Why Customers Struggle to Trust Auto Repair [E240]
27 annotations
Repair trust is hard because customers can’t verify quality, and the gap between what shops know and what drivers can observe creates information asymmetry. The hosts frame auto repair as a credence-good service and connect it to the “market for lemons,” where deception and misinformation erode confidence. They then point to practical fixes: digital vehicle inspections, before/after photos or video, and citing service information—sometimes even using charging-voltage proof—to “level that playing field” and reduce suspicion.
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03:39
Term
front rake job
This is slang for a quick fix focused on the front brakes to stop a noise. It doesn’t necessarily mean the underlying problem was fully addressed.
03:39
Term
pads and rotors
Pads and rotors are the parts that create stopping power. The pads press against the rotors to slow the car down, and they wear out over time.
04:03
Term
brake lathe
A brake lathe is a tool shops use to machine the metal braking surface on rotors. It’s meant to restore the rotor’s surface so the brakes work correctly.
04:10
Term
resurface them
Resurfacing brake rotors means machining the rotor’s friction surface to remove unevenness or wear. In this context, the host warns that resurfacing “below spec” can compromise rotor thickness and braking performance.
04:32
Term
information asymmetry
It means the shop knows more about what’s wrong and what it takes to fix it than the customer does. When you can’t easily verify what was done, it’s harder to trust the bill.
04:43
Person
George Akerlof
George Akerlof is a Nobel Prize–winning economist. He studied how markets can get unfair when buyers can’t tell whether they’re getting a good deal or a bad one.
04:50
Concept
market for lemons
It’s an economics idea that happens when buyers can’t tell if something is good or bad. If you can’t tell, people may assume the worst, and the whole market gets worse.
05:56
Term
gluing bumpers
“Gluing bumpers” means someone fixes a bumper with glue instead of doing a proper repair. It can be a warning sign that the car was damaged and the repair might not be solid.
06:18
Concept
fully inspecting these vehicles
“Fully inspecting” implies a thorough pre-sale evaluation to verify condition and identify issues before selling. In the trust context, it’s contrasted with sellers who hide problems, so inspection becomes a credibility signal to buyers.
06:40
Concept
deception
Here, “deception” refers to misleading used-car listings where a seller’s description of condition doesn’t match reality. The speaker connects it to market behavior: when buyers can’t trust quality claims, they won’t pay “quality” prices.
07:08
Concept
culture of mistrust
A “culture of mistrust” means customers start expecting that something shady is going on. Once that happens, it’s harder for a shop to be believed, even if they’re trying to help.
11:24
Term
TPMS systems
TPMS means the car has a system that checks tire pressure. If a tire is low, it warns you so you don’t drive on an underinflated tire.
11:31
Term
ADOS
ADOS refers to calibration for advanced safety features that use sensors. After some repairs, the car needs to re-learn sensor alignment so those safety systems work properly.
11:31
Term
OEM procedures and standards
OEM means the car maker. Following OEM procedures means using the manufacturer’s recommended steps and specs, not a guess or a shortcut.
11:31
Brand
Autel tools
Autel makes diagnostic tools that mechanics use to read the car’s systems. The point here is that the tools help shops diagnose and repair cars the way the manufacturer expects.
This is the Automotive Repair podcast network.
Welcome everyone to yet another episode of diagnosing the aftermarket A to Z. I'm Matt
Fonzela and I wouldn't want to belong to any group that would have me as a member.
That and more after a word from our sponsors, Hotel and Pico Technology.
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Alright, a couple of episodes ago I started talking about game theory and I skipped the
episode to talk about some life lessons from golf or at least in the bay.
Being more positive and my wife and I did go golfing again and turned out I wasn't so good at
giving myself credit where credit was due anyway, so work in progress. To get back on the game
theory though, and I don't know if I'm just going to hammer these out, but I think game theory is
something we need to be talking about more and then just economics.
