What’s your relationship like with your mechanic? Are you grateful? Wary? Terrified? Well, remember, it’s a two-way street. Your mechanic is a person, too. A person with feeling and emotions — even if they’re generally expressed as grunts.

Avoid the behaviors on this list, and you’ll probably get better service. Your mechanic will work a little harder to find that hard-to-reproduce problem instead of just telling you, “It wouldn’t do it for us.” He may even be more inclined to actually remember to tighten up your lug nuts.—Tom and Ray Magliozzi, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, for Cars.com