Trade In Your Gas Guzzler

Harvey Leviton, 09/03/2025

I brought my car in for routine service and because ABS and Traction Control warning lights were on. They have worked on this vehicle before. But this time, they did not tell me that because it was a 20 year old Corvette, they would charge me the classic car labor rate of $250/hour. First, I do not think that a 20 year old vehicle is actually a classic car. The state of MN defines a classic car as being at least 25 years old. And according to Google, the average age of a vehicle on the road is 14 years. But more important than that is the fact that JoAnne, the shop manager told me that a new tech was working on my car. I don't have a problem with that except that if you are charging more to work on a 20 year old corvette it is because it requires special expertise to do so, expertise a new tech is unlikely to have. They also said the car arrived with a dead battery. I find that unlikely as the vehicle is a daily driver and I have had no starting issues with it since I replaced the battery 7 years ago. I suspect, but can't prove, that they left the manual transmission in a gear other than reverse, which will cause a rapid discharge of the battery. I did put a warning tag on the transmission lever to indicate that because not everyone knows, or remembers you have to do that with C-6 corvettes with manual transmissions. They recommended a new battery and I accepted their recommendation because the battery was 7 years old. The only other negative is that I asked them to re-set the oil life remaining indicator and they did not. Fortunately it is pretty easy to do and I did it myself. But for what I paid, I shouldn't have had to. On the positive side, the warming lights are off and the car runs fine. JoAnne is friendly and knows her cars. But I can't give 5 stars for the reasons above.