Tales From the Service Desk: Extended Warranties and the Selling of a Scam

During my brief career as a service writer, there were many aspects of the job that I found annoying, but perhaps nothing got my Irish up on a near-daily basis like the extended-warranty business.

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Possibly the Best Reason to Have Your Vehicle Serviced by an Accredited Dealer

A Houston man says his Lexus went missing after the local auto repair shop, which he entrusted to fix his car, closed without notice. Returning to the mechanic to make a prearranged twice-monthly payment, he noticed an eviction notice and a completely empty parking lot.

“I’m thinking this guy has stolen my car,” said Randy Exom of the mechanic after being unable to find his automobile.

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Gen Xers, Millennials Struggle to Find Trusted Mechanics

Everyone knows a friend or, more frequently, a friend’s middle-aged dad who has “a guy.”

The guy in question doesn’t necessarily need to be male and the friend only needs to know them tangentially. They just have to be some kind of professional or tradesman that they trust implicitly with a single important aspect of their life. For automotive enthusiasts, the guy is a mechanic and usually has a whole shop backing him up. Unfortunately, “the guy” has remained elusive for younger generations.

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GM Hits Social Media, As Part Number Debacle Adds Confusion

The latest development in the GM ignition recall fiasc

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Ford Repair Shops to Undergo Mandatory Certification For Aluminium F-150s

Own a Ford dealership with a repair shop? Should your mechanics and body repair crew desire to the ability to repair the new aluminium F-150, then prepare to seek certification with a substantial price tag.

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  • EBFlex Honda all day long. Why? It's a Honda.
  • Lou_BC My ex had issues with the turbo CRV not warming up in the winter.I'd lean to the normally aspirated RAV 4. In some cases asking people to chose is like asking a Muslim and Christian to pick their favourite religion.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Agree turbo diesels are probably a different setup lower compression heat etc. I never towed with my rig and it was all 40 miles round trip to work with dealer synthetic oil 5,000mi changes. Don’t know the cause but it soured my opinion on turbo’s plus the added potential expense.
  • DesertNative More 'Look at me! Look at me!' from Elon Musk. It's time to recognize that there's nothing to see here, folks and that this is just about pumping up the stock price. When there's a real product on the ground and available, then there will be something to which we can pay attention. Until then, ignore him.
  • Bkojote Here's something you're bound to notice during ownership that won't come up in most reviews or test drives-Honda's Cruise Control system is terrible. Complete trash. While it has the ability to regulate speed if there's a car in front of you, if you're coasting down a long hill with nobody in front of you the car will keep gaining speed forcing you to hit the brakes (and disable cruise). It won't even use the CVT to engine brake, something every other manufacturer does. Toyota's system will downshift and maintain the set speed. The calibration on the ACC system Honda uses is also awful and clearly had minimum engineering effort.Here's another- those grille shutters get stuck the minute temperature drops below freezing meaning your engine goes into reduced power mode until you turn it off. The Rav4 may have them but I have yet to see this problem.