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A dealership bashing other places for ripping people off that's hilarious.

17:44 Brake cleaner used on actual, honest-to-god, god damn brakes. What a sight to behold.

You are 100% the right person to be in the auto repair industry. You care about your work, you care about your customers, and you take pride in yourself. What a beautiful and sadly rare set of characteristics in a person these days.

I can appreciate that you are fixing parts rather than just telling the customer they need all new I feel like that's how you get return customers in the good way

First thing I do when customer complains about the brakes is replace the cabin filter 🙄

Dropped my van for an oil change. The counter man wrote up that I "needed" cabin and air filters because they were clogged. I purposely removed the cabin filter so it couldn’t be inspected, but somehow the genius saw something that did no exist. I never trust dealerships or nationwide service companies…they’re all crooks! I only trust my mechanic of 20+ years who has never cheated me like all the other places do.

It’s good to see other people be as detail oriented as I was when I worked on cars! Keep up the good work! When I worked at a shop that was just me and the owner we got cars in all the time that had $1,xxx estimates from our local dealerships. We’d bring them in and inspect them and they would usually maybe need one thing on the list and save the customer $700+ in unneeded repairs. The owner kept each estimate people brought in from the dealers and had a filing cabinet full of them!

When I was a dealer tech mid 90's, You were taught the difference between a leak and a seep and yes, caliper slides must slide to adjust for pad wear and if calipers were sticking? That dog be a smokin!

I would take all of my vehicles to you for repair. You really know your stuff. I was a diesel mechanic many years ago. I can can still appreciate your passion for the profession.

My favorite frustration story is about my wife's car. It had a vibration. Her dad helped out by taking it to the dealer while she was at work. The dealer said it needed brakes. $700. We declined. I took it back that Saturday. After waiting for an hour, they came back and said a wheel was loose, no charge. That proved they didn't even look at the brakes on the first visit.

You're videos are informative and it's nice to see an honest mechanic who knows what he's doing.... Thanks....

Sir, People in your area are lucky to have you to take there car to. Way to and thanks for being honest and transparent and just over all caring about the vehicles you work on.

I love it so far. Too many people in business as a whole are more interested in fixing the blame on someone instead of fixing the problem. You are a wise man Ray and defy the mechanic stereotype.

Learning to shed that feeling of guilt that you did something wrong when a machine breaks down simply due to entropy was a big game changer for me too Ray. Totally get what you're saying about not getting too invested while still taking personal responsibility

Anybody that knows you, knows you are an honest mechanic. God bless ya! Keep up excellent work. 👌

I like the fact that you perfectly describe the importance of brake pin slider grease!! Very thorough brake inspection performed like the dealership should have done!!

Loving this channel. When we send our cars to be serviced or repaired, we get sent a video by the mechanic doing the work. He films any areas that are problematic and explains what's going on. Then, if repairs are needed, they call us and ask permission and give us an estimate. I love that approach. They also vacuum and wash the car before we pick it up for free.

I don't think we clean and lube brake parts often enough, especially the whole park brake mechanism and sliders. I also love the way you recognized those rubber rings on the sliders were missing, that's a pro moment right there. Way to go, turning a negative into a positive.

I appreciate your work. Commercial electrician and foreman for almost 40 years here. Believe me when I say it's hard to find good, honest, smart mechanics, be it auto, electrical, plumbing, etc

I'm an old son of a mechanic... a shade tree DIY'er who has been enjoying your humor, advice, tips and honesty. I would like to offer a bit of health advice that my father learned the hard way. When he was a young mechanic working for a dealer, it was common brake repair practice to take an air hose and blow all the rusty dust off the parts. This would leave a 'dust' cloud in the shop for all to breathe. Back in those days, the shoe lining was made with asbestos... needless to say what he died from. I realize asbestos is no longer used, but are you 100% certain that the 'dust' you are creating isn't laced with some contaminant that will be listed tomorrow as "found harmful in lab mechanics'. :) "We don't know what we don't know" so please wear a mask! That's all...carry on.

