need a good mechanic...

my mom's been on this e-mail forwarding kick lately. one day, she literally sent 8 e-mails to every member of my family, among them a semi-funny joke, an e-mail touting the health benefits of cinnamon and honey (apparently, that combination can bring the dead back to life) and a touchy-feely powerpoint presentation on friendship, complete with nature pictures and classical music soundtrack. that day, she also sent a link to that news expose on jiffy lube where 5 of 9 sites that the reporter went to didn't do the service they charged for. so yeah, don't go to jiffy lube...

but i've been going to ez lube. that should be okay, right? last week, i went in for an oil change, and of course, after they did their 20-point inspection, they found $100 worth of other things i needed to do. thankfully, my car's at 30,000, so they were kinda actually telling the truth (i looked it up later), though since i have a toyota, i probably coulda gotten away with not doing some of the stuff. i'm just wondering if they actually did what they said they did, or if they pulled a jiffy lube. i was actually considering playing curious customer, and asking if i could stick around and watch, but i wasn't convinced that i'd be able to catch them, and i thought they'd probably see right through me.

so anyways, while i was waiting for my car, this elderly lady came in and we struck up a conversation..apparently she came in last week, and they told her that she had to change her transmission fluid, something she had done a year before. they told her that she had to do it every year, but when she checked up on it later, she realized that you only really have to do it every 2-3 years. so she returned to ask for her money back. so here we were talking, and i'm all feeling stupid and getting paranoid about the services they sold me on...and then i was like, here's this nice, little old lady, and this ez lube is taking advantage of her! stinkin'!

so anyways, my take-away lessons from the experience....
1) study up on what maintenance your car might need before going to get your car inspected, instead of taking your mechanic's word for it (common sense, right?)
2) take the time to find a good, trustworthy mechanic
corollary to #2: think twice before going to [insert word/letters that end with an "ee" sound] lube.
another corollary to #2: never go to a mechanic that will take advantage of little old ladies, or investigative reporters, for that matter