by CHRIS BARRY

Forever fighting the good fight, the Montreal-based Automobile Protection Association (APA) is a non-profit consumer advocacy group dedicated primarily to exposing, and hopefully rectifying, the many shady practices undertaken by those in the auto industry. From busting dishonest garages to challenging the big automakers on any number of key consumer issues, the APA serves as a literal godsend to motorists frustrated with forever being taken by the disreputable practices of the industry. George Iny is the APA's head honcho, and the Mirror had a chance to sit down with him recently to get the full 411 on their latest auto-repair and used-car-dealer investigations, as well as the trials and tribulations experienced by a cash-strapped consumer protection organization which consistently goes up against some of the most powerful lobbies in the country.

Mirror: How does Montreal generally fare in your auto repair investigations?

George Iny: Better than most Canadian cities, although not so much over the last two years. In most cases, lately especially, these shops are failing for honesty-based issues - mechanics doing repairs they must have known were not required. These are not issues of incompetence. If you start changing someone's brand new anti-freeze, well, come on, it's not a competence-based issue. You knew you were changing something that didn't need to be changed, you just assumed the customer didn't.

M: I've always avoided chain repair shops, dismissing them as generally overpriced, staffed largely by incompetents and possibly even less honest than the local grease monkeys up my street. Is this assessment valid in your opinion?

GI: What, that they are highly variable and dubious in terms of some of their practices? Absolutely. We were the first consumer group to publicly expose that many Canadian Tire stores pay their mechanics and counter guys commissions. In other words, if you're billed for five hours but they did the work within three-and-a-half, the mechanic gets a bonus, but you're still billed for five hours. Look, the Canadian Tire brand generates a lot of goodwill, they do some good things for the community, but our investigations show that it's a poor choice for auto repair. And one of the reasons is that they have this very curious incentive practice where the guy you're talking to at the counter is actually, in many stores, getting a percentage of your bill.

I'm talking about us having a camera hidden under the hood and being billed an hour for 15 minutes' work, three hours for 20 minutes' work, operations that were claimed to have been done but were not required. That's the kind of thing we find. We're talking about, at the end of the week, a guy who worked 35 hours actually being paid a bonus because he billed customers for 60 hours. It shouldn't happen. Yet for most customers, this kind of information is a revelation. They're absolutely astonished to think a clock can only have 35 minutes to its hour. They just can't believe that the nice person they're talking to at the counter, who offers you coffee, is wearing a crisp shirt and is just so pleasant, that they might actually be that way because they're on commission. It simply doesn't occur to them.

Protection Office gutted

M: How do so many in the industry continue to get away with these practices?

GI: Partially because nobody's checking. Quebec once had a very active garage-probing activity run by the Consumer Protection Office, but in the last few years the budgets have been cut so savagely they haven't been able to run the program. It's terrible what's happened to enforcement in general, not just with autos but in other industries as well. The public knows it to some extent, but there's been a general decline in enforcement of marketplace activities since the 1990s, along with all the other government cutbacks. Often also, the people on the ground, the people doing the actual enforcements themselves, were being subverted by their own bosses, who were told to keep things quiet. You know, someone calls a minister's office because they're not happy their product is about to fail inspection, and someone else tells the investigators to just leave it alone. Eventually it comes down to the lowest guy on the totem pole who gets stuck in this situation, and it's a career-limiting move for them to complain about it.

In Quebec, through the mid-'90s, the Consumer Protection Office used to have between 25 and 30 investigators. I think now there are seven. This isn't just for autos, this is for everything. They once had 30 lawyers and a very vigorous legal department. I believe now there are eight and a very overloaded legal department. Their jobs went from being a challenge to impossible.

Worst of the worst

M: Which garages have failed the most miserably over the past few investigations?

GI: I would have to say the Alex Pneu chain. They're suing us by the way, for defamation. They claim our study wasn't fair and they weren't dishonest.

M: I'm guessing the APA must be up against some powerful special interests.

GI: The auto industry is a phenomenally effective lobby, great at what they do. They have a ton of muscle, they're in every riding, they're politically active. And when they haven't been happy with something we've done, they go straight up to the ministerial level to complain - visiting the Minister of Justice just in case there's some grant you're getting that they can influence next time around.

There are many ways they'll try to silence you, though. The federal car dealers' association once went to visit our publisher to try and have them abrogate contracts with the APA. Hey, Canadian Tire once offered our publisher $42,000 a year to go study the auto repair sector - with the strict condition that the APA not be involved.

M: Why?

GI: They simply didn't like [the results] of our studies. Otherwise they would sue us. If you make a mistake, they sue. Believe me.

You know, it's rough doing this work. Many newspapers simply won't print stuff that's negative towards their automobile advertisers. A boycott can be very expensive to a paper if the car dealers get together and decide they're not going to advertise as a group. Many [media outlets] buckle under eventually. It's a tough game.

M: Do you foresee the status quo changing any time soon?

GI: Eventually, when the big players realize [there is increasingly widespread mistrust of their industry], they'll be able to implement change. That'll be the beauty. The beauty isn't when we actually expose them, it's when they stop trying to shoot the messenger - us - and go to the root of their problems. And one day, that might happen. You really have to look to the future though.

You know, so much of that classic consumer advice, blaming the individual and stuff, it's stupid. You should be able to count on the marketplace giving you a decent product without you having to be paranoid and having to read everything in triplicate. Ultimately, over the long term, the people we're really protecting are the honest business people being faced with unfair competition by the disreputable players - and honest people in this industry really are out there. Generally their trade associations don't represent them, but they do exist.