You just drove off in a rented Chevy Cobalt and as the plastic nob for the radio falls off in your hand, you take one more deep breath and pray that you left your pride and joy to a competent service shop. After all, your idea of a fun Saturday is 4 hours with a Zaino kit and an engine detail brush. You balk when some one suggests you use the cheaper 89 octane gasoline and insist that the extra 30 cents keeps you on good speaking terms with your baby. And, you stay in a state of constant physical fitness due to the half mile walk to the mall door from your parking space— way out in BFE. Face it, you’re a car guy (or girl!). So why shouldn’t you be worried? Leaving your car for service of any kind can truly be a gamble, especially for your first visit to a particular repair shop. You may have gotten their name from a co-worker and felt confident after they spoke highly of their service. What you don’t know is that there’s a smashed, half eaten donut on the floor of your “trusted” co-workers Kia, and they have enough car-door-dings that what’s left of their paint job reads like the July issue of braille PlayBoy.

Moral: personal referrals are great, but the source is everything.

The next time you move to a new city, change to another car brand, or just get fed up with your existing mechanic, consider who is suggesting your new repair shop.

Our goal at sho’fr is to reach car guys and gals just like you. The kind that recognize the sacrilege of automatic car washes for what they really are. The kind that will take the time to share their honest and experienced feedback about the service of their most prized possession. We’re on our way to providing the source for your next auto service referral.

Besides a great bit of witty writing and acting, the following spoof Chrysler training video delivers an important message in our context: although they sound confident and creditable, what they’re saying is clearly non-sense. If you get this feeling from your mechanic, maybe it’s time for a change. A joke this may have been, but how often does it feel like the line “…directed to conduct a series of tests that will effectively raise the billable hours of the service department, but will form no other useful function” is what your repair shop has really been taught to do?