The kindness of (un)paid services masks a cunning business plan

The fact is that a person outside the technical world already has a million questions and doubts when buying a car that is not new: does the inspected object have some defect that an inexperienced eye cannot see, is the asking price adequate for the quality or will you just buy an expensive headache? An impartial and professional answer to at least a few similar questions can be obtained at any technical inspection center. To the credit of the men who work here it must be said that those who do not have a reliable machine expert-consultant often choose this path and remain completely satisfied.

The kindness of (un)paid services masks a cunning business plan

At the end of the summer RL, a resident of Klaipėda, decided to buy an eight-year-old BMW X5 and was content with a visit to the company’s “Tauragė Technical Control Center” for exactly one month. The TAC inspectors in Tauragi recorded only two notes on the inspection sheet: the German SUV did not have a fire extinguisher that met the requirements and the luminous flux emitted by the fog lights was poorly adjusted. Since it was recorded in the TA inspection card that the vehicle is intended to be registered in Lithuania, after visiting the “Register”, the person from Klaipėda automatically received an official permit to make its purchase.

However, four weeks later, when RL visited the BMW service center in the port city, it lost power. The helpful managers volunteered not only to adjust the lights, but also to re-evaluate the “health” state of the SUV with a professional eye. In the four-page service proposal given to the man shortly afterwards, he was asked to pay 2,153 euros only for the parts whose replacement the masters strongly recommended. With the compensation for the work, RL’s wallet should be lightened by a total of around 4,000 euros. Meaning what. almost a quarter of the asking price for a car of this age, make and model.

Naturally, after receiving such an offer, a question arose embedded in the uncensored lexicon: what the hell were the inspectors looking at and how did they not dry their hands after signing a positive conclusion in the trust protocol, if the suspension of the BMW X5 completely collapsed? When RL called Tauragė’s TAC, he expressed his surprise at such a different assessment of his car.

“After hearing this story, we ourselves felt uneasy for a while

maybe our controller really made mistakes and overlooked something? After all, wherever we work, everything happens. Then we agreed that the car will not be serviced until we organize a further inspection, in which our most experienced experts and colleagues from “Transkona” (the technical control center of the port city) will participate. After going to Klaipėda, to our and Mr. RL’s joy, the “consilium” did not find anything convincing reason why 4,000 euros should be spent on repairs,” said Stanislovas Daukšas, head of the “Tauragė Technical Inspection Center”.

By the way, inspectors at all technical inspection centers are usually criticized for being too “hung” on details, so it’s strange to say the least. Meanwhile, S. Daukšas assured that he would not be surprised, because most Lithuanian drivers know very little about the equipment they use, which is why they become easy prey for service companies.

“Undoubtedly there is no six-month-old car that could be damaged by replacing worn parts with new ones. However, in some cases, such rotations have nothing to do with traffic safety or economic logic. Simply by receiving a customer whose expertise is limited to knowing what type of fuel should be poured into the tank, numerous services obviously exploit this to increase their earnings. I dare to imagine that the recent story with the BMW X5 is just like that,” said Tauragė TAC. manager.

At this point we must recall the recent statements of car dealers calling for the “liberalization” of the Lithuanian technical inspection system, according to which they could carry out inspection of their customers’ cars completely free of charge. All costs of such a “free lunch” would likely be offset by inflated volumes of repair services. If the institution of independent oversight were effectively abolished, there would simply be no one left to act as an arbitrator in disputes of a similar nature.