Spaw, I don't want any clarification of that remark, thanks very much!

One reason to beware of large chain shops is the flat-rate system. The shop charges, and the mechanic gets paid, based on the time the book says the job should take, rather than the actual time. This can often lead to a quick-in-quick-out-next-please approach to such mundane but safety-critical tasks as brake jobs. I'd far rather take it to a mechanic I trust, who charges by the hour and works on it till the job is done properly.

Last winter I took my mom's car into her Canadian Tire service centre to get a damaged rim & tire changed. Showed the young lad the damaged wheel, (she hit a curb, bit nearsighted is Mom at 84), and he said "Whoa. You need a new rim." Fine, I said, get it.

While they had the wheel off, I asked him to check the brake pads. He glanced at them and said "Whoa. You need new pads." Don't think he even put a trouble light near it. I looked at it, the outside pad looked plenty thick to me. I'm not so sure about that, I said, that one looks fine. (But the most worn pad is usually the inside one in my experience.) "Well, I'm not a mechanic", he explained, boosting my confidence in his judgment tenfold. He tapped an older guy on the shoulder who was a mechanic and the guy gave just as quick a glance at the outside pad. "They're fine" was all he said. Neither of them looked at the inside pad!.

Flat rate shops...and when my mom took the car in there to get a couple of new tires a few months earlier, they convinced her she needed a new oil pan. ("It's just about to go.") Seven hundred bucks later she got her car back...and that's an easy easy oil pan to change (92 Tercel).

Willie-O, driveway mechanic.