When I got my first car at age 17, I had my dad start teaching me to work on it myself.  I knew I didn’t have the money to pay an Asian automotive maintenance shop, for one thing, but I also didn’t want to be one of those helpless females who didn’t know the first thing about their own cars.  Later on I worked for an aftermarket auto parts store, which only increased my knowledge about foreign and domestic car repair.

This knowledge ended up saving me from getting screwed over by an auto repair shop.  I dropped my car off at the shop to get the alignment done — one of the first (and last!) times I’ve ever not been there when my car is being worked on by someone else.  When I came back to pick the car up, they claimed that they couldn’t do the alignment because the strut was bent, and that they’d have to replace it.  However, they still wanted to charge me for the alignment check!

I complained and the manager ended up returning my money.  I then took my car to another shop and had them do the alignment.  Although it’s true that I may have bent something slightly when I hit a curb, it was only off by about 1 degree, which is pretty minor.  The other shop did the alignment without a problem, and even honored the coupon I had for the other repair shop!

Something to keep in mind when you are looking for a good Houston wheel alignments shop!

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