Whether it’s repairing a car that’s been stowed away in a storage unit all winter or having a new battery installed, Toronto auto mechanics and motorists got some bad reviews recently. After testing 31 repair shops in Toronto and Calgary to measure the competency of their mending skills, only 30 percent of the repairmen passed the examination.
The APA says they had a “mystery shopper” take a well-maintained 2006 Chevrolet Malibu to nearly three dozen auto shops to have it inspected and to fix the nature of the car’s problem, which was that it failed to start because officials had simply loosened a battery cable.
Using an expert to test the quality of the car care, APA reported that 22 of the 31 shops failed the test because they charged for unnecessary work or recommended work that wasn’t needed. What’s more, many of the repairmen failed to adequately address the problem with the cable. Toronto autoshops performed particularly badly in this regard, as only one of the 11 shops tightened the cable without performing additional unneeded repairs.
With offices in Toronto and Montreal, the APA says these investigations are necessary to ensure motorists’ safety behind the wheel and keep them from being taken advantage of.