Very nice work Ray, as a car owner, it is quite painful to go to the garage, so it is very nice to have a service station that looks after your concerns and puts out quality work. In that scenario you have trust, and that is what the owner appreciates. Good to see tradesmen who takes their work seriously, bravo sir!

After what you said at the beginning, I realized how deeply I love and embrace the diagnostic process. I develop software, and the same objectivity and discipline is required to look at all of the things when debugging any system issue or designing new solutions. One has to leave "not my code" at the door to do it well. Love the vids, keep up the good work!

Absolutely wonderful diagnosis. Thank you for the learning experience.

Your a great mechanic. Been in the business 30 years. Would hire you in a heartbeat. Great content and great job! Plus your funny and don't drop f-bombs so customers can hear it.

Whenever I do my brakes, I clean everything from top to bottom. This honestly just looks like an accumulation of lazy brake jobs comeback. Glad you took care of it for them.

As a service professional in a different-but-not-so-different service profession, I really connected with and appreciated the wisdom of your words in the opening minutes of this video. It's something I'm still working on. Thank you, good sir.

I like the play by play and the in depth explanations. Your humor is super as well. thanks.

Good stuff, Rainman!!! The Zen of car repair!!!

Congratulations for the 300k subs! I feel the same way about the customers. I am dealing with customers regularly, but I always tel them it was a used car when it came in, it’s still a used car when I’m done, just trying to make it as good as it can be. But can’t do my job well without being objective. Treat everything as it’s own issue, even if it’s coming back for something that’s like the original complaint.

Ray, was a pleasure to have met you. Only wish I had the time to leave my 06’ Highlander with you. Hopefully, the timing belt and the other squealing belt hangs in there till I get back home up north. But, now that I know where you are, the next time I’m in FLA, ill make an appt to have you do any work I need. Your videos are awesome, keep em’ coming.

I have repaired my own vehicles for 50 years. That said, I would appreciate your efforts completely as you are honest and considerate in your work. I haven't seen anything I would object to, nicely done !

You are very "Articulate", very well done! Your professionalism is above and beyond... You should have no problem keeping the customer happy and coming back for future work. ✌️ 😎 Blessings from Georgia, USA 🙏

Totally agree with your approach. Just been stuffed by a repair centre. Had a repair carried out - no complaints, good job, gave positive feedback. I noted there was some damage to the alloy rim, so whilst I was booking it in for further work I asked if they had seen the damage before carrying out the repair - the answer was not what I expected. A full on aggressive response, including suggesting I was attempting to lay the blame on them to get the alloy refurbished. I was polite and non-threatening in my approach, certainly accused them of nothing, I was taken aback and as a result needless to say I cancelled the booking and walked away - their loss given it would have been around £700 in their kitty!.

Hats off to you Ray on your stated approach to this - grey area - no one taking ownership of customers issue - you stepped up - hats off to you - in the short term will cost business your charge out labour rate - but longer-term sets the standard - what do they say integrity is what you do whilst no one is watching

I like his interactions. It’s quite informative and engaging/entertaining! Thanks!💝

I have a very high appreciation for people that take pride in their work, perform careful and thoughtful examination. Really hate stealerships. Far too often they have no work ethic, no moral ethic to seek the truth, just a drive to make money at all costs. Love your approach and thank you for sharing the video.

You did a great job with the way you explained the feeling mechanics can get from a “come back” personally I have seen a lot of it in my years of working in shops and it happens to everyone, with it comes wisdom.

They way you delivered your response on being objective to a vehicle makes me as a dealer tech feel great about non dealer techs, I feel some shops hold a higher standard for workmanship and addressing all issues whatever they may be in a mind set of yours is very good for many young dealer techs, I just hit my 12 years at shop and this makes me miss the younger years with less stress

