Major Mechanic Rip-Off

Hi Steemians,

Nothing gets on my nerves more than someone getting ripped off, especially when that person is your friend. For those who don't know me, I have been in the car/finance business for around 10 years now, and have almost seen it all. From an Uber driver crashing my car, fleeing the scene and not remembering the next day where the car was (it's a story for another day) to a customer trying to remove a tree in their front yard by using a a little car I had just sold them as a tractor. Not cool.

Anyway, back to my rant, a friend of mine I play futsal with, Ronnie, needed a work car a few years back so I sold him a nice cheap holden ute, black, with black leather interior for $5000, which was a good price, given that they were around the $6000 - $8000 dollar mark at the time, and this one was manual (a bit more sought after) and had a few extras like after market suspension to make it look a bit nicer. I haven't got an actual photo of the ute as I have changed a few phones since I sold it to him, but it looks almost identical to the one pictured below.

Here's a picture of Ronnie and I a few days ago in a game we played together...

So anyway, he called me yesterday saying that the RAC wanted to charge him $4500 to replace a stretched timing chain on the ute, which, granted, is a common issue for certain Holden V6 models around the 2006-2009 vintage. The problem is that the kit is only about $700 to buy, and takes about 10 hours to fit... see where I'm going here...

Much like his attitude on the court, Ronnie is furious, and so am I. Come on... $380 an hour for labour?? I am calling BS and am heading down to the RAC later today to have a chat with them. There is nothing more Un-Australian.

Ciao for Now!