Everyone’s idea of how much maintenance is required to take care of a car is different. Some people are fine with a car wash every now and then, filling up the tank when needed and an oil change when that dreaded light indicates that “service is required”. On the other hand, some people inspect every inch of their vehicles and work hard to keep them in pristine condition. They take pride in keeping the exterior looking sparkling and the internal health in tip top shape as well. But regardless of how well you treat your car, unless you yourself are a mechanic, you’re going to have to see one eventually.

Similarly to how doctors have horror stories of injuries you would have to see to believe, every mechanic can tell their fair share of stories about the stupidest things people have done to their vehicles. To provide a place where mechanics can share these crazy stories and laugh about the incompetence of the average driver, the Just Rolled Into the Shop subreddit was born. The page, which has 1.8 million members at the moment, states that it is “for those absolutely stupid things that you see people bring, roll, or toss into your place of business and the people that bring them in”. And clearly, there are infinite examples of those...

Cars are one thing that most of us can get through life knowing very little about. It would definitely be beneficial to understand the inner workings of our vehicles, and it could even save us some money if we could solve some of our cars' issues at home. But the fact is that it takes effort to learn about them. There is no “auto shop” requirement in school, but that's why the experts exist. So we don’t ever have to repair our cars ourselves. 

But according to one study of 2,000 Americans, many people know an embarrassingly small amount about their vehicles. Well, that’s not necessarily true. They know something, but a quarter of them admitted knowing that their cars are in need of a repair yet they continue to take the risk of driving them every day. But shockingly, far more people have something wrong with their cars that they might not have even been aware of. 68% of the study participants’ cars had at least one thing wrong with them, and 36% of the participants did not know the first thing about changing a tire.

There are plenty of basic car care routines that many of the participants of this study did not know, from half of them not being confident that they could change their car's oil to one third of them not knowing which oil their car requires in the first place. Even having to jump their vehicle’s battery would be a difficult task for a quarter of Americans, if their battery were to die. And about 20% of them could not confidently check the tire pressure on their car.

What’s hiding underneath the hood is a mystery to many Americans, with less than half of them being able to locate their car’s engine in an image. But despite their lack of understanding of their vehicles, many people still don’t feel comfortable dealing with a mechanic. Perhaps it is due to embarassment from not knowing how to take care of their cars, but 54% of Americans admit they are intimidated by mechanics. After seeing this list though, I don't blame them. For all they know, they could be being mocked online for having snow under their car's hood or going years without changing their air filters!

A common fear when taking your car to a mechanic is that you might be paying way too much money. How is it that any time you pop in for a simple oil change or tire rotation the mechanic mysteriously finds 5 other things that must be done immediately or the car will put you in immense danger the second you drive off the lot? You got to the auto shop just fine, so it does not seem likely that getting home will be a problem. It can be difficult to know whether a repair is actually necessary or if the mechanic is trying to pull a fast one on you, so we consulted BlueToro’s blog to find out some of the most common ways sketchy mechanics try to overcharge their customers. 

According to BlueToro, one practice some shady mechanics deploy is claiming that they replaced a part or performed a certain job, and charging for it, but never actually doing it. “It’s not uncommon for us to tend to a basic car service for a new customer where a major service was said to have been performed by their previous mechanic and yet the customer complains of a number of problems that simply shouldn’t be there if the car was serviced well,” BlueToro explains. “Usually it’s because the parts that were charged were not actually replaced.”

Another practice that certain mechanics will try to get away with is bumping up scheduled part replacements. For example, if a part needs to be replaced every 100,000 miles, some mechanics will tell a customer that it is time to be replaced when they’ve only driven 80,000 miles. Over time, this can lead to many unnecessary repairs and your auto shop bills can be through the roof. “Ultimately, these mechanics are not thinking about you as a customer for the long term, they’re just trying to make the most out of every service,” BlueToro explains.