I’ve been an Asian import technician for almost 30 years and dealerships bashing independent shops and independent shops bashing dealerships is a story as old as time. I got my start, and initial training, in dealerships. I guess I stayed at dealerships for roughly ten years and decided to leave when dealerships decided to open their shops on Saturday. I have a life outside of work and I personally think that if I give myself to my job five days out of seven I’ve been more than generous with my time. I’ve never regretted leaving the dealership life and I’ve learned far more about being a better technician in the independent world. I’ve seen my share of crooked scumbags in the dealerships. All they are capable of doing is repetitive maintenance work. Give them a heavy diagnostic job and they piss and moan about someone else getting all the “gravy” work. I’ve also seen some real losers in independent shops too. They take no pride in their work and slap cheap garbage parts on cars. I left the dealerships and went to work for an independent shop that specialized in Asian cars. The owner was there every day running things to insure that the work was done right and no shady stuff was going on. We installed the exact same parts that the dealerships used and in some cases better parts. A mechanic with character is going to do good work regardless of who his employer is. We actually had several dealerships sending us work that they couldn’t do from time to time.

I agree Ray. Being objective helps a ton even on vehicle you have worked on makes you think clearer and do a better job for the customer @Rainman Ray's Repairs

Great video Ray. I am very pleased to see that you take no nonsense from your tools or components. These things need to be firmly reprimanded when they disobey orders otherwise you will finish up with the whole car rebelling against you...and that would be bad . Cheers from Australia

Ray, you have unknowingly helped me. Did my front breaks yesterday (Watching these vids have helped with my confidence in doing things like breaks) and was getting that same chuffing noise as those breaks. As soon as you mentioned the backing plate, it clicked. Ah, I didn't check that. Sure enough, that was the issue. Keep up the lords word. Love your content, even if I tend to be listening in the car and can't get to the Like button to Tappy Tap it all the time

I’m as mechanical as a three toed sloths. That being said I really enjoyed your work. I love the little things that you do the phone ring and you add a sound . Dropping something and you say gravity. Just love watching you.

Solid advice at the start there bro. Getting worked up over other people's usage of a machine you fixed is something I feel in a complete different field - software engineering. Thanks for the reminder that it's not all about the engineer!

Great videos Ray. . Can you remind people to thoroughly clean the caliper slide pin bore and rubber grommet before reassembly as it is sometimes overlooked. Keep up your great work.

You're only as good as your last job, this is one to watch for all those shops that don't take care of their customers. Quality job there Ray as always 👍

Love watching your work when I'm chilling after work. I see stuff like this all the time with new customers coming from dealer or other shops. No wonder mechanics are often played as the shifty devious type in movies and shows. That said I myself wouldn't have ordered new slide pins for the rear. Doesn't make sense with used rusty calipers and brackets. Plus they are easy to clean with a bench grinder wire brush (yes I know once the coating is off they don't last as long but old used caliper bracket so why not), and once that rubber damper on one of the pins swells enough I just toss it. Never felt any vibration once it was tossed myself, and never had a complaint from a customer. Another quick trick is if the boots are swelled up, I take a drill and bore out some of the rubber. I know it sounds backyard'ish but when people are waiting and impatient, its a quick fix and works well. Again, when dealing with a set of calipers and brackets that are up there in mileage, its not really a bad idea. I also often clean out backing plates and drum and rotor surfaces of rust. After 20 plus years in the industry I learned I should've been wearing a good mask for the rust dust that flies off. I invested in proper masks last few years. Hope you're protecting your lungs bro. When you're young and strong feels like a joke but it can catch up with you. Keep up the awesome videos. Appreciate your honesty and dedication in our profession.

Extremely instructive. Thank you

Doesn’t look like dealer tech took anything apart as you did judging by the dirt on the bolts. Very thorough Ray Also shows that having a brake clean/adjust service done occasionally is money well spent

Appreciate your honesty Ray wish all mechanics were like you.

Always educational and informative.

I usually do my brakes myself but I always clean my slide pins and lubricate the areas my brake discs slide up and down on. It's a good practice to do and gives me more confidence knowing that they are done right the first time. I can understand a business only doing what was requested of them but sometimes this is the type of stuff I try to avoid.

