Ever had a "STUPIDITY" Charge at a garage....?

[macnwigs]

I got my first "stupidity" charge today at a local garage...<P>This morning I was checking my oil as I always do...I realized it was a little low so I out some in and closed the lid.<P>On my way to work, my car kept stalling everytime I put in the clutch or neutral, so I took it right to this guy my dad deals with and asked him to look at it and left...<P>He called about 30 mins later and said "ok looked at your car and we figured out that you left the oil cap off the engine...causing it to suck air and stall."<P>SO I said ok what do I owe you???? (Believe it or not the guy was pretty good humoured about it). And he said "$65 for engine shampoo, $30 for oil change and $25 for a diagnostic stupidity charge....." <P>Anyways car is clean and running good, and he fixed up my brakes for a good price. <P>If I cared what others thought, I might even be embarrassed, but oh well - live and learn!

[Tempus]

The other charges seem reasonable, but I might be tempted to be a bit annoyed by the diagnostic charge...<P> $25 is a bit steep for the all of "one minute or less" that it should have taken them to spot the missing oil filler cap..<P>On the other hand, did you get lucky, and was the cap still somewhere INSIDE the engine compartment (instead of out along the road someplace?) I'm somewhat suprised I didn't see a charge for a new cap.. Last time I pulled that trick (yeah, happens to a lot of us I think, especially if we 'top off' our oil a lot to keep the lifter noise down) I lost the cap..

[macnwigs]

I just picked up my car and it turns out the guy was yanking my chain...he's a friend of my dad's and was riding me for being careless......<P>I picked up the car and he only charged me $500 total for back pads, back rotors, back calipers, oil change, and engine shampoo (I was quoted $700 from another garage just for the brake job...)