So I have to rant about a local business here in Austin that I will not be going back to ever again. Our family used to go to Lamb's Tire and Auto with all our cars, from little things to big things. Furthermore, whenever I worked on cars and encountered jobs that were too difficult to handle, I would always recommend people take their cars to Lamb's. However, a recent incident has changed my mind on that. Based on the evidence, it's nothing short of a stereotypical mechanic trying to rip you off.

The story starts three weeks ago when my mom took our 1997 Toyota Camry to get inspected (trip #1). Each of our five family cars has been here for inspections each year with no trouble, so this is nothing out of the ordinary. However, the mechanic looks over the Camry and comes back to my mom saying that the car has failed inspection and that it will require $1500.00 worth of repairs to pass the car! He doesn't give her the Texas State Inspection certificate that has a checklist of inspection items saying what failed or passed. He just gives her a repair order totalling $1500! My mom doesn't know what to do, so she goes home and talks to my dad. My dad, wanting to know what happened, drives back out to Lamb's (trip #2) and talks with the mechanic. The mechanic tries to explain the items that need to be repaired, then decides to do my parents a "favor" saying that not all the items on the repair order need to be done to pass the car. In fact, he prints them out another repair order, this one totalling ONLY $500.00! What a great deal bunch of bunk.

My parents leave and go home. After I had returned from Houston that weekend, my dad tells me what happened. I ask, "Did they give you the inspection checklist?" My dad says no. I see the repair order and check on the TXdot website to see what they check for. I find out that 95% of the items on the repair order are not even inspection items!!! There were things like, "replace timing belt cover" or "replace power steering pump". This makes me mad and I decide to go to Lamb's to figure this out for myself (trip #3). When I get there, I encounter a service rep (Adrian) who initially seems to help me out. Then after talking to a co-worker, he comes and tells me that these repair items are legit. In fact, not only are they legit, the $28.75 that my mom initially paid for an inspection was not applied to the cost of an inspection, but are actually applied as a diagnostic fee which is normally $45.00 (so we got yet another "deal" from them). So not only do I have to get all these items repaired... but when I return for a re-inspection (which should be free within 15 days of the original inspection), I need to pay ANOTHER $28.75 for an actual inspection. I ask for the State Inspection certificate from our original inspection but the guy refuses to give it to us saying that we never paid for an inspection in the first place. After 45 minutes of dealing with this guy, I've had enough so I walk out.

I get home and my mom says that I need to talk with the original mechanic that she dealt with. Fine. The next day (August 1) we make yet another trip out to Lamb's (trip #4). The original mechanic explains that as long as we bring the car within 15 days, we can get it reinspected for free. I mention that we were told otherwise during my last visit. He is surprised and says, "Really? Who told you that?" I quietly point out the guy standing behind the second counter. The mechanic shakes his head and clarifies that we will get reinspected for free. I then ask him to clarify the repair order since many of the items are not covered under Texas inspection law. The culprit in the car, he says, is the power steering pump, which he says is leaking fluid all over the engine bay and is a safety hazard to all the things that are on the repair order (which are not on the Texas inspection list). He says that the power steering belt was found to be soaked completely in oil and the leak was traced to the power steering pump.

My dad and I went home and inspected the car ourselves. Sure there was a lot of oil underneath the engine where the power steering pump was. But most of that was from a leaky oil pan which we fixed a year ago, but never cleaned up the oil. Using our powerwasher, we hosed away all the grease and grime from the underbelly of the car so we could see where the leaks were coming from (if there were any). We saw nothing. On top of that, if the pump had been leaky, there would have been a decrease in the reservoir fluid (which there wasn't). The fluid level hadn't changed since last year when we topped it off right before our 2006 inspection. To be safe, my dad and I changed out the power steering belt with a new one from AutoZone ($12.99).

A few days later, we took the car back to Lamb's for reinspection (trip #5). The first thing this new service rep said was, "Can I see your inspection certificate?" We said we didn't get one. His response was, "That's odd. You should have gotten one last time." I wanted to scream profanities here, "Exactly!". He talks to a co-worker and then says, "Okay, please wait. We should be done within one hour." My dad and I ended up waiting TWO HOURS for them to even touch our car. When they finally pulled it into the garage bay, it sat there untouched for 20 minutes. Finally, someone walks up to it, puts the new inspection sticker on it and then drives out. The car was never lifted up to see if the previous "safety issues" had been taken care of. They never even opened the hood. The total time that the car spent with a mechanic: 5 minutes. Answer me this: If there were actually failed inspection items from last time, wouldn't an inspector reinspect them this time around????

The original service rep that dealt with my mom walked up to us, gave us our keys and said we were good to go.

The good news was that we passed the car inspection like we were supposed to. The other good news is that Lamb's didn't get to rob us of any money at all. The only extra money we spent was on a $12.99 belt. The bad news was that it took 5 trips to Lamb's and a bunch of wasted time to get the car inspected. Furthermore, all of this has shown us that we will never go to a Lamb's Tire and Auto ever again.