Awesome job Ray! Every single dealer I've ever dealt with has tried to tell me about failed calipers/pads/rotors with NEVER visually inspecting them (one time, the whole setup was 1 week old!).

if i replaced every brake/gas line with rust on it, I would be working until the end of time......I really don't like the mentality of the dealers but the mechanics just do what the shop tells them to look for repairing.......replacing calipers would have fixed the issue but caliper pins or just cleaning and lubing them was way cheaper and more exact way of repair but some shops are in it for the big bucks and customers seem to believe WHATEVER the dealer tells them...great video Ray

Well done video. Hopefully your customer saw this video and the thorough job you did!

I’ve been a mechanic for42 years your doing a great job keep up the great work I wouldn’t mind working in the bay next to you I believe that you are honest 😇😎🥊keep up the great job, Thanks

What I enjoy most in these videos is No.1, his professionalism, No.2, his work ethic and No.3, his thoroughness...and let's not forget his sense of humor!

Ray... I wish I could have your mentality towards these things. I can also get pretty worked up when "blamed" for something even though I know I did a good job, very hard to stay objective... but will always admit it when indeed I did something wrong even though not on purpose. That makes it hard sometimes, but on the other hand it also proves that I (still) care about doing my job.

As ususal wife and I enjoy your video, no matter what you are doing. We run a small business caring for folks cars, and do all sorts of jobs on all sorts of cars. When watching todays video it seems at the previous guy did not get really to the point when doing the brake job. If we do a brake job it usually lasts at least 3 years before you need to do it over again. Thank you so much, and all our love and admiration to you, Ray! Greetings from Sweden!

Wow, Ray, you are a thorough mechanic! Good work, my friend!

Always tricky when another shop gets involved, taking what the customer says with a "grain of salt" as too what they were told. I agree with another comment below, looks like that Yoda has been in some water or they like to go off roading, regardless a simple brake service is all that is needed. My main issue is with the other shop saying it needs front calipers. CLASSIC FLAT RATE issue again. If they would have sold that job they would have knowingly done it without a conscious which is total bullshit and continues to give our industry a bad wrap. Good job Ray.

Great customer service the issue was handled well! I can't say I blame the dealer too much. I've worked at a Toyota dealer and f I had seen oil residue around the valve covers and inspected the calipers I'd have probably recommended the same based on the rusted condition. Slide pins sticking are unpredictable as to weather they're gonna come out or not when corrosion is involved and if they are actually stuck a caliper would be needed. That said the rear axle braking system was completely overlooked and servicing the front wouldn't have resolved the braking noise and it's baffling that it wasn't mentioned in the estimate at all. For those performing brake services Permatex 24125 Extreme Ceramic Brake Grease is a great product that stays on the slide pins usually until the pads are needed again even in rust prone conditions. The temperature rating is really high (3000*F) so the grease tends to degrade at a much slower rate than generic or even OE Toyota brake grease (3-400*F).

Thanks, you have rekindled my interest in auto repair, getting back into it. I have the greasy nails and cut, bruised hands to prove it. I really thought I had lost it for good with my older age, but I got more done in the last month than I thought I ever thought. I can still hack it!!

I like how you say to keep your emotions out and just look at it for what it is. Let the parts speak for themselves and go from there.

Good job Ray. Good Customer service these days is far and few between with auto shops.

This one must vacation up north in winter each year or it used to be a northern vehicle. We don't have that problem with the rotor rubbing on the backing plate because they are usually rusted away!

Wow. This video is a year old and I can hear such a huge difference in your voice. Even though you were fun & entertaining back then, you are so. much. happier. now! So happy for you.

All my years in the business, you communicated that well

Its all in the little detail things...like the rust on the e brake drum area and caliper slide pins. Redoing the valve covers for the reasons you stated is spot on reasoning !! These are the kind of things that make your workmanship stand out in the best way to me Ray:-) I agree also about the dealer just Xing things in one shot vs doing it as each thing was looked at...if in fact it truly was looked at by the dealer fully.

