The hunch

There's a vehicle repair shop within walking distance of my house. I'll bring my car there for routine things, like brakes. In fact, I took it there a month ago for brakes. I could just walk home after dropping it off, and walk back to pick it up. In and out no problem.

They can't do state inspections though, so I had to go elsewhere. There's another place I'll do that. Usually I drop it off at the end of the day, and they'll pick it up the next morning and I'll have it back by the end of the day. It passed inspection, but they 'found' a host of other issues that are gonna cost me $2K to fix.

Issues that the other guy didn't see at all. Things they can and will take care of, they didn't see any issues whatsoever. But they just appeared in the two weeks between.

I took the car back, and a couple days later half the warning lights went off and I started to hear a grinding noise.

The reason I don't take it back to the dealership for maintenance is because I need to schedule an appointment, and it's never convenient. I booked it anyway, and waited a week doing so. They had the car, and discovered two problems. One under warranty (nice), and another minor issue that was definitely the cause of the noise I was hearing. Didn't cost me a fraction to fix that issue.

And people wonder why I have trust issues.