how to deal with mechanics scam?

[ScienceGiraffe]

gradcafe is the only forum that i read, i apologize first for posting a not academic related question here.

Here is the situation, i was driving out of state and my car broke down. it was a sunday and not many shops were open. i towed my car to a shop that was open that day and rent a car and drove home. the next day, the shop called me and told me i needed a clutch replacement, i was sort of expecting that and the price was ok so i gave the green light for them to fix it. and the bad part begin...two days later, they called me and said they found something else wrong and would cost me another $500. i felt like that was really a scam, my car is 5 years old and less than 50k miles. but they already have my car, they took it apart for the clutch and i am 5 hours away. they could easily "make" a problem on my car if i don't agree to fix that 2nd problem. i could've towed the car to a second shop for an inspection, but towing is not cheap and again the first shop can still mess something up on my car. Even though it's just an isolated event in my life and i will get over it soon. but i really just feel powerless in this situation...

so what could i have done in the situation? Thanks guy!

[avflinsch]

What kind of car? 50k seems a bit low for a clutch replacement, unless you are really abusing it.
What was the additional problem? Is it something that typically needs replacement around the same mileage point?

Probably not all that much that you can do at this point other than requesting the used other part and getting it evaluated at another mechanic after you get it back. If there is a scam of some sort you might be able to file a claim with your state consumer board.

 

[spectastic]

read the reviews on that shop.

a couple of common practices that wear out a clutch: keeping the car steady on an incline hill while you're stopped, using the clutch to engage the 1st gear while your car is still going backwards. If you don't really do any of these things in excess, and your car only has 50k miles, that's a red flag.

how did your car break down?

what's the other problem?

 

[rising_star]

I've been thinking about this for a while. My car is 15 years old, has ~122K miles on it, and is still going on it's original clutch. Were people learning to drive a manual transmission vehicle and driving it roughly? Do you ride the clutch (intentionally or not)? When I say riding, I mean leaving your foot on the clutch pedal even if you're not really pressing it in. I'm honestly surprised you'd need a new clutch at 50K! That said, if you really needed a new clutch, you would know. I drove a previous car until the clutch was actually shredded and it got progressively harder to get the car to actually "catch" in a gear until it became impossible, which was when the clutch was completely gone. Was your car at that point, @ScienceGiraffe?