Car Repair Scam

today i went to work around 8:40 am and after about an hour of doing nothing i asked the owner if he had anything for me to do. he response was "no, take the day off." needless to say it didn't take me long to get out the door. from work i went straight to merlin muffler & brake to get my oil changed and car inspected. for whatever reason there emissions machine was out of order so they told me they could change my oil, but i would have to go elsewhere for my inspection.

after about 15 minutes larry, the manager and all around cool guy, asked me to come check something out under my hood. we go out to my car and he shows me my transmission fluid. specifically the fact that it isn't close to red anymore. he proceeded to tell me that it should be changed about every 30k miles. this is true, but mine didn't need changed at 30k. well today i'm at 45k miles so i told him i would happy to have him change my transmission fluid, but i don't have $90 to do it today.

so larry says, "alright man, let me help you out. i have a coupon that will knock $20 off and i'll give you your oil change for free." my response was "cool, do it man." after they finished and i paid my bill i drove to the econo lube n' tune next door to get my car inspected. while sitting in the waiting room i watched them men inspect my car. i noticed the guy named barren checking my transmission fluid. i started to think to myself, "why is he checking my transmission fluid? that has nothing to do with my inspection. i bet he is going to come show me how dirty it is. no, i shouldn't assume that barren is a guy that would scam me." ten minutes later what does barren do? he walks over to me and shows me some transmission fluid on a piece of paper and proceeds to tell me that my fluid is dirty and should be changed every 30k miles.

now in my head i'm thinking "this son of a bitch is trying to scam me. i just watched my transmission get flushed 15 minutes ago." despite this going through my head all i told barren was that i just had it changed next door and i didn't need it done again. all he had to say was "it should be okay then." as he walked away i wanted to curse him under my breath, but instead i prayed for him. after i left i drove next door and checked the fluid myself and it was very clean. it was so clean it looked brand new, go figure. i decided to go back into merlin's and tell larry about the wool that barren tried to pull over my eyes. the next thing i know larry is telling me about another time that someone at econo lube n' tune tried to scam one of his customers by telling them they need new brakes a few days after larry replaced them! it's a wonder people don't trust car mechanics.