How am I going to explain to a car mechanic why I've never had my car tuned up?

[Mike 03]

I'm going to have to do a lot of driving soon.

I bought a car in 2002 and like a fool ignored all the advice in the manual. Other than a few oil changes, I've never had this car tuned up or serviced.

It has 11,000 miles on it after almost eight years.

But it is going to be humiliating to bring it in to a mechanic and say, "I've never had this car tuned up or serviced."

I have to do this, but it is going to be pretty embarrassing.

Can I lie and say I've had it serviced? Or will they take one look at it and figure out that nobody has ever looked under the hood.

[flvegan]

1. 11,000 miles in 8 years?

He might not even notice.

[Mike 03]

10. LOL, thank you. NT

[siligut]

2. They have seen it all.

Hey, at least you did the oil changes. Don’t sweat it. Don’t say anything unless asked.

[applegrove]

3. You must clean the house for the cleaning lady too! I know. I'm that way too.

[petronius]

4. Why be embarrassed? He works for you, after all - just tell him to service

the damn car and be snappy about it! :)

As long as it's running fine and you've kept the oil and filters changed, I doubt there's any problem. I've always thought those 'recommended service' schedules were just a profit center for the dealership, anyway...

[Inchworm]

5. Hehe

Today I was at a tire shop replacing a tire. My car has no ignition so I basically hotwire it to start it.

Mechanic says, "pull it in the last bay."

I go to start car... then smoke rolls and the smell of burning plastic fills the air.

The guy looks at me like WTF?

I calmly get out, crawl under car and jumper the solenoid (or whatever it is called that I jumped)to start car. Varooom, it starts right up. I pull in last bay.

Guy looks at me and says, "you can leave it running."

Embaraskin!

:blush:

[CreekDog]

6. Just tell him it was serviced 11,000 miles ago

:evilgrin:

[Justyce]

7. Say you just bought it...

and don't know what the previous owner had done. ;)

[Kali]

8. ppppfffftttttt

YOU are the customer. Just tell them to do whatever work you want on it. Tune ups are not what they used to be - at 11,000 all you SHOULD have done was a couple oil changes.

[Fleshdancer]

9. You don't have to tell him

and if he asks, just say "I can't remember". :D

[Mike 03]

11. THANK YOU. Wow, you all made my day. I'm just going to put this out of my

mind, get the car tuned up and forget about it.

Thank you.

Massive hugs and kisses.

[Mosby]

12. newer cars don't need tune-ups

just ask the guy to do an oil change, lube job and check the brakes. Some things you can do yourself like changing the air filter and drain and refill the radiator. Make sure you use premix or full strength coolant diluted 50/50 with distilled water.

[CharmCity]

13. That's easy!

Tell him you've been in jail for the past eight years.

[LeftyMom]

14. Tell him it belongs to an elderly relative.

Since only old people get cars and never drive them (my aunt puts just under 1,000 miles on her car, and I think most of those are relatives driving her places) it's totally believable.

Now for the important question- why on earth do you own a car you never drive?

[Droopy]

15. I have a 2002 model S-10 with nearly 85,000 miles on it

And I have never had it tuned up. It has never needed it. It runs fine and my gas mileage is consistently good. Now oil changes? I do that religiously once every 3000 miles. If you still have the manual for your vehicle you may find that the oil change interval for it is actually longer than 3000 miles. I think you're alright.

[jobycom]

16. He won't even ask. We've had people come in without an oil change for 90Kmiles.

The car by then just has sludge in it. We've pulled spark plugs with 200K miles on them. One woman brought in a car loaded from top to bottom with dirty clothes, and you could tell they had been there a while. There was barely room for her to sit. One guy told me about a car--a really expensive one--owned by what he described as a "tall super model looking blonde" that was so full of half-eaten junk food wrappers and fast food bags that he could hear roaches and maybe mice digging around in them when he sat in the car.

They'll love your car. With only 11K miles on it, there isn't much to do to it anyway. You will want the tires checked, though. They dry rot faster if they aren't used much, so they could look wonderful and be rolling disasters.

[SPKrazy]

17. Well, you could just not give a shit what the mechanic thinks

or you could worry about it and come up with a plausible story about why you didn't take care of your car.

[Towlie]

18. Wait a minute, don't say THAT to him!

If you tell him "I've never had this car tuned up or serviced" it will only encourage him to find more things wrong and run up the bill.

I think that in your case you'll be better off taking your car to a well-organized major service center with lots of mechanics than to some individual running his own business. Don't get fleeced.

[Tsiyu]

19. With so few miles on it

it should still be pretty clean.

One of my best buds has his own shop, Master Mechanic, and he would tell you he'd rather work on your car - sans any real maintenance for six years - than work on one that any teenage yahoo at an oil change place has tinkered with.

With so few miles, the tune -up shouldn't be a big deal. I wouldn't even mention it, just be sure they check all the fluids, spark plugs, hoses, belts and junk when they do the tune-up.

Nothing to feel bad about at all. You should see how abused my car is! My friend just rolls his eyes when I bring it in!

[PaddyBlueEyes]

20. Hes your mechanic

your payin him..hes your betoch...you dont have to splain nuttin

[harmonicon]

21. they're going to be more surprised by the 11,000 miles in 8 years

I doubt that you have anything to worry about. How many oil changes have you had? 2 or 3?!? That's kind of nuts - most people put more miles on a care in a year than that - last I read - it may have changed - the average was 16,000.