Yes, this is a funny radio clip and I enjoyed it. But I do relate to the poor girl they were spoofing. Every time I have to take my car in, I dread it. Those mechanics can run circles around me - and they know it. The best I can do is to take my car to several places if it's anything expensive. Actually, though, I don't do that either anymore. I lease a car and get a new one every 2-3 years. That way I don't have to fool with repairs - only routine maintenance.

Buying a used car is always a scary thing. There are all sorts of ways to hide defects and have a perfectly nice looking car hiding a very expensive repair regardless from who you bought it from. And I should know I used to buy car at live auctions for years. The biggest theft is odometer rollback and this is invisible to know especially if the car was never dealer maintained by the previous owner so mileage records can be non existent.

Now buying from online auctions can be scary but I take more comfort from the buyer rating system then from any used car operations promises. The web is becoming a source of information and blogs in particular can be very useful for finding any disgruntled buyers who have posted negative remarks on a particular seller even for offline purchases.

Buyers beware but know that there are all kinds of information available about people, companies and products on the web and the more we are aware of what information we have access to the more access to information we will have.

Power to the people