Driven to distrust? 78% of drivers are skeptical of mechanics

How many people trust their mechanics?

Our survey results showed that 78% of people with cars don’t always trust their mechanics. However, most respondents weren’t blindly paranoid. Of those surveyed, 22% said they always trust mechanics, while a much smaller group (9%) said they never trust them. The vast majority (69%) said it depends on the mechanic.

We then analyzed our survey data to learn more about how people felt and who trusted mechanics more. The most obvious trend was that answers were largely split along gender lines.

For example, men were more than twice as likely to say they had full trust in their automotive technicians. (Only 15% of women said they fully trusted mechanics, compared with 32% of men.)

"I think women, in general, are skeptical of things like that," said Lauren Fix, the editor in chief of Car Coach Reports and a member of ConsumerAffairs’ advisory panel. "They'll do the research. They tend to be more in-depth in finding out the answers."

The gender divide overpowered other factors, such as age. For example, people between the ages of 35 and 44 were the most likely to fully trust mechanics, but that was largely because men in that age group were particularly trusting of mechanics; women 35 to 44 said they trusted mechanics at about the same rate as women of all ages.

“One of the things we're actually constantly working on is building the trust with the customer,” said Andy Saari of Nexedge Technician. Saari is an ASE-certified master technician with 30-plus years of experience who now helps car dealerships hire, train and recruit mechanics. We shared our survey results with him to get a mechanic’s perspective, and he wasn’t surprised by our findings.

“We see a lot of different customers who have different trust levels,” said Saari, who attributed consumer skepticism to a mix of people not valuing mechanics’ expertise and not having faith in their ethics. “Depending on what the repair is, if we can show them what's actually the matter with it, it adds a lot to the trust factor.”

Fix, herself an ASE-certified technician, had similar sentiments.

“It's like going to the doctor, and they say you’re sick. And they can say you have ‘fill in the blank.’ And you have to believe them,” she said. “If I told you you had a broken arm, I would put an X-ray up on the X-ray machine, I would point to where the bone is damaged, and then we’d discuss it.”

Saari agreed that better communication is critical to mechanics earning more trust from consumers. “Even though you might have spent an hour [or] an hour and a half diagnosing [a problem], if you just write … ‘recommend replacing transmission,’ what does that do for the customer’s trust?”

Saari recommended that technicians take consumers through their diagnostic procedure, even if that means getting more technical than they think is necessary. “At least they have an inkling that you put some effort into it and you're not just going to charge them $5,000 for a transmission based on ‘you think it needs a transmission,’” Saari told us. “Explain how you got there. Just like anything else, communication’s always the key.”

We asked Saari if it was any consolation that 65% of respondents said they’d rather go to the mechanic than the dentist. “I hate the dentist myself. … So, yeah, it does make me feel better.”

Who do people trust?

What do people do if they’re suspicious of the recommendations they get from their mechanics? They talk to people they know.

About 83% of people reported that they sometimes or always ask someone they know for advice when a mechanic recommends a service — 28% of people said they always ask a friend or loved one for a second opinion, while 55% said they mainly ask around when it’s an expensive task. Only 17% of people said they never get third-party advice.

Our analysis again showed a major divide between men and women. (Other factors, such as age and income, were inconsistent indicators of whether the respondent asked people they knew for advice.)

Compared with women, men were more likely to not ask for help when dealing with mechanics. Men were twice as likely to say they never ask for help and far less likely to say they always ask for help.

Interestingly, the number of men and women who said they “sometimes” ask for help was roughly equal for both groups — around 55%. The majority of the shift was between those who answered “always” or “never.”

Where people go for advice

When we asked people who they talked to for advice, “friend” was the most popular answer — closely followed by “dad” and “significant other.” (Only 3% of respondents reported asking their mothers for automotive guidance. “I’m an exception to every rule,” Fix, a mother herself, joked.)

However, the most common answers weren’t consistent across all demographics, and gender was once again the dividing line. About 45% of men said they’d talk to a friend if they needed advice about car maintenance, while only 14% of women said the same. Among women, 34% said they’d consult their significant other, but that answer was given by only 5% of men. (Dads were a fairly consistent source of information for both men and women.)

Do mechanics overcharge?

Approximately 80% of survey respondents said they felt like they’d been overcharged by mechanics in the past. (45% of people said they’d been overcharged sometimes, but 35% said they always felt like their mechanics were trying to wring them dry.) Only 17% of people said they thought their auto service was always fairly priced.

Saari cautioned us about putting the blame for high repair costs on the mechanics themselves.

“The funny thing is the mechanics don't set the price,” said Saari. “The job takes so many hours (we have field service labor time standards that tell you how much it is), and based on the shop’s labor rate, you just multiply that number [plus] parts prices or whatever the markup is. … The mechanic doesn't adjust the price.”

Even between legitimate garages, prices might vary because of different labor rates or because they use different parts. That’s normal and expected. However, there are other ways for repair shops to overcharge consumers.

”It's all about the upsell,” said Fix, who claimed that some shops tack on unnecessary services to drive up their profits. “Think of it like McDonald's. You go through the drive-through: Do you want to biggie those fries?”

You can see what maintenance services your car needs (and how often it needs them) by checking your owners manual, which should be in your glove box or available online.

Fix said drivers should check the recommended maintenance schedules in their owners manuals before agreeing to pay for preventive services. While this won’t necessarily help when you’re dealing with repairs to broken or malfunctioning components, it can help people avoid unnecessary maintenance charges.

When we looked deeper into which respondents felt like they’d been overcharged, we were surprised to see that there wasn’t much of a gender gap on this topic. In stark contrast to their trust levels, men and women had extremely similar feelings about whether they had actually been ripped off by a mechanic in the past.

Interestingly, men’s higher trust levels were farther out of alignment with their stated experiences than women’s lower trust levels. Nearly 1 in 3 men said they fully trust mechanics, but only about 1 in 5 said they felt like their services were always fairly priced. Women gave those answers at almost identical rates (15%).

“Basically, any place I've ever worked or worked with, men and women are treated exactly the same,” said Saari. “They're all customers. It's not like we try to charge one or the other more or less.”

Still, many women report that they feel like they’ve been taken advantage of because of their gender and lack of automotive know-how.

“If you are a woman and they can see you don't know much about cars, they will take advantage of you,” wrote Barbara in Florida when reviewing a local garage. “Yes, it's my fault for letting them do what they said was needed, but the fact is, they knew that I did not know about cars and that they could pull one over on me. I am very angry. I am now in debt but I guess that's my fault. Why can't auto repair shops just be honest? Is it really that hard?”

How to find a trustworthy mechanic

While absolute trust in mechanics was rare among our survey respondents, the bulk of them did at least trust some mechanics some of the time. So, how do you find a mechanic you can trust, and how do you know if they’re being honest with you? We asked the experts we spoke with for advice.