News reporter catches auto repair shops!

undercover mechanic then a blonde and a brunette enter a mechanical workshop I have a small problem but what happens inside is not a joke this is illegal it is 100 illegal what these technicians do not know is the brunette she is a mechanic and the blonde is me The homework for

auto

repair

ABC's The Lookout is none of your business, it's a big business, it's a big industry, but we have such a bad reputation that just a few bad apples are damaging it. Audra Forden agreed to be our undercover mechanic. She is a mother of three children. scout leader we can see the oil leak and he has a website called women should know that having that little bit of information makes your entire experience at a

repair

shop much easier.

She believes that women can be targeted more often than men in the

auto

repair shop, but now Jerry disagrees with Audra. She believes that some mechanics can detect anyone like him who doesn't know about cars. I have in my hand three parts of a car what is a fuse these are all fuses you have me so jerry also goes undercover and ben goes as a shotgun we bought two almost identical cars in terms of the differences between them one is blue and the other is white well then jerry and audra practice the same lines i just bought this car we are thinking about taking a road trip so i want you to rotate the tires the guy that sold it to me said it needed spark plugs if you could do the brake job , that would be great and the windshield wipers aren't working, can you fix that too?

And if there is anything else the car needs. to inform us next we hide our cameras hello and finally we hide our mechanic who smells quite a bit better than the carvery jerry makeover requires a little less work ready for our first tactical briefing, since you know, we will fan out all over the metropolitan area. mechanics and

shops

to see how they treat us for the purposes of this test. Audra has made sure the cars are in good condition, but she breaks something very small, a cheap fuse that prevents the windshield wipers from working on both cars, the only thing the mechanics need.

What needs to be done to fix your windshield wipers is to diagnose and replace this four dollar part. I'm excited, in fact I hope the industry shows that it is doing the right thing for pilots. Both the men's and women's teams will visit the same five stores in New York. and new jersey, within a few days of each other, we stop a few blocks from an independent store in jersey city, the last thing we need to do is turn on the cameras and then we can arrive and drive with our cameras rolling until we reach the competition masculine.

The team comes first Hey, how are you doing? The windshield wipers don't work. I heard it's going to rain today. The mechanic fixes the four dollar fuse right away and for evaluation, heart and labor charges eighty five dollars, but if it was clean he wouldn't do it. Change it and they point out the guy's squeaky clean air filter, which makes sense because we put clean filters in both cars. Hi Sarah, where is the air filter before Audra and I get in? We review ours. This white part is the actual filter when we get there. In the store we spoke to the manager Mickey Hello, my windshield wipers were not working.

The wipers do work, but while they told our team that all they did was change the fuse, they tell us that we have a wiring problem, so we have a running the wire from here under the dash, behind the dash, back over here, behind your engine, to get your engine running. The rate for audra and me is $170. I'll tell you about Mickey and he also recommends replacing something called a PCV valve with something else. What they didn't try to sell are undercover men who call pollution circulation and look like this. You're going to fix it so it doesn't have any problems, right?

And look what's under the valve, it's our once clean air filter, how did it get there? so dirty, look at our hidden cameras, they actually catch them removing that pristine filter, look again now listen to Mickey selling us a new one, the set is dirty, it's not one hundred percent there, but if you're doing that stuff, luckily you'll want to have adequate ventilation. Mickey makes a great effort to return our old pieces to us. I'll show you the old parts. Ah, there you go, the education is great, perfect for you to know that it was done in the car.

I personally checked this air filter this morning. They put dry oil inside what is dry oil an absorbent that you put on the floor to absorb any spills oh so you recognize the things I do there are the things in the air filter that was white as snow this morning in your store audra she also says we didn't need a new pcv valve and when she checked what they did this valve was not changed and this would require more work to change it we found out they didn't replace that part at all not just the part they gave us saying that it was our old one it doesn't even belong in our car so here's the one they gave us and what do you have there.

I have the right part, they are different, no matter how you look at it, they are different parts, we finally check it. all that wiring work they claim to have done to make our wipers work even though we know it was just a bad fuse the wires haven't been touched they haven't been replaced they haven't been taped this hasn't been touched at all okay, maybe maybe you have a good explanation trying one two three we come back to find out that audra is in our undercover van just press this button and talk here and in my ear two sets of microphones headphones ready with mechanical information if eli needs it we are at mickey we brought a couple of cars here last month and we fixed them and you charged us for work you didn't do, I made a mistake, well if so you sure made a lot of mistakes so here's the customer that showed up with me and here she is in your everyday life in your shop looking at our car you said we needed a new air filter but ours was new it was dropped and got a bunch of gravel inside it stops if the air filter falls on the floor and become dirty, why didn't you remove the dirt?

It has to have been done on purpose, right, it was you or one of your guys, and what's with that valve that they never actually changed, giving us back a part that doesn't even go on our car and then I apologize for them mickey has an interesting explanation I recognized you you recognize me no one ever recognizes me and why didn't she do the job honestly because we're feeding what you want that's what you want you want drama you want it all these things so you were trying to give us some drama, Yes, he was, but apparently the store owner we met when we were undercover was not amused by Mickey's clever plan.

He later told us that he cares about his reputation in the community and is taking corrective action with Audra. We visited three more work

shops

. They all recommended maintenance work. Our experts said we didn't need to. It bothers me a lot to think that it actually happens, but you know, yeah, it happens, which brings us to it. According to one of Audra's tips, the best way to be safe in a repair shop is to know your car. Do you really need a cabin air filter? Does your car have one? Well, you know it.