Mechanic Replaced Wrong Parts

[hbaldana]

My question involves a consumer law issue in the State of: Maryland.

I took my BMW to a reputable shop. The steering wheel violently vibrates when the brakes are applied. The shop calls me and tells me that the control arms and the bushings are in bad shape and need to be replaced at a cost of $1430.00. I hesitated but gave them the ok. When I picked it up they told me there is still a SLIGHT vibration and that the rotors also need to be replaced for another $400.00. I declined and left the shop. Well... the car still does the same vibration, nothing has changes so I called them and explained that I believe the wrong parts were replaced because NOTHING HAS CHANGED. The service manager told me that they worked on what was OVIOUS first and that they can take a look at it but that they did what BMW "recomends" therefore if I need further repairs I have pay for waht they do.

DO I HAVE A CASE IF I WANT TO TAKE THEM TO COURT???

Now I believe it was the rotors as someone else recomended I do first.

PLEASE HELPPPPPPP!!

[SChinFChin]

My question involves a consumer law issue in the State of: Maryland.

DO I HAVE A CASE IF I WANT TO TAKE THEM TO COURT???

No, you probably don't.

I owned a business doing repairs, with specializtion in alignments, and we sell & install tires, as well as doing brake jobs.

Normally, when the car vibrates when you apply the brakes, it's due primarily to unevenly worn, or warped rotors. Rotors can be machined smooth once or twice, and then have to be replaced, when it get too thin to be cut again. In addition, you'll need new pads to go with the rotors, even if they're half worn, or less, since uneven rotors wears out pads unevenly, and uneven pads would then wear out your new rotors unevenly.

This is where we sometimes have the first issue with customers, we're trying to rip them off replacing perfectly good pads.

Additionally, bad control arms and bushings amplify the problem. If this is the major problem, it was to be addressed first. You did say "the car still virbates", whether to the same degree, we can't tell.

On the other hand, if you replaced just the rotors and the pads, it is quite possible that you will still have a vibration problem to a degree.

The problem we have with customers is it's hard to sell the "entire package", or they will definitely think that we're trying to rip them off. The best way is do one part, see if it would resolve the problem, and then, do the other part, rather than throw good money after bad.

That's what the shop is recommending.

Unfortunately, sometimes, several systems on the car are bad all at once, and the repair shop gets the blame, whether they fix everything at once, or fix one part first, and see what happens.

As a matter of fact, some customers come in insisting on JUST doing an alignment, thinking that would magically solve the problem, and gets all upset when we tell them the problems has to be fixed first, and then do the alignment. If the customer have bad control arms, and bushings, we will refuse to do an alignment no matter how loud the customer yells and screams.