Is the Grass Greener on the other side?
Green grass with a shrub fence line, it looks nice, but what is on the other side?
The big question of the week, is the Grass Greener? Yes, yes it is, if you are on the right side of the fence.
When do you know you are on the right side of the fence? When you get what you want, duh.
So is it Ok to jump ship for something better, yes! If it is better and not a tease.
Many “big chain” retail shops today will bid low to draw you in, then slowly add things until they get what they want. This is called (a bait and switch) Coupon shopping automotive repair can lead you to bigger problems.
Wow, this looks good, it’s green.
At Tony’s we have an up front pricing system.
Yes, it may seem higher if you are a discount shopper, but it is real world pricing with quality parts and a solid warranty.
Some people, including my wife will drive 10 miles to save $1.00 on a pair of $18.00 shoes. The percentage of savings ‘vs’ gas cost does not add up. The grass was not greener.
The savings has to be BIG for me to look across the fence. Service providers like to know you use them because you like the work they do. The price is not the main issue, it’s about the quality! Anyway, if I want a service to match a price, most of the time they can match apples for apples, you just have to ask.
Stacy was a long time client and her truck needed transmission repairs. Our transmission vendor looked at the truck and advised a full overhaul. The transmission had 147,000 miles on it. It lived a good life and then some. Stacy did not like the price of the repair. Stacy was mad, because she felt our price was just too high. Stacy picked up her truck and took it to a big name transmission retailer that said they could do the full overhaul 20% cheaper than we could.
Fast forward 2 months, Stacy finally got her truck back from the transmission shop. Yep, It was in the shop a long time. The first overhaul only went a week before it failed. Stacy’s second visit to the retailer took 2 weeks to sort out who would pay for the failure. In all, Stacy had to take her truck back to the shop 4 more times before it was working correctly. It was a big mess. Stacy, spent over $4,000 for all of her efforts, not including rental car charges. Stacy was not happy.
Our overhaul price was only $3,200 and it came with a 24,000 mile / 2 year warranty. The other shop only offered 1 year and 12,000 miles.
I know the full story, because Stacy’s brother is a client at our shop. I hope Stacy will return to our shop some day. Stacy found out too late, the grass was not greener.
No body want to land in something like this. Bouncing from shop to shop will not save money in the long run and you could land in a nasty mess.
Price matching an estimate is easy. I know my estimates will always be higher, I am picky about quality. If a client has a legitimate written estimate from a competitor, we can match that estimate apples for apples.
Quality vs price; the quality will be remebered long after the price savings.
