Car Dealer Service Departments: Thieves or Merely Incompetent?

Disclaimer:  I know a few mechanics. Even ones that work or have worked at dealerships.  They're good people, and I have the utmost respect for them.  Having worked as an auto tech in college, I know that it takes a ton of training and knowledge to work on modern cars, most I which I don't have. Auto mechanics make the world go 'round these days, and I don't mean to attack them personally in this post.  (Not to mention, as a lawyer, I know I have little leeway to be attacking the integrity of other professions.)

That said, the people who run service departments at most car dealerships seem to have the ethical standards of a North African dictator.  I took the wife's minivan into the Honda dealer this morning for recall work on the brake master cylinder. (This recall comes on the heels of the recalled power steering reservoir, recall adjustment of the transmission computer, the warranty replacement of both the torque converter and the front brake rotors. Good thing I bought a Honda, huh?)  In any event, today they had to perform some adjustment of the master cylinder to prevent the car that carries my wife and three (almost four) kids from careening out of control on the way to yet another Children's Place spree.  

I mentioned to the service rep that one of the tires also had low pressure, and asked him to check it while they did the master cylinder work.  Two hours later, he informed me (while trying to up-sell me a throttle body cleaning, power steering fluid replacement, alignment, and new wiper blades) that there was a nail in the left rear tire that they would be willing to patch for a mere $25.  Given that is a very slow leak and that I can get it fixed at the place we bought the tires for free, I declined, but asked him to make sure they aired the tire up.

When I got in the car to leave, the tire pressure warning light was still on.  I went back in to ask why.  The service rep explained that the technician had "put some extra air in there to give you as long as possible before it goes flat."  So the light was probably warning of a severely overinflated tire, he opined.  I questioned this strategy, and he went into the garage to talk to the tech, and came back saying, "Yeah, he put like 35 psi in it, so that's probably what's triggering the light." Curious as to how this could happen in a car that actually recommends 35 psi for the rear tire pressure, I went back out, got my tire gauge from the glove box and discovered that the left rear tire contained 22 pounds of air pressure. Ah ha.

Back at the counter, I suggested that either the tech had pulled the nail out causing the tire to be losing much more air than it had been previously (like 13 psi in five minutes), or--shockingly--he hadn't actually aired the tire up at all.  The service rep took the van back around to straighten the whole mess out, and when he came back, he apologized and said that the tech had accidentally put 40 psi in the RIGHT rear tire, instead of the leaking left rear. He had fixed it all up, though, he said.  I asked him to wait right there while I checked each tire with my gauge.  Satisfied that these highly trained and highly paid (union mechanics here get well over $100 an hour) automotive experts had finally figured out how to get the right amount of air in my tires, I got in to leave.

The light was still on.  I asked the service rep again what the deal was.  He suggested that the simple  pressure monitoring system somehow KNEW that there was a leak in the tire, even though the pressure reading was right on and not fluctuating at all.  I then recalled that the light has to by reset after adding air be turning the car off and on again.  I restarted the car, and the light went out.  Politely thanking the rep for his time, I drove away.

Now, how worried should I be about the brake master cylinder?