Z Draci said:
Encino, Canoga Park, Glendale, Burbank! Those are pretty decent middle class cities in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area. I go to that area all the time.
I only go to a mechanic when I do not have the tools to do the job myself. This is very rare since all my friends have garages full of tools. When one has a problem the rest of us get together and help out. We rarely get stuck with anything. And how much better of a job can a mechanic do if we follow the same factory procedures?
It's also good to personally know mechanics. Owning a Datsun, I befriended a retired Datsun factory mechanic in my neighbourhood. He knows my car top to bottom like the back of his hand. If I have a question he always has an answer.
If you own a car you need to know what it takes to keep it maintained. You should be able to walk into a mechanic's garage and know how much this or that repair costs. If you look and sound clueless then a mechanic will do whatever it takes to make that extra dollar off you.
I've always told people that don't know about cars to shop around, or make friends with a mechanic that can atleast give them a clue as to what might be the problem. My family is full of Mechanic's and car guys (what family for SoCal doesn't have atleast one car guy in it?), so finding help on fixing a car hasn't been a problem.
Nice thing about owning a Datsun is it's an enthusiast car, enthusiast cars tend to have a lot of people who know them in and out. The only way I wouldn't buy a Japanese car, is if it were an older/used enthusiast car, atleast then plenty of people know how to work on them, not just the dealer and their over priced labor.
The only shops I would trust with my car are Firestones, I've worked for them, and they are very anal about things being done right. Especially the shop I worked at (Yorba Linda).
I applied for a job at a jiffy lube and a competitor that does mostly oil changes, both places rarely had applicants even capable of getting a GED let alone bothering to finish High School. Needless to say I didn't bother finishing the applications.
You mention how they are all in decent area's, I've always thought that the area's where the people have more money than brains tend to get ripped off because they just take their word for it.
What really gets on my dads nurves (mechanic by trade), are these shops, because they make it even harder for an honest guy who just makes a mistake, or is trying to fight multiple problems, do his job properly. My dad got out of the business because people would accuse him of ripping them off because the problem they had wasn't fixed when it left the shop, come to find out either, he mis-diagnosed the issue, or most often, was multiple issues.
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