Fraudulent Repairs Cost Millions

Question: I recently took my Ford Crown Victoria to a local dealer for routine 30,000-mile service. I was advised I needed new brakes, a tuneup and an oil change. When I arrived to pick up the car, I was hit with a bill for $1,018, including labor of $753. At the posted labor rate of $44 per hour, they would have had to work on the car for 17 hours. But they only had it for six hours. To say I am disgusted is putting it mildly. Can you say a few words about this?

--E.G.K.

Answer: What you encountered is part of a national pattern of fraud that can occur at any type of service garage, ranging from big-name corporate dealerships to friendly independent gas stations. It costs consumers millions of dollars every year.

Unnecessary work, inflated prices, installation of used parts when the customer pays for new parts and incompetent labor are all part of the problem. In California alone, consumers file 40,000 complaints annually--more than 100 every day--with the Bureau of Automotive Repair, the nation’s largest consumer affairs organization for motorists. The complaints work out to about one per year for every garage in the state on average.

Of course, cars are getting more complex and difficult to fix. Everything is more expensive, including wages paid to mechanics and the cost of parts. But it appears that outright fraud is on the upswing as well, making it a tough fight for state regulators.

The state’s automotive bureau has a fleet of cars it uses in sting operations. Last year, it ran 140 undercover investigations against service garages, up from the prior year’s 82.

“We do have a growing problem,” said Rich Mundy, the head of undercover and other field operations at the bureau. “Technology is growing faster than the competence of mechanics.”

But it’s a big job to prove fraud. The cars to be used as evidence must be in certifiably perfect condition before a sting is begun. Sections of the cars must be photographed, marked and recorded. Then they must be transported on flat bed trucks to a location near the garage. The undercover operations do seem to be raising awareness in the industry, Mundy said, because the percentage of stings that result in license suspensions is going down. Last year, the licenses of 93 garages were suspended.

Although the majority of service garages are honest, every consumer must be vigilant to an improper diagnosis, inflated charges and unnecessary work. The best route is to find a mechanic that you trust, but on major repairs it sometimes makes sense to get a second opinion. Look for shops and mechanics who are members of organizations such as Automotive Service Excellence, Automotive Service Council and the Better Business Bureau, all of which aim to raise the standards of service.

In the Ford case, although the dealership posted the labor rate, it used prescribed prices for the repairs. You can bet that you will pay the posted labor rate only if it is higher than other methods of computation.

As a result, many dealers manage to charge $36 for an oil change when it’s easy to find garages that change oil for $20 or even less. Many dealers charge $130 for a tuneup that consists of little more than replacing spark plugs.

The best advice I can offer the Ford owner is to file a complaint with the Bureau of Automotive Repair at (800) 952-5210. If nothing else, it will force the dealership to spend 10 minutes defending its practices.