$6500 repair bill to remove a stone from a moon roof

Paul Michael — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:05:52 +0000

How many times have you felt like someone was ripping you off? Hopefully, you can trust your gut instincts, just like the guy in this video below.

You can watch the full 7 minutes for yourself, but the basic story is this. He went to a Mercedes Benz repair shop complaining of a problem with his moon roof. The shop took a look at it and said he needed a complete new moon roof.

Total charge from Merc = $6500 (remember, this is Mercedes so it's going to be high, but gee whizz).

Being a customer worthy of Wisebread status, although I hope he got that Merc on a discount, he went elsewhere for a second opinion. I presume one of those smaller shops that don't have such huge mark-ups. You can imagine his surprise when he discovered the moon roof was simply jammed due to a small rock in the mechanism.

Total charge from other shop = $143

All it took was a pair of tweezers to remove the offending pebble. So, armed with a hidden camera our seriously ticked-off customer goes back to the dealership. Here are the results.

Car Dealership Tries To Screw Customer - Watch more free videos

Moral of the story: A second opinion is worth its weight in gold. Oh, and as I have said earlier, be wary of dealerships. They're not all bad, but some are just out for maximum profit.

Main photo by Saschaaa (with a new plate by me)

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

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$6500 repair bill to remove a stone from a moon roof