By Kim Curtis, Corporate Accountant, AutoNetTV Media, Inc.

I can honestly say I am not a specialist when it comes to understanding automobiles.  I am not sure what the names of parts are that are underneath my hood.  I am not sure what they do exactly.  Thank goodness for mechanics!   

When I was younger, if a mechanic told me I had something wrong with my car or that something needs to be fixed, I would normally have him fix it.  I never questioned if the work really needed to be done.  After all, he was the specialist and knew my car better than I did.  However, I am now older and wiser.  Further, now that I have to spend my own hard earned money for my vehicle repairs and maintenance and not mommy’s and daddy’s, I make better decisions.  Fixing items on a vehicle can be expensive!       

The other day I brought my car to a place to have my oil changed.  When I was there, I asked the mechanic how much they charge for a power steering flush.  To my surprise, the first thing the mechanic said was, “How do you know you need to have that done?”  I said, “I had a different mechanic tell me I needed it done last time I had my oil changed.”  Then he said, “Before you actually have that service done to your car, let me check to see if you really need it done.”  I kind of gave him a weird look.  He then went on to say, “Some places will tell you that you need a service done when in fact you really don’t.  So before you get it done, let me look at it to make sure you really need it.”  I was quite shocked about what he said.  After this experience, I decided I needed to ask our family friend who owns a mechanic shop about my power steering flush.  Guess what he said!  He recommended I wait to have the service performed.

Finding the right mechanic that you can trust is hard.  At what point do you believe and trust your mechanic?  Is he trying to take advantage of you?  The wonderful thing about AutoNetTV Media Inc. is we build customer trust.  Customers will come to you with questions and concerns about their vehicle because of something they saw on your Lobby TV program or because of a video they saw on your webpage.  They will come to you with questions.