Oh wow, 'spaz, for everytime I've heard, "well, my car was in here a little while ago and you fixed a headlight and now my check engine light is on..." ......................
Or when the guy comes in and has an estimate you gave him a month ago and wants another estimate and then acts surprised that the exact same thing is wrong and it costs the exact same amount of money as a month before. Like he expected the car to some how have fixed itself and wouldn't need the same parts and labor. Or he expected the parts and labor to have gone down in that interval.
That's why we document everything, including the repair order notations like you mentioned and the phone contact times. The car with the missing brake pad should have been looked at somewhere between when the noise started and the sparks started to fly.....
Bottom line is this: Automotive repair shops are notoriously shadey and it's so hard to shake that reputation. At times it seems like the customers are ready for a fight for no reason.I wear latex work gloves to keep my skin clean and prevent crap from entering my bloodstream through the skin. I had a customer taunt me if I thought I was a surgeon. I asked him when was the last time he saw a surgeon with blood on his hands at a dinner party?
Everyone wants cutting edge technology but no one wants to acknowledge the fact that auto repair is nothing what it used to be. But assholes who rip people off deserve all the bad press they can get. Leaving a wheel loose and owning up to it and doing the repairs is one thing. Mistakes happen, we all do something stupid from time to time. But thieves I have issues with.
