Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"

[Anela]

I’ve had no sleep whatsoever, and I have to leave the house.  I wish my brain wouldn't do this to me.  

[PRgal]

56 minutes ago, Anela said:

I’ve had no sleep whatsoever, and I have to leave the house.  I wish my brain wouldn't do this to me.  

Melatonin?  Or try a meditation app?  I subscribe to Calm and have for a few years.  It's totally worth it.

[Browncoat]

23 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

How long it takes some people to say goodbye!

I was recently at the Dunedin, NZ airport, where they have instituted a "maximum hug time" of three minutes for airport drop-offs.  Sadly, I did not get a photo of the sign, but you can Google it.  

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 12/5/2024 at 8:53 AM, Yeah No said:

My only pet peeve about cell phones in restaurants is when people use them loudly enough to bother neighboring diners like using games with annoying noises and playing videos.

Yeah.  Can you imagine in the not that distant past bringing a portable TV to a restaurant and setting it on the table with the volume on to watch a show while they eat?  Hell no.

I was in line at the post office today.  The guy behind me was watching shit on his phone, with the volume on.  I asked him to turn it down.  He did not comply.  So I started watching what he was watching, in an effort to feel some sort of control.  It was three seconds of a video then swiping to three seconds of another video, over and over.  Jesus, I hate what we've become. 

Then a lady joins the line who's on the phone.  She's one of these skinny rough looking white women, with a very loud raspy smoker's voice, talking to her doctor's office. 

People and their fucking phones.  I've had it.

Then it's my turn and I set these four big envelopes on the counter and the employee said, "What are we doing today?"  I paused and finally said, "Mailing these." 

[Yeah No]

1 hour ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

Yeah.  Can you imagine in the not that distant past bringing a portable TV to a restaurant and setting it on the table with the volume on to watch a show while they eat?  Hell no.

I was in line at the post office today.  The guy behind me was watching shit on his phone, with the volume on.  I asked him to turn it down.  He did not comply.  So I started watching what he was watching, in an effort to feel some sort of control.  It was three seconds of a video then swiping to three seconds of another video, over and over.  Jesus, I hate what we've become. 

Then a lady joins the line who's on the phone.  She's one of these skinny rough looking white women, with a very loud raspy smoker's voice, talking to her doctor's office. 

People and their fucking phones.  I've had it.

Then it's my turn and I set these four big envelopes on the counter and the employee said, "What are we doing today?"  I paused and finally said, "Mailing these." 

LOL, you have me in stitches!! I swear I've had days like that on line at my post office.

Speaking of cell phone pet peeves, I went to the mall today, mostly to walk but I also had one Christmas gift to buy. I couldn't get over how many people were looking down at their phones while walking. It's out of control. Why do I have to step out of their way or risk having them walk into me? At this point there are so many of them it's a wonder they all don't walk into each other.

Even worse, and this isn't funny, but I parked my car outside Macy's so when I went back to it I cut across their discount section "Macy's Backstage" to get to the door. When I got there I saw something on the floor in the main aisle so I went around it, and when I got up to it I realized it was poop. And no, not a dog sized poop or that would have to be some crazy huge dog that wouldn't be at the mall anyway. I think it was man sized. And even worse is that someone had already stepped in it! A woman saw me walk around it and warned me not to go down a certain aisle. I looked and saw that the carpet was wet. This is a nice mall in a nice area. I have definitely not lived under a rock but I have honestly never seen that before in a store in my life. WTF is going on with the world anymore? I give up!

[StatisticalOutlier]

11 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I have definitely not lived under a rock but I have honestly never seen that before in a store in my life. WTF is going on with the world anymore?

I've never seen it myself, but I sometimes read the subreddit for Walgreens employees so I'm fully aware it happens.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I've never seen it myself, but I sometimes read the subreddit for Walgreens employees so I'm fully aware it happens.

The pharmacy side of Walgreens means things like that happen. Sick people are in the store to get the stuff they need to not be sick. When you work for them or any other pharmacy chain, you know it could happen and even have to do training on how to clean up biohazards. I worked for Walgreens for a little over 10 years and thankfully never had to clean up any of the messes left in the store. I was a pharm tech, that was the job of store management or at least it was back when I worked for them and assistant managers, executive assistant managers, and store managers made more money than me (second highest paid pharm tech in the district when I quit). 

