Answers to your car questions
READERS COMMENT:
Hi Mr. O’Sullivan,
For the past many years that I have been reading your column, you always were neutral in your answers but stood up for the garages when a dispute was obviously not the fault of the garage. Your comment made in the January 22, 2021 column was, in my opinion, totally and arrogantly wrong when you made the statement about a garage that deposited a co-payable cheque: You said; “The garage did not make a mistake because paper work has to follow the money and I believe that the garage consciously made the decision to use this lady’s money for a few weeks”.
I have owned a mechanical shop most of my life and there were times when a cheque, from an insurance company, had been deposited without the follow up of paper work. Your brothers have owned a body shop for many years and are you telling us that they never deposited a cheque without the proper paper work being filed? I think not. I am being polite when I suggest to you that you should give your head a shake on that column and understand that insurance cheques can sometimes take about two to three months to come in and the body shop and/or a garage needs that money right away. I love your columns but everyone screws up occasionally like you did on January 22, 2021. You may be a big shot columnist now but do not start to abandon your fellow technicians.
Bob from St Catharine’s, retired long time garage owner.
ANSWER
I am glad that we can disagree civilly but I still believe that the garage should not have deposited a co-payable cheque without both signatures. I am sure that you are not suggesting that any retailer should deposit a co-payable cheque without both signatures. I agree that a cheque that is made out to the garage or body shop only, can and is deposited sometimes without the paper work to follow but that was not the case with this garage. The garage had taken the repair money up front from this lady. The garage then deposited a co-payable cheque and for over three weeks, had this lady wondering where her insurance cheque was. Do you not agree that this lady also needed that money for her family’s expenses?
READERS COMMENT
Hi Dennis, I want your readers to know that relying on a wannabe mechanic can get you into a lot of trouble. A friend of my son, who works on his cars all the time, told me that he could save me a lot of money by doing the rear brakes on my older truck. He seemed to know what he was doing so I told him to go ahead. The first snowstorm almost had me spinning out every time the brakes were applied. The young man came back and put on better brake shoes, which was going to stop the rear brakes from grabbing every time that my foot touched the brakes. Again my life was in danger by putting on the brakes. He then told me that it might be an equalizer valve on the rear brakes, what ever that is. At that point, I thought that I should have a real technician look at the brakes because the brakes were working properly before he installed the new rear shoes. To make a long story short, the garage found out that my son’s friend had installed the rear brake shoes on backwards. When I confronted the young man, he told me that he did not install the brake shoes wrong and told me that the garage was ripping me off, even though my brakes are now working fine. Be careful of who works on your vehicle’s brakes - you life might be at stake.
Larry from Kitchener
ANSWER
Good advice Larry. A professional technician should be the only one who does safety-related repairs on a vehicle. I have suggested to Larry that he should caution his son’s friend to be very careful about doing safety related repairs on vehicles. He should know that if something bad happens, as a result of improper repair work, he could, in some situations, be held liable in a court of law along with the person allowing him to do the repairs.