The Washington herald., 1919-06-22
SERVICE STATION
CAUSES TROUBLE
Owner Should Know Own
Car to Save Useless
Repair Bills.

Practically every owner OF an au.
tomobile has at some time or other
been obliged to go to the repair
shop or service station for some
work. 1t is a fair guess to say that
each of these owners has at least
one complaint to make about the
treatment at the service station. or
about the bill. or about the work.
The automobile owner goes into the
service station with his car and
mentions that something or other
is wrong. The tester gets on the
job. or the manager examines it
and says it is this or that. Wnen
the owner gets his car he might find
either that the work was done prop
erly and a terrific bill accompanies
it. or the work was not done prop
erly, or that half a dozen other
things are wrong with the car that
were not the case before.
The owner can do much toward
helping himself and saving money
things. In the first place the aver
age service station requires that the
owner sign a statement of work to
be done. but very often that work
which the service station requests
Is not all that is needed or some
times Is not needed at all. The
owner when he signs should also
have the statement read that the
work to be done will eliminate the
trouble that he complains about.
Make Wrong Diagnosis.
In other words. service stations
make the wrong diagnosis a great
many times. Recently an owner
went to a large station with hard
starting trouble and before he got
through it cost him S2S. when it was
found later it could have been cor
rected for about s11. This was in
one OF the largest stations in New
York city. The man who examined
the car didn't know enough about
the vehicle his company was max
ing to know where the trouble lay.
So the owner signed to remove the
trouble II and they did. They
jumped from one thing to another
until they found it and the owner
paid for all the unnecessary work
as well as the S11 that really was
all that was needed.
II the owner signs the slip telling
what's to be done he pays for that
In some stations they give a job es-
innate. That is. they tell before
hand what the whole job will cost.
Whichever way it is done the owner
should state his case in such a way
that he will be protected. If some
thing Is wrong with the car. the
service station should be asked what
il is. and about how much 1t will
cost to fix it up. Then when the
owner signs the slip he should have
some means of knowing whether
that work done will stop the trouble
altogether.
If the service station had an ex-
pert at the door to tell exactly what
is wrong with a car and how long
approximately II would take to re-
pair it. it would save owners a lot
of time and money.
When you get your car look 1t
over carefully before you take it
out of the shop. for once you take it
out you have no redress. The cush-
ions may be dirty. half your gaso-
lene may be gone. an instrument
glass may be cracked. the steering
wheel may be dirty and greasy.
Don't wait to discover these things
when you get out Look over your
bill carefully. In some of the small
Ter shops you often are charged for
FIVE gallons of oil and ten pounds
Of grease, when those quantities are
suffic icient for three cars like yours.
And your tools. In the larger serv-
ice stations there Is a checking ar
rangement but in smaller ones ana
in the ordinary garage and service
station there Is no such thing. You
trust to luck. Either get receipt
for your things. lock them UP or
take them out of the car.
In dealing with the service sta
ton one owner has really got the
right scheme. but he studied to ac-
quire 1t. He knows his car so
thoroughly that he can tell approx
imately what is wrong. II he
doesn't know what Is wrong he gets