[supposebly]

2 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Sick people are in the store to get the stuff they need to not be sick

Another reason why pharmacies should be separate stores.

[SweetieDarling]

3 hours ago, supposebly said:

Another reason why pharmacies should be separate stores.

Unfortunately, the insurance companies have made it nearly impossible for separate pharmacies/drug stores to survive

[Blergh]

OK, some months ago, I got glare in my eyes from a sunset while backing my car into the driveway and didn't see a tree limb until after the tail light cover got smashed. I put the clear Gorilla tape around it to keep the working lights from shorting out from the weather but I thought since it was time to winterize the car to get that taillight cover for real.

The winterization turned out to be no joke (including replacing the car battery) but they said the tail light cover would have to be done next time when they got that part in.

Well, it wound up that not only did the whole thing cost over $700 but the bulk of it was for the labor because [wait for it], they had to take off the WHOLE REAR BUMPER to put in the new tail light cover AND, even though all the brake and parking lights worked fine, they had to replace ALL those too, along with the damaged cover!

Why do they now make cars so EVERY single repair has not only costs $$$ but is unable to be done by oneself with the parts?  I mean, it's bad enough that one can no longer carry a true spare tire due to trunks deliberately made too small for anything but those 'temporary 7 mile' spares but why should a tail light cover need to have the whole rear bumper removed just to get to it?

 

[DrSpaceman73]

My latest pet peeve in restaurants and public places is the 'industrial look' design i guess you'd call it for 

 

What i mean is you look at the ceiling and you see all the heating cooling lighting nothing covered all of it right there.  It's so awful to look at.  And it would be one thing if these were high ceiling restaurants and stores but they're not.   

I know they do it for cost.   Easier to build easier to repair if needed. But it looks hideous like you're inside an unfinished building

Edited December 8 by DrSpaceman73

[Yeah No]

5 hours ago, supposebly said:

7 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Sick people are in the store to get the stuff they need to not be sick

Another reason why pharmacies should be separate stores.

Another reason I still wear a mask when I go to CVS to pick up my prescriptions. There's often a line and often someone actually coughing on that line!

[Yeah No]

1 hour ago, Blergh said:

OK, some months ago, I got glare in my eyes from a sunset while backing my car into the driveway and didn't see a tree limb until after the tail light cover got smashed. I put the clear Gorilla tape around it to keep the working lights from shorting out from the weather but I thought since it was time to winterize the car to get that taillight cover for real.

The winterization turned out to be no joke (including replacing the car battery) but they said the tail light cover would have to be done next time when they got that part in.

Well, it wound up that not only did the whole thing cost over $700 but the bulk of it was for the labor because [wait for it], they had to take off the WHOLE REAR BUMPER to put in the new tail light cover AND, even though all the brake and parking lights worked fine, they had to replace ALL those too, along with the damaged cover!

Why do they now make cars so EVERY single repair has not only costs $$$ but is unable to be done by oneself with the parts?  I mean, it's bad enough that one can no longer carry a true spare tire due to trunks deliberately made too small for anything but those 'temporary 7 mile' spares but why should a tail light cover need to have the whole rear bumper removed just to get to it?

My husband was an assistant service manager at auto dealerships for about 20 years until about a decade ago and this is still one of his biggest pet peeves about the newer cars. And the labor costs are more insane every year too. He says they have a set fee for hourly labor that even specifies how long each service should take, but it's always way longer than it takes to do the job just so they can charge more. And they get away with it. When he takes his car to a dealer he knows how to get them not to charge that much but unfortunately the average person is at their mercy unless they can find a trustworthy independent shop. Although that's pretty much like finding the Holy Grail.

And cars today are too complicated for most people to work on themselves, even competent mechanics. So much is diagnosed by computer and even the parts themselves are so sophisticated that you practically would need a degree in engineering to figure it out yourself. 

[Quof]

8 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

It's so awful to look at. 

Now take a look at the dust that has collected ....

[graybrown bird]

4 hours ago, Quof said:

Now take a look at the dust that has collected ....