Economic theory really would be a big umbrella term, whereas game theory would be more specific
to support and maybe create economic theory but explain it, right? I think I've mentioned it before
when I was talking about the word, using the word diagnostic or diagnosis, diagnostic specifically,
and how it's misused that I mentioned something called information asymmetry and we need to
keep rolling with that because that is a major, major problem for us as an odd repair profession,
industry. I mean, what if you want to call us trade that from an economic standpoint, right?
If we want to talk like we're economists, we're in a credence good service. That is something
you've heard me say before and I probably will keep saying it because we'd never use terms like that.
I've never heard anyone use that term. We should be. Our customers for the most part, the vast,
vast, vast majority of them cannot tell the difference between a good repair and a not so
good repair or even a poor repair by our standards that makes the symptom go away, right? The easy
examples breaks. They come in grinding. They cannot tell the difference. There's no way for them to
perceive a difference between a front rake job to cure the grinding by replacing pads and rotors
for a bogus number of, we'll just say $500 versus the shop down the street that does it for $200
or the guy in the backyard who went and bought the cheapest parts, the cheapest pads, the cheapest
rotors, maybe the shade tree picked up a brake lathe because they're so cheap because we don't
really do that much anymore with them. Turn those rotors, resurface them and went below spec, but
he's trying to save them money. So now they don't know. All they know is the noise went away. The
customer, all they know is that noise went away for $200 and shop A wanted $500 to do it. That's
what they know. That's called information asymmetry. We know way more and we should
about their vehicles than they do. Then they can possibly be expected to know,
but because of that, it inherently causes distrust. Now we have to talk about a gentleman by the name
of George Akerlof. He won a Nobel Prize for basically a concept or we'll call it a concept,
theory concept called the market for lemons. He was targeting the used car market, right? We
call them lemons. If you bought a lemon, you could buy a lemon from a new car to and this would apply,
but generally he's talking about used cars. It easily applies to auto repair directly.
The idea is because of the information asymmetry, because the car dealer or used car dealer knows
more about that vehicle and not so much even in this case, how the car works, just what's all wrong
with it and what they did to make it sellable. There's a movie, Matilda, right? Danny DeVito,
one of my favorite actors, mainly for what he, I mean, he's a lot of stuff,
honestly, but when I was talking about him, it's always sunny in Philadelphia. I think that was
cool what he did and if you want to know more about that, go ahead and give that episode a listen,
but he's a used car dealer and you get to see what he's doing to these cars like gluing bumpers on
and stuff like that. Well, he's selling a lemon and he knows it and he's selling it for whatever price
for probably quite a bit less than the used car lot down the street, who spends a lot of time
buying quality vehicles, spending money on those vehicles to make sure they meet some minimum
criteria, fully inspecting these vehicles. And for the most part, as best they can selling
quality vehicles, but they're selling them for a quality price. If the market has deception
in it, where there are lemons for sale for $5,000 in quality vehicles that are largely the same
make model, you know, or whatever type of vehicle, but their quality for 10,000 customers are not
going to be willing to spend much more than the lemon for the quality vehicle because they can't
trust that that's a quality vehicle. They can't do it. And so you create or what is created
is this entire culture or environment of distrust climate really climate of mistrust.
We have that in our profession and our chops day in and day out over and over and over.
Customers come in, they already have a general idea that we're not on their side.
That's sad because while we are and should be trying to run profitable businesses,
we are on their side. The vast majority are on their side, on the customer side.
They may unwittingly make mistakes that challenge that, not thinking things through, not,
you know, optics, all the things. And that's not what this is about. But
sometimes we don't do ourselves a whole heck of a lot of favors in changing that. But already
there's a culture of mistrust and then add a few more wrinkles to that.
