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I'm at lunch right now. When I get done at my job of being a professional mechanic today, I'll pick it apart piece-by-piece.

 

Yea, I was reading that earlier today, but I just glanced through it. I normally don't allow any work to be done by the mechanic. If he says I need something, I will go and replace it myself unless it requires tools I don't have, nor could I afford.

 

After working for a couple dealers, I can agree with what most of that article says. There are some things in there that are not entirely true or just need to be further explained. I'll let reaper break it down, he might make similar comments as I would.

Edit: something important that I think most look past... Mechanics, especially at dealerships, get a lot of bad rep because they are the big easy target. BUT, a lot of issues come right from the service writer. I'll get into more detail about that later...

 

The two biggest problems I have with it are:

1) The entire article is nothing more than a list of broad, sweeping generalizations. That's all well and good, but don't present it to the public as if it holds true everywhere.
2) Like you said, the service writers. Going through three people (customer ---> service writer ---> technician) leaves a lot of room for mis-communication... not to mention the ones that want technicians to up-sell even when there's nothing on the car that can be up-sold (I'm sorry. If a car doesn't need brakes, I'm not going to price out brakes. Not to mention that, as a technician, I'm not authorized to do anything to a car that's not on the repair order. Until I get the go-ahead from the service writer, I am not allowed touching that part of the car.

But anyway, I'll go more in-depth later tonight... apparently I have a social life now; news to me