And it's one reason why restaurants are so noisy you have to shout your conversations.

[Dimity]

13 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

What i mean is you look at the ceiling and you see all the heating cooling lighting nothing covered all of it right there.  It's so awful to look at.  And it would be one thing if these were high ceiling restaurants and stores but they're not.   

Also if we're talking budget friendly place, no frills, that get reflected in the cost to the consumer.  But that's not where I see these places.   If I'm paying $$$ I expect a ceiling!

[BlueSkies]

I was hungry last night.  Against my better judgement this pizza I ordered was steaming hot and I ate it anyway.

 

It burned the top of my mouth.  
 

My throat is still sore today.

 

Never again! 

[Ancaster]

4 hours ago, BlueSkies said:

I was hungry last night.  Against my better judgement this pizza I ordered was steaming hot and I ate it anyway.

 

It burned the top of my mouth.  
 

My throat is still sore today.

 

Never again! 

Is it possible you've said "Never again!" before?  😁

Edited December 10 by Ancaster

[fastiller]

Just had a bunch of work on my car, including on the heater/AC.  The stuff they spray into it to disinfect it... that's my pet peeve. The absolute worst sickly sweet smell. Headache & nausea inducing.

[PRgal]

The new Maria Callas (starring Angelina Jolie) biopic is on Mubi in Canada rather than Netflix.  Who the Eff has Mubi??!!!!!!

[Dimity]

1 minute ago, PRgal said:

The new Maria Callas (starring Angelina Jolie) biopic is on Mubi in Canada rather than Netflix.  Who the Eff has Mubi??!!!!!!

I don't even have Netflix!  And I've never heard of Mubi!  Off to google...

[StatisticalOutlier]

3 hours ago, PRgal said:

Who the Eff has Mubi??!!!!!!

People who like art movies.

[Yeah No]

8 hours ago, PRgal said:

The new Maria Callas (starring Angelina Jolie) biopic is on Mubi in Canada rather than Netflix.  Who the Eff has Mubi??!!!!!!

Mubi is on Roku, which I have. It's also supposedly on Apple TV. It's not available through Comcast/Xfinity which is my cable provider. I'd never even heard of it before this. I have something called Tubi, lol.

4 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

People who like art movies.

When I saw the preview of this post in my stream I thought that was your pet peeve, lol. 

[Absolom]

10 hours ago, Yeah No said:

Mubi is on Roku, which I have. It's also supposedly on Apple TV. It's not available through Comcast/Xfinity which is my cable provider. I'd never even heard of it before this. I have something called Tubi, lol.

Going off to look. Last month Roku actually suggested something I wanted to watch and it's my first on Roku channel.

[Ancaster]

I do a daily jigsaw puzzle on my phone.  My peeve is that even though I have the sound off, the phone has suddenly started to make a very annoying and loud "blop" sound when a piece clicks into place.  Not only is this irritating in and of itself, it means I can't do a puzzle if I'm waiting in line or otherwise wanting to be quiet and non-annoying to my fellow humans.

[SoMuchTV]

On 12/13/2024 at 4:25 PM, Ancaster said:

I do a daily jigsaw puzzle on my phone.  My peeve is that even though I have the sound off, the phone has suddenly started to make a very annoying and loud "blop" sound when a piece clicks into place.  Not only is this irritating in and of itself, it means I can't do a puzzle if I'm waiting in line or otherwise wanting to be quiet and non-annoying to my fellow humans.

How annoying!  You've probably checked this already, but in addition to muting your phone, does the puzzle app itself have an option to turn off sound effects? 

I have a related peeve with a few ad-supported puzzle-type games I sometimes play when I'm listening to podcasts (generally through earphones, but I don't think that makes a difference).  Even though I have the sound effects turned off, when the ads pop up, their sound takes over (either replaces the podcast or competes with it), and when the ad is over, the phone sometimes doesn't know to go back to the podcast player, and starts playing its Music app.

Edited Wednesday at 02:18 AM by SoMuchTV
Because of is not the same word as off.

[Ancaster]

1 hour ago, SoMuchTV said:

How annoying!  You've probably checked this already, but in addition to muting your phone, does the puzzle app itself have an option to turn of sound effects? 

