Site Steers You Clear Of Car Repair Rip-Off
RepairPal Provides Range Of Prices For Auto Repair Work
POSTED: Friday, January 30, 2009
  Anton Malan/SXC |
If you've found a mechanic you trust, count yourself lucky.A Better Business Bureau poll last year revealed more than a third of consumers say they have "no trust" or "very little trust" in their car repair shop.To make things worse, a recent USA Today poll ranked auto repair as the most frustrating task Americans have to deal with -- worse than tax returns.One Web site is trying to help cut through that distrust and empower motorists to get the right work done at a fair price.RepairPal.com offers a vast database of information to help consumers get price ranges for auto repairs in many geographical areas in the U.S.While the site can't help you diagnose what's wrong when your car starts clunking or just refuses to start, if you tell it what repair the shop says you need, plus what car you have and where you live, it will give you a price range for the repair.The site also includes a directory of more than 270,000 local mechanics, with each shop shown on a Google Map. Members can also rate each mechanic, information that goes back into the pool of data RepairPal uses to generate recommendations and estimates.Along with the cost estimator and mechanic rankings, the site also offers expert advice when you look up a repair and repair logs for your cars. If you should ever decide to sell your car, it can also generate widgets of those logs to embed in eBay or Craigslist sale listings.The site does have some limitations though.If your driving a hybrid, it won't be able to help you. However, as more thorough data on hybrid repairs becomes available, those models will be added to the system.Because of its focus on the most popular models and years and the diminishing number of older cars on the road, the site also doesn't offer estimates for cars produced before 1990.However, it's easy to overlook those drawbacks when you consider RepairPal's recent launching of a free iPhone application, offering the same cost estimates to consumers on the road or at any repair shop.In addition to the features found on the site, the application lets you plot a course to the nearest mechanic using GPS and provides instant one-touch access to emergency roadside providers, including most automobile manufacturer help lines.
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