Let professional people solve professional things, this is beyond reproach. However, it is precisely because of "professionalism" that consumer information is also in an unequal stage.
A car, simply an ABS fault light on, may be abs pump failure, may be just a fuse fuse, but the cost involved is as large as thousands of yuan, as small as a few dollars ... And what kind of "choice" will consumers who do not have a reserve of auto repair expertise face?
On the occasion of the 3.15 Consumer Rights Day, xiaoxiang morning reporters incarnated as "small white" car owners, and went to car brand dealers and market repair shops to see how they used their "professionalism" to solve problems for us.
【What we have prepared】
In today's auto repair market, does the situation of "minor illness and major repair" still exist? The reporter prepared a Ford Focus and a Volkswagen Golf, asked professionals to "forge" an ABS fault for each car, and secretly visited a number of 4S stores and repair shops in Changsha to test whether the situation of "minor illness overhaul" still existed.
Both The Fox and the Golf are high-volume products in the compact car market, and I believe that most auto repair practitioners are not unfamiliar with these two cars.
The two faults that the professionals "forged" were both fuses of the vehicle. Without affecting safe driving, different fault codes are displayed on the dashboard. At the same time, these two are also easy to check the fault of the circuit.
Surprisingly high quality service
The secret interview reporter drove Fox to the Ford Fuxingrui 4S store in Xingsha, and a number of maintenance personnel in the store warmly came up to receive and picked up the car according to the process.
After the reporter was arranged to go to the after-sales reception room for a round of tea break, the store maintenance staff came to tell the secret visiting reporter that the fuse in the car was found to be broken, but this situation is not common, so there is no spare parts in the store. The clerk raised this problem is not big, you can send an old part to us for free to replace. After the fuse worth 4 yuan is delivered to the piece, it can be replaced again.
The clerk also happily told the undercover reporter that it coincided with the free testing activity month of the Changan Ford brand, and the testing fee that originally required 200 yuan could also be reduced.
As a result, the fault Fox of this artificial "fuse" fuse was solved free of charge in changsha Fuxingrui 4S store.
The warm reception, meticulous and free maintenance made the undercover reporters once doubt whether they had "exposed" their identities. I also hope that the 4S store can continue to be maintained and treat every customer with the same standards.
A fuse was changed, but the car was demolished
After the vehicle was "restored" to the failure again, the reporter found a car repair shop called "Haoqiang Auto Repair Service Center" near the "broken" Fox.
Due to the busy business in the store, the clerk asked the reporter to park the car here first, and then wait for an hour to pick up the car. However, before considering whether to repair, the testing fee of 200 yuan is a must.
An hour later, the reporter came to the store again and was surprised to find that the Fox engine compartment had been torn to pieces. In the face of the surprised reporter, the clerk said: Dismantling into this is to check the cause of the vehicle circuit failure, and finally found that the fuse is broken, requiring a fuse fee of 40 yuan.
In the end, Fox, whose fuse was broken, was repaired at the Haoqiang Auto Repair Service Center at a price of 240 yuan.
However, the reporter inquired about an e-commerce platform and found that the price of a single fuse was only 7 yuan, and the store's offer was still a bit "small".
4S shop car repair need to provide ID card?
The next day, the reporter took the Volkswagen Golf, which also "failed" as a fuse, to the Huayang Century 4S store in Changsha, Tianxin District.
However, in the face of the reporter who came to repair the car, the maintenance reception staff in the store asked to show the driving license and ID card. Car repair needs to provide id cards, this kind of identity information involving personal privacy, why do ordinary commercial institutions also need it? However, in order to ensure the normal progress of the secret visit, the reporter still provided relevant document information.
The maintenance reception staff said that the maintenance test needs to pay 200 yuan for testing. Half an hour later, the clerk informed that the faulty vehicle needed to replace the damaged fuse, and after the repair, the store staff took the reporter to carry out a test demonstration.
It is worth mentioning that after the testing fee was charged, there was no charge in the "cheap" fuse store. In the end, the "insurance fuse" golf was successfully repaired and cost 200 yuan.
Although the vehicle successfully detected the fault and repaired it quickly. However, the reporter was cautious about the need to provide identity cards.
There is no inspection fee, but no problems have been detected
After the "recovery" failure of the golf, the reporter drove the car to a repair shop called Huixin Automobile Service Center not far from the Huayang Century 4S store. The clerk conducted the inspection, lifted the car, and carried out various line inspections up and down.
After more than an hour of inspection inside and out, the clerk said that this was a circuit failure, but the cause was difficult to identify, and it would not be found until the next day.
What puzzled the reporter was that the maintenance staff in the store found a circuit fault, but did not troubleshoot the most common insurance faults in the circuit fault. In the end, the reporter left the store on the grounds that he urgently needed a car. The staff of the store conducted several rounds of inspections and did not detect the fault, but there was no charge.
summary:
Through the secret visits of two 4S stores and two maintenance stores randomly selected, we did not find an obvious problem of "minor illness overhaul".
With the exposure of the "minor illness overhaul" phenomenon in the media over the years, the growth of consumer car knowledge, the relevant supervision is becoming more and more stringent, the quality of auto repair practitioners is improving, and the "minor illness overhaul", which was once a "common" phenomenon in the auto repair industry, is now highly valued, but it does not rule out that there is a "fish that slipped through the net", and consumers are also welcome to supervise with us.
However, we have also found phenomena such as the need to provide too much personal privacy information. At the same time, due to the different reasons of its professional direction, the social maintenance factory still has the problem of excessive inspection when encountering different vehicle failures.
Finally, we also recommend that when you encounter fault codes, engines, lines and other invisible faults, you can choose a brand-exclusive 4S store as much as possible, and the 4S store has a model-exclusive detection and troubleshooting process, which will be more efficient and convenient. At the same time, the prices and processes of related parts are relatively more well documented, and they can also be safeguarded through relevant channels such as brand manufacturers.
Xiaoxiang Morning News reporter Hu Xiong