 

 I have no idea how to check any options.  But once more into the breach.

[SoMuchTV]

29 minutes ago, Ancaster said:

 I have no idea how to check any options.  But once more into the breach.

I’m sure it’s different for every one, but generally puzzle/game apps will have a “gear” icon or something similar, that lets you adjust things like dark mode, large print, notifications, sound effects… Can’t hurt to poke around. 

[Ancaster]

2 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

I’m sure it’s different for every one, but generally puzzle/game apps will have a “gear” icon or something similar, that lets you adjust things like dark mode, large print, notifications, sound effects… Can’t hurt to poke around. 

I've looked in vain for the gear icon, but since I love poking around, and having been encouraged by you and others here, I'll give it another go.

Edited December 14 by Ancaster

[Dimity]

I don't normally watch shows "live".  I take full advantage of the PVR.  However tonight I noticed The Sound of Music was on and decided to have it on in the background as I did other things.  Well I got caught up in it (so so much for doing other things!) but I am reminded forcefully of why I rarely watch anything while it is being aired.

Commercial after commercial after commercial...

[Absolom]

The only time I see anything live is visiting my kids for an occasional sporting event that usually bores me so I'm doing something else like laundry. 

[EtheltoTillie]

I use the DVR for the same reasons and one more:  I tend to fall asleep while watching things, so I can go back and start where I left off. 

[Yeah No]

14 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

I use the DVR for the same reasons and one more:  I tend to fall asleep while watching things, so I can go back and start where I left off. 

Same here, lol. I often save shows in case I see something discussed on a thread here I can go back and reference it. I could watch pretty much anything again on Comcast with their "On Demand" feature but often there's no ability to fast forward through commercials on that like there is when I record it to my DVR. I have a little trick I play to get around not being able to fast forward, though. I use the "skip ahead" button, which jumps ahead 10 minutes and then rewind to the end of the commercial break.

[Mindthinkr]

I’d love to get the DVR feature for recording tv shows, but Spectrum wants an extra $25/month for me to have that feature and my bill is sky high as it is. I need to keep the cable as it has a channel on which I can watch all my ice hockey games, TCM and a few others. 

[partofme]

Doctors cancelling your appointment the same day.   I’ll get fined if I did this, but it’s perfectly okay when they do.  They said she was sick, which I can sympathize with if true, but then they can’t even get me an appointment for this week, the next available appointment is for over a month from now, this is for a treatment for migraine that I’m supposed to get every twelve weeks, but I guess another six weeks doesn’t matter when it’s the doctor who cancels.  

Edited December 16 by partofme

[SoMuchTV]

6 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I’d love to get the DVR feature for recording tv shows, but Spectrum wants an extra $25/month for me to have that feature and my bill is sky high as it is. I need to keep the cable as it has a channel on which I can watch all my ice hockey games, TCM and a few others. 

Sorry for straying off topic a bit, but have you looked at the streaming TV providers (YouTubeTV, Hulu Live, Sling, etc.)?  I gave up on cable a couple years ago and I've been very happy with YTTV.  They recently announced (another) price increase but they're still quite a bit less than my old cable bill for pretty basic, no DVR service, and increasingly high rental prices for the "mini-boxes" I needed to get even the basic stuff.  Plus they (YTTV) have unlimited virtual DVR and some channels I didn't get with cable (including TCM).  I imagine their competitors would be similar.  We looked at the channel lineups and DVR capabilities and YTTV best fit our viewing habits.

There's a thread where you could ask questions if you're thinking of pursuing it:

 

Edited December 16 by SoMuchTV
Adding some detail & a link to the appropriate thread

[Absolom]

I'm on youtube TV also.  My SIL introduced me to it when I had yet another cable box go bad (less than 18 months old) and the same week the cable company declared the one in my bedroom obsolete.  I was going to have to take them both in and SIL asked why not make it your last trip? I tried out their system for the weekend and signed up before I left their house for a free trial.  I've never regretted it. BTW I use a Roku in one room and a Firestick in the other.  For me at least the Roku is much better. 

