Is Your Mechanic Taking You for a Ride?

If you've ever felt ripped-off by your car mechanic, you're hardly alone.

In a recent survey by AutoMD, a consumer information Web site on car repairs, 88 percent of car owners said they've felt ripped off at the repair shop.

But is it true?

"Early Show" Consumer Correspondent Susan Koeppen and her team sought the answer to that question. They teamed up with AutoMD in an undercover investigation to see what would happen when they took cars to repair shops.

AutoMD is a Web site that helps consumers diagnose problems with their cars and gives information on how much it should cost to fix them.

Koeppen shared the results of their investigation on the broadcast Wednesday. She explained the undercover investigation had two cars that needed new brake pads. According to AutoMD the repair for each car should only cost $180.

Koeppen's team traveled across the country to find out what would happen at different repair shops.

Their journey began in Los Angeles with the purchase of two identical cars.

Both were inspected by a mechanic -- and given clean bills of health -- except for the brake pads.

Shane Evangelist, president of AutoMD, said they ground down the pads, so they had 2,000 miles left on them. Koeppen noted this should be an easy problem for a mechanic to spot and fix. But would it be for the mechanics encountered by Koeppen's team?

So Koeppen's team hit the road. With mechanics behind the wheel of each car, they headed from Los Angeles to Dallas, Texas.

At a dealership there, the mechanic said the "main concern" was the brakes.

He wanted to fix the brakes, but he also gave a laundry list of additional repairs the car supposedly needed. He was going to charge $219.95 for the brakes, $54.75 for the diagnosis, $39.95 for wiper blades, $129.98 for an injector flush. $69.95 for a fuel filter and $99.95 for a coolant flush. The total for all this work would have cost $614.50.

Responding to the prices, Evangelist said, "To me, they're taking money out of your pocket. It's just that simple."

Evangelist said it's true consumers have no idea if they're getting ripped off by a mechanic.

He said, "There's work being done that doesn't need to be done, and people are getting overcharged for the work that does need to be done."

Koeppen's team went to four more shops in Dallas. Each mechanic gave a different set of problems and prices, ranging from $180 to $420.

Next, they moved on to Washington, D.C. A mechanic there wanted to charge $320 for repairs, but, Koeppen pointed out, he didn't even remove the tires to check for a problem.

However, another mechanic in Washington, D.C. pointed out the bad brake pads and offered to fix them for the reasonable rate of $169.

Koeppen's team ended their trip in New York, where they got the best quote of the trip: $160.

The mechanic told them, "All you really need now is pads, that's all you need."

But it was a different story at a New York City dealership, where they charged $119 just to diagnose the problem -- without even fixing it.

Evangelist said, "This is flabbergasting to me. They did get your $120 dollars on a job that should cost $180 to get completed. Yet you still have bad, bad brakes."

Another New York mechanic wanted to replace the front and back brakes on the car -- a $400 repair.

He told Koeppen, "I can guarantee you won't get a better price anywhere around here -- guaranteed."

But Evangelist reaffirmed to Koeppen that nothing was wrong with the rear brakes.

He said, "I am 100 percent positive."

By the end of the trip, only three of the 13 shops Koeppen's team visited gave a quote for just replacing the brake pads at a price at or below the industry average.

Evangelist said, "There are some really good mechanics out there, unfortunately what we found is that they happen to be in the minority."