Skip to main content

Beware of "Midas"

A couple of weeks ago I had my breaks inspected by a "Midas" shop because of an annoying noise. They told me that pretty much everything was in extreme bad conditions and that I needed to replace calipers, rotors, break pads, etc…all for about $1500. The diagnostic made me quite suspicious since I had the car inspected a month before and the breaks were in good conditions. So I took my car to a Firestone shop and guess what? The breaks were in perfect conditions; my breaks were in almost “brand new” conditions according to the mechanics; to get rid of the sound they did had to resurface the rear rotors for about $120 but told me that it was strictly optional, that my breaks were in perfect working conditions. I agreed to resurface the rotors and the noise is gone now; I’m pretty happy with the Firestone service and will probably take my car to them every time I need servicing

So, beware of Midas. By doing a bit more research online (which I should have done before going with them in the first place) I found that it seems to be a common practice of Midas shops to tell you that you need to do a bunch of expensive repairs when, in fact, your car might be in pretty good shape.

Before agreeing to do any expensive repair, take your car to another shop and get a second opinion.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Saving bucks by keeping your heater warm

When I first heard the suggestion of putting a blanket around my heater I thought: what??!!! After painfully findind that indeed our apartment water heater is an electric one (I know, I should have noticed it before duhh! ) and receiving 100+ dollars bills each month for electricity I decided to dig into the blanket suggestion. It turns out that there are special blankets (jackets) for water heaters that make them be more efficient and reduce the consumption of electricity (supposedly). So my wife and I decided to purchase one in home depot... hopefully our electricity bill will get reduced a bit.

Achieving Sustained Agility

Hi, my name is Humberto, Carnegie Mellon alum with over 15 years of experience as a Product Manager, including a significant and ongoing tenure at Microsoft, where I focus on developing platforms and products for both enterprise and consumers. During my career, as well as through the experiences shared by colleagues at various organizations, I've observed teams sometimes struggle to achieve sustained agility and fall into the "Hamster Wheel of Haste". In this post I will explain the nature of this pattern, its signs, and how teams and leaders can improve with proven techniques.  Definition The hamster wheel of haste is a permanent state of feeling too busy, wanting to make fast progress but being unable to do so over a sustained period. This leads teams to neglect efforts that would help them increase their speed and rely on short term crutches that further perpetuate the cycle. When teams remain in this state for too long, it inevitably leads to burnout. ⚠️Warning Sig...

Guitar Hero III...tomorrow!!

Tomorrow I'll finally get my hands on a copy of Guitar Hero III with the wireless guitar. I had to pay an undisclosed amount of money for it on ebay... hope it is worth the deal; if not I'll have to seek revenge from the friends that introduced me to the addiction (GH2). On a side note... We (the CRM Team) got our new release out the door last friday :) ...as a reward we will have a couple of extra days of vacations [Insert video of Borat saying: "Nice"]