First off, happy mother’s day to all of you mommas out there. For this mother’s day, we have an interesting study for you. It looks like RepairPal, an online repair website that we posted about previously, has commissioned a study and found something quite alarming. The study, which was done by Harris Interactive, found that 77% of car owners and leasers think that they are being sold unnecessary car repairs from most auto shops.

This is a huge number of drivers who are convinced that they are being taken for a ride by their local auto shop. While we highly doubt that auto technicians are that dishonest, there certainly are some auto repair places which will recommend repairs or even maintenance tasks which may not strictly-speaking be required. Of course, this is done to make money. But, at Fort Collins Foreign Car Service, we adamantly believe that this kind of behavior will backfire in the long-run. Why? Because these kinds of actions are those that can lose your business the trust of your customers. And trust in the business world is worth more than its weight in gold.

Since this RepairPal survey was done as part of a mother’s day publicity stunt which involved giving away an auto repair discount as part of a contest, the survey also asked respondents whether they thought that women were treated differently than men when working with their local auto technician. The response was a resounding ‘yes,’ with 71% agreeing that their local auto shop could be ‘condescending to women’.

If this takes the form of simply assuming that women don’t know as much about cars or auto repair it would be bad enough, but if it actually extends to some auto shops charging women more for the same work because of this fact, it would be downright exploitative. At Fort Collins Foreign Car Service, we treat every customer equally. We pride ourselves on being honest and giving the best and most accurate information to our customers. And, of course, we also take pride in doing our auto repairs right the first time and at the right price.

This mother’s day we’d like to especially salute the single mothers who work so hard and receive so little recognition in today’s society. Happy mother’s day to all.