Watch your wallet at Canadian Tire

I took the car in to the Canadian Tire today to get an oil change and an emmissions test. The total quote was for about $75 bucks and two and half hours.

Then I get the call I was expecting:

"Hello sir? You need to come down here. We found a few problems."

Every mechanic in creation will always call you up and tell you that he "discovered" some critical problems with your car. This guy was no different.

"Let's see, I need to top up your brake fluid for $75 bucks, flip one of your tires for $30 bucks, both front indicator lights need to be replaced at $20 bucks each, you got a problem with your brake and blah, blah, blah.... "

So I says with a smirk, "Ok. What's the charge?"

"It's only going to be about $550 bucks."

I looked at the car myself and sure enough I needed some work on my brake and the tire did need a flip, but there was no way I was going to pay $550 just cause this jackass said so.

So I told him straight out that I wasn't going to do this, or that. I made him admit that most of the work he was quoting me was actually very simple and that he was over-charging me for parts (come on! $5 for a washer? It's not even worth 35 cents!)

So here's the punchline: I whittled him down from $550, to $250, to $215, and finally to $135. So I ended up spending $60 bucks more than I planned, but I got a whole lot of work done and the car runs smooth like a pick-up line in a jazz bar.

Watch out for car machanics folks. Just because they say you need work done, or they print a price for you on official stationary doesn't mean you have to believe it.