shakran

Of course. That's why if you want to protect yourself you need at least a basic understanding of how a car works and you need to see the old parts when the mechanic's done.


They rarely are. They might be "certified" in your make of car (honda, etc) (certification isn't that hard to get btw) (and how do you know they're not faking the certification - Honda doesn't certify any but its own mechanics for example).

That said, you don't really need to be trained for each specific car. The disc brakes on your car function very much like the disc brakes on my car. I don't know what you drive, beyond it being an Acura, but I can tell you right now that, since I can work on the brakes on my car, I can work on them on your car. Anything that's unique to your specific car can be investigated with a shop manual.


They'd just love for you to think that, but no. Dealerships love to tout their certification programs but they never tell you exactly what those programs do. For example, does anyone really believe Dodge fully trains all its mechanics on every car Dodge ever built? The enormity of that task makes it nearly impossible.

In fact, having known a few dealership mechanics who were about 3 IQ points above oatmeal, I can tell you first hand that you don't necessarilly have to be any more competent or knowledgeable to work at a dealership than you do at a 3rd party.

And in fact, 3rd party mechanics have MORE of an incentive to be good at their job than dealerships do. Lots of people take their cars to the dealership because that's what they think they have to do. And if they're in that mentality, it's not like you're going to take your Acura to the Ford dealership if you decide you don't like the service. But for a 3rd party guy - - if you don't like his work, you're outa there, finding a new 3rd party guy.

That, added to the fact that the 3rd party guy owns his business, and that's it, whereas the dealership/Jiffy Lube has the full support of its backing company. .. the economics aren't hard to work out.