[meep.meep]

On 12/13/2024 at 1:43 PM, SoMuchTV said:

 

I have a related peeve with a few ad-supported puzzle-type games I sometimes play when I'm listening to podcasts (generally through earphones, but I don't think that makes a difference).  Even though I have the sound effects turned off, when the ads pop up, their sound takes over (either replaces the podcast or competes with it), and when the ad is over, the phone sometimes doesn't know to go back to the podcast player, and starts playing its Music app.

But does yours aggressively try to upsell you on Vita Mahjong?  "No annoying ads" is part of their selling strategy as they use an annoying ad on my app to get me to install it.

[SoMuchTV]

26 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

But does yours aggressively try to upsell you on Vita Mahjong?  "No annoying ads" is part of their selling strategy as they use an annoying ad on my app to get me to install it.

Not sure about mahjong, but they’re very concerned about my iq and brain age. And skin tags.  Fortunately multi tasking helps me ignore most of it. 

[SoMuchTV]

My latest peeve is those posts on Facebook with weird challenges. Like, if you’re really my friend, reply to this post with two words, and repost this on your wall. But don’t reply! Or, don’t copy and paste! But do … something?  Jeez, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just got Facebook so I could keep up with my kid’s study abroad semester. And kept it so I could keep up with my neighborhood lost pets and misdelivered packages. Don’t make me unfriend all my high school classmates!

[Mindthinkr]

2 hours ago, SoMuchTV said:

Not sure about mahjong, but they’re very concerned about my iq and brain age. And skin tags.  Fortunately multi tasking helps me ignore most of it. 

I’m a Mahjong player. None of those ads pertain to how we play around here. Some of them look more like the old game of Concentration. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 12/15/2024 at 7:59 PM, Dimity said:

Commercial after commercial after commercial...

It was awful.

I tuned to ABC to watch America's Funniest Home Videos*, but it was The Sound of Music instead.  I had a feeling it was going to be commercial heavy, since it occupied a 4-hour time slot.  But even then, it seemed like a lot.

I let it cache up on my DVR, so I could FF through the commercials and to honest, a lot of the songs.  I was mainly wanting to know what the plot was because I haven't seen it since it came out.

That littlest girl?  I thought the performance was kind of awful.  She was in my college roommate's sorority.  As was Fred MacMurray's daughter.  I didn't meet either of them, but my roommate had a sorority directory and it had Fred MacMurray's address in it.  So I put his address in my own address book, because it seemed like a bit of information that might be useful at some point, and where else would you write it down for future use?

That address book is long gone, but I still remember the street--Halvern.  As they say, the mind is a terrible thing to waste.

*For those who turn up their noses at such lowbrow fare, it's fun to watch the production values that go into those videos.  They edit them, of course, but the sound effects they add are subtle and always make it better.  Kudos to the production team.

[EtheltoTillie]

3 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

It was awful.

I tuned to ABC to watch America's Funniest Home Videos*, but it was The Sound of Music instead.  I had a feeling it was going to be commercial heavy, since it occupied a 4-hour time slot.  But even then, it seemed like a lot.

I let it cache up on my DVR, so I could FF through the commercials and to honest, a lot of the songs.  I was mainly wanting to know what the plot was because I haven't seen it since it came out.

That littlest girl?  I thought the performance was kind of awful.  She was in my college roommate's sorority.  As was Fred MacMurray's daughter.  I didn't meet either of them, but my roommate had a sorority directory and it had Fred MacMurray's address in it.  So I put his address in my own address book, because it seemed like a bit of information that might be useful at some point, and where else would you write it down for future use?

That address book is long gone, but I still remember the street--Halvern.  As they say, the mind is a terrible thing to waste.

*For those who turn up their noses at such lowbrow fare, it's fun to watch the production values that go into those videos.  They edit them, of course, but the sound effects they add are subtle and always make it better.  Kudos to the production team.

Wait is this a joke?  You really didn’t remember how The Sound of Music ended?  
At any rate, I have a good appreciation for AFHV. They’re really the precursor of TikTok. My magazine colleague worked there in the ‘90s for a while. We all thought it was cool at the time. 

[StatisticalOutlier]

2 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

Wait is this a joke?  You really didn’t remember how The Sound of Music ended?

