No More Mr. Nice Guy

So I've been dealing with a situation for the last five days. I haven't really been ready to talk about it until now, because it was quite upsetting for me. However, I think it might be time to face it and move on. Deep breath.......okay, aaaaaaaaand go.

Background:
My car was due for a safety inspection at the end of March. Now, she's a pretty good little car. Even though I didn't get her winter tires, she still kept me on the road through all the treacherous weather we faced this year. You know what I call that? That's a little thing I call devotion, kids.

I was in a bit of a time crunch in getting her in for her safety, so I checked with a co-worker on a good location. On Saturday morning, I took her to the place that was recommended (which shall remain nameless, but let's just say it was part of a chain), and was told that it would take about an hour or so for a safety and an oil change. Since I hadn't had any problems with the car in a very long time, and she was motoring along quite nicely on a regular basis, I figured this would be a piece of cake. Oh, how very wrong a pretty girl can be sometimes....so very wrong.

After about 30 minutes of waiting, I got the dreaded "Can you come in here for a minute?" request from the smarmy sales dude. I plodded into the garage, already racking up the charges in my head without him opening his mouth. I then stood through an in-depth description of the absolute corrosion that afflicted my entire braking system, as well as the steering thingy, and was told that there was NO way that ANY of this could pass inspection without being fixed. Knowing that this was an attempt to screw me twelve ways from Sunday, I asked for a rejection sticker and a detailed printed estimate of all the "problems". Looking rather taken aback that someone (let alone a member of the fairer sex) would even suggest such a notion, he reluctantly agreed.

I sat back down in the waiting room and resumed reading the paper, and flipped to the classifieds to see if there were any part-time jobs I could take on to pay for all of these issues (there weren't). Five minutes later:

Smarmy guy: "Oh, I forgot to tell you. You also have a hole in your muffler and the strap is coming off, so those need to be replaced too."

Me: "I can't understand that. I just replaced that last year."

SG: "Oh, I guarantee you that that's the original muffler on that car. It's never been replaced."

Me: "I mean, I replaced the strap last year. But I happen to know for a fact that the muffler itself was replaced not long before I got the car. My parents were the previous owners, and they put a new muffler on it."

SG: "Oh....well, maybe."

Ding, ding, ding! Warning bells! Anyone else find anything fishy about this situation??

So, the estimate was printed out and handed to me. I scanned through it, looking for the bottom line (aren't we all just looking for the bottom line in life, really?). The total: $1,018. It took a lot of restraint to not punch him, particularly when he said, "Sorry for the bad news". Instead, I pulled on my professional face, thanked him and left.

After a therapeutic grocery shopping expedition (what was I thinking? who could afford to eat, with a $1,000 car bill looming over their head??), I started to breathe again, and the colour returned to my face. I was talked down from the ledge by my parents and my friend R, who said he would talk to his mechanic guy on Monday and get the real scoop on the situation.

The guy's assessment:

• While the strap will have to be replaced soon, there is, in fact, no hole in the muffler.
• Brake lines are fine, front pads needed replacing (done)
• Steering thingy: it's fine, just don't over turn the wheel (hee hee, my bad!)
• Only thing that I would possibly fail inspection for: the light above my license plate was burnt out...something SG did not pick up on, might I add

Final cost, including all repairs and valid safety inspection: $145.

Seriously. SERIOUSLY???

Let this be a lesson to you, kids. If someone seems smarmy right off the bat, trust that instinct and get out of dodge before you have to sell a kidney on the black market, just so the SGs of the world can go to Starbucks for their coffee instead of Tim Hortons.