🚀 go-pugleaf

Evan Platt wrote:

<snip>

> You would figure when Arco is about to be fined likely over a Billion
> dollars, they'd bend over backwards to keep customers, not blow them
> off.
> 
> They just lost my business.
> 
> Yes, I've contacted my credit card company to dispute, as well as
> filed a BBB and BAR complaint.

Many of the fault conditions in the cars computer will self-clear after 
a certain amount of driving which the technician obviously knew. He's 
not allowed to clear the OBD-II faults (though you can do it yourself 
with an OBD-II tool).

At Arco Smog Pros the first retest is free, then you pay again (you 
don't get unlimited free retests anywhere). It would make no sense for 
the station owner to offer a refund if it passed somewhere else since 
obviously he knew that the OBD-II faults are often cleared by a certain 
amount of driving where the fault does not re-occur (i.e. a loose gas 
cap will cause a fault that is self-clearing).

Still, if he didn't hook up the exhaust gas analyzer three times then he 
should have cut you some slack on just the OBD-II test. I know that the 
Arco Smog Pro that I go to will even do a free pre-test which is very 
useful because if your car is a gross polluter that information won't 
get sent to Sacramento (which  is a huge hassle). The owner (who I know) 
told me that he once had a guy come in and fail the smog test, and the 
vehicle just needed some minor adjustments which the technician said 
would cost $25. The guy said that he would fix it himself then bring it 
back for the free re-test. When he brought it back, it failed again, but 
this time as a gross polluter. The customer then agreed to pay the $25 
but it was too late since the data had already been sent to Sacramento.

The BP and Arco retailers are franchisees (some, but not all, of the 
AM/PM Mini Markets are company-owned). The current BP situation has 
nothing to do with the franchisees. In the Bay Area, BP/Arco doesn't 
even supply the fuel to the stations; the gasoline sold by BP and Arco 
comes from the Shell refinery since Arco has no refinery in the Bay Area.

Since the "free retest" is a marketing tool that tries to get you to 
have the station do the repairs, you might even count yourself as lucky 
that they just told you to drive around to clear the fault, rather than 
scamming you into unneeded repairs.

Soon you'll be going to the test-only stations for smog checks on a 2000 
  car. Then you'll be paying more for the test without any free retest.