This story is from when I was in business school ~10 years ago.
My wife’s Lexus starting making a funny noise that sounded like it was coming from the exhaust. She took it in to the Lexus dealership and they gave her a quote of ~$2,500, they were going to replace the entire exhaust system. I told her to go get a 2nd opinion, before she did anything.
She took it to another mechanic a friend recommended and they quoted her $450. I got on the phone and asked them what exactly was wrong and they said “there is a small hole in the tailpipe”. I pushed and asked, “couldn’t you just cut the part of the pipe off and replace that section alone...or find another simple solution” The guy said probably, but they wouldn’t do that kind of work.
I told my wife to wait and we would take it to a muffler shop I knew about and see if they would do it. We stop by on a Saturday morning, explain what is going on and he says come back in the afternoon. We come back and I ask him how much. He says “$20, it only took about 15 minutes to fix”.
Every once and awhile I think about this story and how we almost got taken for $2,500. Thought this group would like to hear this story and I’d love to hear others share their car repair stories.
January 16, 2021 at 07:34PM
