the wash wrack. The fourth guy was a new guy just in from the local community college.
The Ford dealership I left last year would have had one of two guys on it. somewhat structured more like you're talking about. It would have been two of the older guys, one hourly who the shop didn't care if he took his time, but knew his s***, the other was flat-rate and had been there for 20+ years. Thankfully, I was the diag guy, so they would left me alone.