I remembered the end, with them tromping through the mountains.  But I didn't remember why they had to flee.

[annzeepark914]

On 12/16/2024 at 12:09 PM, partofme said:

Doctors cancelling your appointment the same day.   I’ll get fined if I did this, but it’s perfectly okay when they do.  They said she was sick, which I can sympathize with if true, but then they can’t even get me an appointment for this week, the next available appointment is for over a month from now, this is for a treatment for migraine that I’m supposed to get every twelve weeks, but I guess another six weeks doesn’t matter when it’s the doctor who cancels.  

I went through the same frustration with a dental hygienist. Cancelled & neither of the other two could see me for a few months. My gums had started bothering me by the time I finally got in to see a different dental hygienist & it took quite a while for them to feel better 😠. But migraine treatments? You might need a bigger practice (& make sure they can provide you with another doctor if there's a cancellation...migraines are a serious health issue, nothing to be handled casually!)

[Cloud9Shopper]

Pushy men. 

I know a man from church who asked me to go to a party with him in January. I may have to work that day (this is true; I didn’t just make it up to avoid seeing him) and told him as much, and then he proceeded to ask me to accompany him to a different event. I felt a little anxious when I got the next message so didn’t respond to it. Part because dating has always stressed me out or made me anxious (and I get tremendous pressure to “just give men a chance” or have someone set me up), but also because he was so quick to ask me out a second time. The date he asked me was also a date my family will be in town for the weekend. 

Today he messaged me to ask me out again! Now I’m wondering what is up with this guy. I’ve known him for a few years now and he never exhibited red flag tendencies and is very well liked at the church. That of course didn’t mean I had any interest in him romantically but I would even tell other people oh, Bob isn’t a creep or a pervert; he seems like a genuinely decent guy. Although now I’m wondering. 🤔Not to mention he is 55 and I’m 39. I don’t mean any disrespect to anyone reading this who is happy in a relationship with someone where there’s a big age gap but I’m not willing to date someone that much older than me. If he were five or 10 years older than me, that’s one thing, but I can’t see myself being with a guy who is in his mid 50s. And it just feels odd that he keeps asking me to things when I’m not reciprocating. 

Edited Thursday at 10:40 PM by Cloud9Shopper

[Absolom]

The red flags are multiplying. I almost had to change churches to get away from an overly pushy guy like that. Fortunately it's a mega parish with multiple weekend services. Anything pushy sets me running.  I want to know what's the rush?

[Yeah No]

On 12/7/2024 at 10:19 PM, Yeah No said:

My husband was an assistant service manager at auto dealerships for about 20 years until about a decade ago and this is still one of his biggest pet peeves about the newer cars. And the labor costs are more insane every year too. He says they have a set fee for hourly labor that even specifies how long each service should take, but it's always way longer than it takes to do the job just so they can charge more. And they get away with it. When he takes his car to a dealer he knows how to get them not to charge that much but unfortunately the average person is at their mercy unless they can find a trustworthy independent shop. Although that's pretty much like finding the Holy Grail.

And cars today are too complicated for most people to work on themselves, even competent mechanics. So much is diagnosed by computer and even the parts themselves are so sophisticated that you practically would need a degree in engineering to figure it out yourself. 

Adding to this after two weeks. Well, my husband, the former assistant service manager at dealerships, volunteered to take my car to the dealership for an oil change since I have been so busy with the holidays. I have a special package deal that gives me a decent discount there. After it was done the service advisor gave him the usual spiel about other recommended services. The car has about 29,000 miles on it and is in great condition. The recommended services were an air conditioning system cleaning, a fuel injector cleaning service and a transmission fluid drain and fill. All three services are not listed as necessary but "preventive", which in all three cases my husband said were not even necessary as preventive measures given the age of the car and the mileage.

When my husband asked the service advisor to explain how each service was performed, she stammered and was barely able to make it sound intelligible. My husband knows exactly what she was attempting to describe, but he was just testing her to see the extent of her knowledge, which he said was shockingly minimal.

Upon hearing this list of things most people would think that they involved real work on the car. You know, taking out each of the fuel injectors, cleaning them, putting them back in, etc., that kind of stuff. But no! Every single thing on this list only involved taking a can or bottle of liquid, removing a cap on the engine block and pouring it in. Period. The end. A half hour of work, tops.

