Tim
Valparaiso,#2Consumer Suggestion
Fri, January 09, 2004
If you could prove that they did unnecessary repairs then you would probably have a good legal claim against them for fraud. When someone who purports to be an expert on a subject uses the difference in knowledge between himself and the client to convince the client to shell out money that he otherwise would not have he has rendered the contract voidable. If your assertions are corect, then the consent you gave to have the work performed was fraudently obtained and effectively non-existent. Unfortunately, you'd probably have a pretty hard time proving this in a courtroom. In the future, any time you have parts replaced on your vehicle, especially if you aren't confident in the honesty of the shop, you should do the following three things: 1) have the mechanic show you the original part while it is still on the vehicle and have him explain to you why it needs to be replaced. 2) have the mechanic write out a list of parts he says need replacing and the reason why each part needs to be replaced. 3) the most important thing to do is request that the old parts be returned to you. If you still have the old parts that were allegedly faulty you will have a much easier time proving that they performed work that didn't need to be done. If you are especially wary about the work being performed in a shop, you may want to actually observe the removal of your old parts to ensure that they are not intentionally damaged. It seems to me that any time I call a repair shop there is at least a two day wait for service. If these shops have so much business, why do they need to defraud the consumers? That's something I'll never understand.