Who's bringing it in? I mean, if it's like our shop and I think many shops, it's women bringing
their cars in or the family vehicle in. That's another layer of mistrust because now
they feel that they will be taken advantage of because they're women, because their own
perception as well. They don't know as much about vehicles as men. So they're going to be
preyed upon. They're going to be taken advantage of. What I've seen in other shops is not so much
the shop is taking advantage of the women. They really aren't usually the opposite. I mean, not
wholly like eating stuff simply because it's a woman, but they tread lightly, trying to be respectful,
trying to earn trust that they're trying so hard to do desperately. But what they unwittingly do
is because either the woman herself, the client, believes she doesn't know about vehicles or because
who is ever talking to her feels like she doesn't know about vehicles. Could be because she's a
woman or because she just doesn't know about vehicles, withholds information or isn't quite as
detailed in their explanations or they don't slow down to explain things. They come off somewhat
dismissive because you won't know what I'm talking about anyways. And that could be true, but that
isn't the proper response further creating this climate of distrust. They show up with a complaint
in their car and they come back when we call them and say it's all ready to go. And they have a piece
of paper and their keys and they give us money and they drive away. Some of us might feel that
there's nothing wrong with that. And I suppose fundamentally there isn't, especially if we're
on the level and we've built up a rapport over time. But generally that doesn't happen,
especially if you haven't been around for a long time and develop this reputation. I mean, that's
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This episode of diagnosing the aftermarket A to Z is brought to you by Autel. Autel is a global
developer and manufacturer of award winning professional automotive diagnostic tools and
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So now we have to be thinking how to combat that. That really is the solution, is information,
trying to level that playing field, trying, I'm not saying you educate the client to become a
mechanical or technical specialist. I'm just saying that we try to narrow that gap a little bit,
even a little bit means a lot. And that means overwhelming data. And again, I'm not necessarily
saying, you know, for those of you that know what a telephone book is, I'm not saying a big,
thick stack of papers, but are they being texted their digital vehicle inspections?
Are they being walked through the inspections and shown what's good? Are they being
brought back to the vehicle and shown what's good, what's bad? And then given details about
the repair before and after. Like that's hard to do sometimes to remember. And I don't know,
maybe there's a lot of digital vehicle inspection software out there, and that's set up so much
for that where you do the inspection to find all of what's wrong. But then during the repairs,
is there a stage where there's kind of a before, during, and after? We're going to
demonstrate this ball joints loose. Here's the video of it. We marked it red because it's really
loose and it's causing tire damage and all the things. So whatever, however much money we're
going to replace the tires and the ball joint to a wheel alignment and depending on the car,
maybe an ADOS calibration, boom, it's a lot of money, which is kind of a bogus term. What does
that even mean? But we'll just say whatever. It's not nothing. They're spending money. They might
be getting exactly what they pay for and extraordinary value for their dollar, but
they still have to pay the money that they don't want to spend. Are we showing them
kind of that process of the repair? They've seen the loose ball joint. We've shown on the other
side that the ball joint isn't loose. It's good. But do we show them, here's the before.
And now here's a couple of photos or a quick video of when the vehicle's apart. This is what we
all had to do to replace that ball joint. Now the new ball joints in and oh, here it is. I'm showing
you the difference. I don't know how many people do that and it is. It's more time and we have to
adjust the rates accordingly. We just do. But we're building trust. We're building value. We're
showing them what we're doing, why we're doing it, and giving them less reason to distrust.
Even though it may be slight, we're insulating ourselves from a market for lemons. That's what
we're doing. We're insulating ourselves from that where it becomes less of a thing. There's still
going to be a market for it because we have just complex machines that break and they don't know.
Nor should they. They don't know about it. They don't know what it takes. They don't know
how it all works and it's fine. They don't have to. But it affects their perception of what we're
doing and we have to take measures to respond, to reassure, and further insulate ourselves.
There's another kind of a wrench in this. It's not just our profession by any means.