When he was presented with the cost of each service (which he later declined) even he was shocked, and believe me he knows how they can be. The air conditioning service was priced at $200. The fuel injector service was priced at $222. The transmission fluid drain and fill was priced at $221. That's a total of $720 for basically taking a can of something and pouring it into three reservoirs. OK, they were going to drain the transmission fluid but for them that's a nothing thing too. My husband has seen everything in that business but he said this was a real shocker and new low even for them. He has not worked in that field in a decade and it looks like in the meantime they have gotten even more outrageous with the pricing for what you get. And they bank on the fact that they can schmooze people into thinking they're doing more than they are or that the services they are performing are necessary.

All evening he couldn't stop mentioning it and how unethical it is, and he is not one to belabor anything. And it seems like there's no one out there helping to prevent this kind of stuff from happening. He told me he was actually happy to get out of that business because it was getting more and more unethical with the pricing but compared to what's happening today what he saw over a decade ago was absolutely NOTHING by comparison.

Also, the service advisors now are very young and know very little about cars and how they work let alone what's involved in the services performed. If you want a detailed explanation they refer you to a mechanic. This is one reason why my husband was laid off from that business - the dealerships decided they didn't want to pay people a decent salary that knew what they were doing when they could hire young people that didn't know much and pay them much less. And of course charge more and more for less and less.

Anyway, I'm posting this as a service and a warning. My husband's advice is if you need to have any kind of service done, run whatever they recommend by a "car person" in your life, if you can find one. It can save you a whole lot of money.

[Mindthinkr]

@Yeah No

Thank you for your previous post and your husband’s thoughts on car servicing. I once had an older car (with low mileage) and took it to the dealer to get something done. I ended up getting a few things done and paid the $. A few months later I needed new tires and went to this new station/tire place. After he got my car up on the lift he came into where I was waiting and stated I needed a new differential. I stated I had just done that. He showed me (using a flashlight and patience) everything that needed to be addressed either at that time or in the future. When he took out the old differential, he gave to me to take to the dealership to ask why I paid to have this original factory part replaced and that they didn’t. I’ll spare you the argument, but once you sign for the car back you release them from the work being completed and that you accept it. 
I used the new station ever since as they were fair, willing to show me their concerns with the flashlight and explanation method. Now I’ve moved and back to ground zero. 

Edited Saturday at 12:21 AM by Mindthinkr
Something done not someone!

[Yeah No]

9 minutes ago, Mindthinkr said:

@Yeah No

Thank you for your previous post and your husband’s thoughts on car servicing. I once had an older car (with low mileage) and took it to the dealer to get someone done. I ended up getting a few things done and paid the $. A few months later I needed new tires and went to this new station/tire place. After he got my car up on the lift he came into where I was waiting and stated I needed a new differential. I stated I had just done that. He showed me (using a flashlight and patience) everything that needed to be addressed either at that time or in the future. When he took out the old differential, he gave to me to take to the dealership to ask why I paid to have this original factory part replaced and that they didn’t. I’ll spare you the argument, but once you sign for the car back you release them from the work being completed and that you accept it. 
I used the new station ever since as they were fair, willing to show me their concerns with the flashlight and explanation method. Now I’ve moved and back to ground zero. 

Wow, what nightmare, I'm so sorry! Maybe my caffeine hasn't kicked in yet but are you saying that the dealership said they replaced a part and the second shop found out they didn't do it? I ran this by my husband and he told me he quit working at a Range Rover dealership in Westport years ago because they were doing crap like that. In some cases they would actually replace perfectly good parts just to charge for replacing a new part. He changed jobs often because of stuff like that. He actually ended up at a Mercedes dealership for many years because of all of them it wasn't anywhere near as bad with stuff like that.

I have another suggestion for finding honest repair shops - If you have chat sites like "Nextdoor" in your area you can ask the group for recommendations. We've done that for things like snowplowing and tree removal and have gotten some great recommendations. But you have to be sure it's coming from real people that post on the board and not the businesses themselves, which can be tricky, but if a few people that post regularly also recommend someone that will help.