My wife's 2007 Honda (100K miles) was slow to start, so she took it to Honda for a check out. They ran their tests using their "sophisticated" test equipment and gave her a print out indicating both the battery and alternator were bad. The battery was three years old, and there was no indication on the dash control panel of a bad alt/bat (no idiot light). So she had them replace the battery and alt, and then gave her a print out indicating both were now A-ok.
Honda Service made no attempt to replace the battery first, and run the test a second time with the original alternator..they just replace both. I got to the shop right when the work was being completed, and was so pissed I took the "bad" alternator with me to have checked out at Advanced Auto and AutoZone on their 'less sophisticated' test equipment, and it checked out OK at both placed. I'm taking the original alt back in today to get the core-charge back, and am going to have a talk with the service manager, just to let him know that I know they pulled a "fast one" on my wife.

I would suggest that she dispute the charge for the work, but a) she authorized the replacement of both alt and battery, b) I'm sure that the results of their test equitment would win over that of AutoZone and Advanced Auto's less sophisticated alternator test 'jig', and c) we did get both a new alt and battery and the issue is fixed.

 

Have you wife call you before making decisions like that first next time?

 

Lesson learned.. Move on..!! bringing up your blood pressure ain't gona solve nuttin.

 

its sad but this goes on all the time. when i worked for the toyota dealer in my town i would try to stay out of the service department otherwise i would have to bite my tongue while the service advisors would swindle unsuspecting customers with bulls*hit.but not all dealers are like this some actually care about there customers. i was actually fired because i protested the sale of a used minivan being sold to a family with severely dry rotted tires they didn't want to give them new tires.