A Honda dealer tried this with my wife; (in fact all of them do this when they run into a Honda brought in by un-knowledgeable people who come in with an older/high mileage car. My wife brought in her odyssey at the time with about 120K miles, nothing wrong with it, and they returned her a checklist of things wrong that totaled $5K. Now the thing wasn't worth $5K, so she called me and asked what to do, I told her to bring the list home. And a lot of things looked pretty scary, broken suspension, failed steering components. They even had pictures in the estimate of tie-rod ends broken, collapsed shocks... it looked pretty bad I told her it was nonsense, but she didn't quite believe me with the "how could they just lie if they have pictures", so I told her to take it to the local guy and he looked it over and laughed and said "nothing is wrong with the car" and didn't even charge us anything. So I took the estimate back to the Honda dealer, and I said, what do these pictures mean? Did you actually take a picture of the tie-rod? "No sir, that's a picture of what it looks like when it breaks". I see. A few weeks later, friends of ours got the same treatment (we should have warned them). They walked out after buying a new car (and getting nothing for the trade-in). So you understand why dealers are eager to drive business both ways... either you spend $5K fixing something that doesn't need to be fixed, or they sell you a new car.

Great video. Thanks for sharing. New subscriber here from Philadelphia PA

I like to see people who take pride in their work! It really is a rare thing nowadays and almost unheard of because they just want to take short cuts just to get done with their work faster to just hurry up to get to another job or they just don't care or on the most part they really don't like what they are doing especially when it's a free job because they have to do it again and 99% of the time it was their fault for not doing the job right in the first place! Like the stuck caliber slider bolts, if they would have cleaned and lubed them like they should have done in the first place you wouldn't have to be doing it now! Because it takes a long time for that brake grease to turn sticky and gummy because that is synthetic good grease, they just didn't do it! You can tell a stuck caliber by inspecting the pads usually the inside pad will have less pad and like you said hot spots on roots and glazed brake pads. The build up of rust could be 50-50 it may have built up scaling or again they didn't want to take the time to sand the rust off which is sad. I hate it when another company bashes on another company that is in poor taste in trying to steal a customer and they were going to rip off that costumer too which made it even worse, what low-lifes! And they were bashing a decent company it looks like to me! You are going above and beyond and that shows you care good for you!

I had this happen to me recently. Went to another shop first and they were perplexed, "nothing needs work," they said. Filed a complaint with corporate and the GM was really freaked. He went through the inspection again with me and confirmed that the first guy was wayy off, like $900 off. Never going there again.

Huge positive to you on the caliper pins. They appear to have the high temp silicone grease on them. It is imperative to use that grease even though it’s expensive.

100% agree with your objective approach. I do the same thing in software development and I believe it helps me stay professional and keep my judgement from being clouded.

Love your videos man keep it up! Also when I watch them in my beater corolla with 2 12 inch subs it's crazy how much bass you hear when your driving. You got a pretty good mic 🎤 😉

caliper drop at 19:29 breaks my heart, AND the crusty rubber. What everyone doesn't know is that putting tension on healthy brake hoses rarely results in any immediate damage.

Having lived and worked as a mechanic for decades in the New England Rust Belt, where the Dept. of Trans. helpfully dumps staggeringly vast amounts of salt and brine on the roads, specifically to wreck your car, I have come up with two solutions. For rotor-type parts, where you can take the part off the car, I put it into a tank with a water solution of washing soda (similar to baking soda, but not quite). Then apply a DC current to the part with one clamp (the part is suspended with a rod, you clamp on the rod, the current flows to the part, or you can clamp to part of the part that is left clear of the water), the other terminal clamped to a sheet of metal the bottom end of which is immersed into the tank. Now you run the current and the rust will be reverted back into metal. I use a hefty battery charger, set it on 40 amps, it takes a while but eventually the part is cleaned up. If you have a welding machine with DC output then that would go much faster. Once you get the part cleaned up, then I spray the non-contact areas with high-temperature paint. And then I paint the heads of all the bolts, and the entire caliper housing, so you have no rust going forward. When installing new parking brake shoes, I paint all surfaces except the contact pads, nice coat of anti-rust primer, that is typically good for a decade of service. Again, no rust. Yes, it takes me two days to do one axle, but when done, I don't have these rust problems, so in my view, that makes it worthwhile. Every time I take something apart, all the hardware and the part itself is carefully painted and color-coded. Matching bolts have the heads painted red, another pair in Yellow, another in Green. The paint scheme tells you where it goes, and also tells you that that part of the car was already worked on. And don't forget spray-primer, then undercoat paint, on the underside panels. All my cars are over 20 years, run fine, rust free. Sure it's work, but then again, I don't have to make car payments any more, either. Cheers to all.

