Do shops still sabotage cars for profit?

Yes it seems that when someone brings you their severely neglected piece of crap to you for a repair, you automatically become married to every single problem the car has ever had and will have for the rest of it's miserable life.

Luckily, I have a pretty good ability for weeding these types of idiots out before I even agree to see the car, but I also have seen the Jeckyl/hyde customers that I never saw comin.

I have to share this one guys as it's just too good to let go.

A few years ago I got called to put some brakes on a 1996 mercedes S-500 right.
So I go armed with all the right parts, but before i work on the car, the customer wants me to drive her in her car to Starbucks down the street so she can get her morning coffee fix.
Okay ,no problem, I will do it, so we go get her coffee and she is all sweet like a little old, Granny should be all full of niceties and warm conversation.

So...I get back to her house and put the front brake pads, rotors and sensors on the car, torques the wheel bolts, and tell her I'm going to test drive it to seat the pads, and this is when her head spins around and her eyes get wide and she say's "NO!, I am going with you to make sure it's done right and I'm driving it."

I say "That's fine, let's go."

Well, right ouside of her driveway was a main street with a red light and a line of traffic.

She immediately started yelling F@@k you you sonof a bi#@H to other drivers that were stopped at the red light and could not go anywhere to let her in line and she flew off the freaking handle and told me that she's lucky she did not carry a gun otherwise she would be shooting people in traffic.

I was like "WTF?" to myself and said something like "There is no way they can let you in without ramming the guy in front of them off the road."

She ignored me and finally began going down a side street and a big down hill slope.

She all of the sudden slams on the brakes and all of these glass and plastic bottles, books, and other items slide off of the rear seat and onto the floor and seatbacks of the front seats and she say's "What was that noise!"

I said "It was all the bottles careening off of the rear seat."

And she lets off the brake and hits them again and say's, "NO, that noise!"
I was like "WTF?" LOL.

I said, "I don't know what you are hearing, but I don't hear it."

I told her to do a gradual stop and finally I heard what she was talking about, it was the normal brake chatter you get right before you come to a stop when the pads are just about to stop the wheel and I explained the theory behind this and why it does it with the motion of the brake friction, vs rubber front end bushings etc, and she made such a big freaking stink about it, but finally calmed down and accepted that her car was fine, but it took alot of patience on my part to keep this freaking spycho from flipping out and running someone off the road.

I can't tell you how glad I was to get the check and never do business with this freaking psycho ever again.

I should have known better when I saw a John Kerry bumper sticker on her car.