I know virtually nothing about cars, in fact I just learned how to change my own oil about a year ago. My biggest fear is getting raped at the mechanic because of sheer ignorance. What is stopping them from going to change my brake pads and then telling me I need a new fluxcapacitor or fluvanoid-doohicky?

Besides the fact I’ve been slowly trying to learn more about cars another way to fight mechanic-rapist syndrome is to know the price of parts. Today, I’ve found a quality site that has great prices on car parts. RockAuto has an easy convient catalog to browse through car parts and their prices are better then any reliable site I’ve found. It’s not the only thing you need to do to stop getting wrenched at the shop, but knowing the prices of parts will help you gauge how trustworthy your shop is.

As Seinfeld says, You Can’t put a price on a good mechanic, and I’ve been searching for one for a while and finally got some recommendations, whom I am trying out tomorrow. If he is as good as people say, I will give you my recommendation, but now I am going in their armed with the knowledge of how much the parts in my problem area are. Think of RockAuto.com as the lube for Mechanic-Rapist-Syndrome, while it may not stop it from happening, it will greatly reduce the pain of taking your car to the shop.