Date: Monday, 5 January 1987 16:49:43 EST
From: Joshua.Bloch@k.cs.cmu.edu
To: Bovik@k.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: State Inspections
Message-ID: <1987.1.5.21.20.44.Joshua.Bloch@k.cs.cmu.edu>

By common consesnsus, you should NEVER take your car to the Mobil station
at Moorewood and Centre for its annual inspection.  They run a scam wherein
they tell you that some light(s) (headlight, blinker, side marker) were
out, and replace them, without asking for your authorization.  They charge
substantially more than auto part store rates for the "broken" lights, and
they charge you for installation.  This can add anywhere from $6 to $30
to the inspection fee.  In one case, they replaced a quartz halogen headlight
with an ordinary one, and were unable to show the car owner the "broken"
headlight.  (They claimed it had been thrown away.)

People seem quite happy with the inspections performed by the Gulf station
at Forbes and Murray.  They tell you of any required repairs, and you can
perform them elsewhere if you wish.  As long as you bring the car back within
three days with the requisite repairs, they'll give you the stickers for an
additional $2.  I don't know whether this is required by law or not.