Serious question. I only have the one car. I know there are people with more money than sense that have more cars than they can actually drive at a time, and that there are couples who may or may not be able to drive their SO to the mechanic. But how can they _assumef that I can even afford a cab, well Uber these days, when I’m about to have them hundreds of dollars getting my busted-ass, POS car fixed?
Adding on to this: the repair shop I take my car to is too far from my house for me to walk or bike back, so I just walk the shops in town while they work on my car (unless they tell me ahead of time it might take more than one day to diagnose+repair, in which case I ask a friend to drive me back home after dropping off the car).
It’s less that they “assume you can leave”, but rather that it isn’t really their problem. They need an uncertain amount of time to work on your car, depending on the issue being repaired, and you can leave if you want to during that window.
If there’s nowhere for you to walk/bike to nearby, you just gotta sit and wait, which I’ve done on a handful of occasions. Just sitting in the lobby and reading some outdated magazines for an hour or two. It’s boring, but what can you do?
in washington, oregon, california, nevada, arizona, new mexico, texas, illinois, new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, georgia and florida; the best car shops tend to be in the industrialized areas with no shops nearby and while the most overpriced car shops are nearby other shops. i hope you’re not spending too much $$$ on your repair bills.
Nah, I just live in a rural area. There’s closer shops to me, but a very honest local business I’ve been going to for years is a bit further away and it’s worth the extra distance for their service. They’re a fantastic shop and they’ve always done great by me.
i’m convinced that there’s some undiscovered natural law out there that says a mechanic’s artisanship is proportional somehow to their distance and inconvenience for you.
an of course half the city has heard about them before you, so they’re completely booked for the next decade or so. lol
Businesses that can get by on convenience, natural visibility, and first-time clients alone don’t need to have good quality.
Businesses that are inconvenient to reach will die quickly unless they have something else (i.e. price or quality) to make up for the inconvenience.
Yep! These guys are booked solid around the clock. I have to schedule well in advance any time I want to take my car to them, unless I want to camp out and be the first customer when they open at 5am. Worth it, though. They’re good people.
Thats an interestingly specific list of states.
Why those specifically?
that’s where i’ve lived and got to experience to joys of paying too much for car repair
In addition to this, I also added into my post that there is no guarantee they will even look at your car today or tomorrow. Other customers and problem difficulty can delay their timeframe to even start diagnosing.