We have the internet. We have resources like YouTube. People can go look into things. There's
forums. There's large language models that can get involved and provide. It can be actually quite
awful information depending on how you ask it and what the algorithm is. I don't know if you've
been using many large language models. When I say large language models, I'm talking about Gemini,
chat, GBT, Claude, DeepSeq. There's so many, GROC. A lot of the baseline algorithms are to be very
validating. That's a basic setting that we have to go in and change. It's an algorithm
that they are to be very validating, make you feel good about yourself. Because let's be honest,
they want you to keep using these resources. That's how they get money. Your attention is
worth money. Engagement. They want your engagement. Engagement is money. You're using these large
language models or they, them, whoever, using the large language models. That's how they earn their
money. Depending on the algorithms, depending on how they ask the questions, depending on what they
ask of the large language model, could point them in a bad direction, further demonizing us.
We have to fight some misinformation, some disinformation, and then also good information
that's not understood. Again, back to the broken record information asymmetry. They don't know.
They don't have the background. Watching these videos, their bias is they're getting taken advantage
of. Because that video or that forum or that response from whatever large language model
fits their worldview or supports their fear, it's easy to believe that over us.
That's another hurdle that we have to try to keep almost overcompensating for until you can
develop such a reputation that your shop or you as a technical specialist, you as a mechanical
specialist develop such a reputation that you become somewhat, somewhat immune to it.
But that's it in the nutshell is that we have to be very, very aware. We have to be thinking
about this stuff. Information asymmetry is very much part of game theory. We don't hear much
about game theory. We don't hear much about economics, not like pure economics. Economics
like they would talk about in other professions. These are concepts. These are terms. These are
theories. These are laws that we need to be thinking about that we need to be talking about.
These are terms we need to be using. Yeah, I hope this sparks interest either in economics,
economic theory, game theory, or just the idea of it, thinking about it in those terms,
thinking about information asymmetry, thinking about being a credence, good service. What that
means, what we have to do to succeed in that environment, what do we do when we have competition
who basically help create the culture of distrust? How do we combat that? How do we become
protected and somewhat immune to that? We need to be thinking about that. We need to be talking
about that. And a lot of the answers are nothing new. They've been around for decades and decades
and decades. We just need to look for them. The problem is we don't use... I hate to say generic,
but they're not so much generic terms. They're just terms. It would be basically like trying to talk
about physics without using physics terms. If you're not going to talk about spin, how do we
talk about particle physics? You can't. So the same thing. If we're going to look up for solutions
for economic type problems, business type problems, and we're not using economic terms or game theory
terms, how do we get to the answer? Because they've been out there. They've been out there for a long
time. We have to think about how we present information. Even if they by themselves can't
interpret it, we can help them a little bit. A lot of times it's just before and after,
good and bad, and Sesame Street. One of these things doesn't look like the other. This is what
it looked like before. This is what it looks like after. This is your charging system voltage
before the alternator, and it was 11.7 volts. And here is your voltage after we put a battery
alternator in it, and it's 14.2 volts with all the accessories on. Do they know that fundamentally
that is good? No. They know that if we tell them, we can maybe show them information that good is
anything from 13.7 to 14.6 volts. Okay. That helps. And I suppose before I wind this down,
that is yet another means of demonstrating value, demonstrating trust, service information,
reference service information, reference manufacturer, service information, show them
if need be, or it's so easy to attach stuff nowadays. You're not giving them a stack of paper
anymore. It's an email. It's a text message. It's a link to whatever, an FTP or a server
or something on the cloud. Why not? This is what we did. This is why we did it.
Why did we do all this work? Why did we have to take all this stuff apart to do this?
Says it right here in service information. The people that built the car said this is
the way to do it. This is the way we did it. It's just another way to build. Am I saying that's
always the right way to do it? Is there not quality professional, quote unquote shortcuts,
which is shortcut by itself is probably our horrific term, but is there a way to do the same
job as well or better than the way the manufacturer said to do it? I think in some cases there are.
Does all this stuff have to come apart to replace this part? Maybe not. Right. But in general, I
think referencing service information is yet another way to keep building, demonstrating,
quality, demonstrating trust. And that's how we insulate ourselves from a market for lemons.
I hope you got a kick out of this. I hope you see where I'm going with this. If you have any
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