Yes you did communicate properly. Love your videos.

Because of the rigours of winter, I have always recommended to my customers to get brakes checked and serviced every 6 months or in the spring at the least to keep everything working smoothly. It is very important for callipers that slide in the bracket since the weather is constantly attacking the slider surface. I also always used anti-seize on the bolts, anti-rattle on the pads and proper slider lube. On drum-brake vehicles, there were seized adjusters and broken parking brake auto-adjusters to deal with. We still have those issues with the parking brakes in the rear rotors.

I think the ratcheting caliper depressor is my favorite tool I own. So much better than those crank ones with the little knobs that kill your hands.

great content as usual ray 👍 only suggestion i would have is to wear a face mask when grinding all that rust off most of the stuff in it is harmless but certain elements like carbon and silica can cause real problems down the line.

Awesome stuff!! I LOVE watching experts repair professional's work. Remember guys, if you get paid for it, you are a pro(fessional). But not every pro is an expert 😉

This happened to me 3 weeks ago. Went to the dealership for an inspection and they quoted $600 for calipers, rotors , and pads. Said no thanks, they called back lowering it to $400 for 1 caliper. I asked if it was made of solid gold and declined all service. Took it to my known good mechanic, absolutely NOTHING was wrong. Pads were 70% worn so we decided to do them while he was in there. You'd think in a place that requires inspections there would be a way to report false failed inspections but there isn't.

I had no idea there was a special tool for compressing brake calipers. I always just used a c-clamp. The c-clamp works though, so I don't think I'll be running out to buy a specialty tool. Seriously though, this was a LOT of work. I hope you charged the customer for at least some of it. As a DIY, that would have taken me all day and probably late into the night.

Everyone talks that good stuff. Keep up the good work man.

Always entertaining ! I always enjoy your videos !

The 1 thing in life that worries me is having a dry slider !

Dealers like to bash the other shops. Try to keep people coming to the dealer. I've heard - "If a mechanic is any good they work for a dealer." Yet I've had some crappy work done by a dealer.

Very entertaining as always. Great video!

Well I'll be, I struggle watching movies from start to finish because it may not keep my attention. But this video was a change of pace and educationally refreshing to me and I liked it! 🤣! Dude you are in top of things, not over it nor under it, but precisely on it, so keep up the great work!

Great job pal 👍 nice to find a good mechanic, great work

From my experience, everything you say about being objective is the best way to handle situations. Sometimes experienced mechanics forget that there is ALWAYS more to learn and that mistakes definitely will happen. Most of the time a customer will be understanding and thankful if you find that you did something wrong and fix it. Yeah, it might suck having to do the same job twice, but you won't make that mistake again and the customer will usually show appreciation for you getting them going properly.

Well said. Objectivity is important in sooo many things. Many people would do well to learn from that.

Nice and Shiny good work @Rainman Ray's Repairs

Like watching your videos. Just want to let you know. The reason the rear drums are so rusty is because the customer doesn’t use the parking break handle. Along with the rotor rust is the actual pull cable rusting in its housing. This happens a lot with cars that rust. You might have solved the noise problem but you should actually pulled the parking brake handle to make sure that the cable actually releases when let off. Otherwise the customer will lock up their back brakes the first time they go to use them. Believe me, I seen this happen.

Looking at this. I'd be wondering if the customer would ever want to take their car anywhere else. Frankly, looks to me like you've done everything that's reasonable to do, even then from your past videos, I know you'd fire the parts cannon if it was appropriate to do so.

I enjoyed watching how the job is supposed to be done. Thanks.

Really enjoy rainmaker videos . Good video