Auto Repair Shop Ratings and Reviews.

Misdiagnosed & two returns for bad repairs so far
Misdiagnosed misfire as a bad coil and installed spark plug wires that didn`t fit my car. After a day and a half they called back telling me they found out it was a broken spring in the head and it would take another two days to fix. I picked the car up and immediately noticed a static `ticking` noise coming from my radio that went up and down with engine RPM`s. As a guy that worked installing car radios through college I immediately suspected spark plug wires that were improperly grounded. I popped the hood and was surprised to see my Ford wires were missing and had been replaced with some no-name off brand wire. I returned the next day and asked them to look into the problem. They told me there would be a $40 diagnostic fee for the electrical system. I told them that was unacceptable as I`m only asking them to look into a problem that started after they made an $1,100 repair. After talking with the manager they agreed that they would `rule out` the spark plug wires as the cause for no charge. After waiting for over two hours they pulled the car into the garage and checked it out in less than 10 minutes telling me the wires are fine and they didn`t hear the ticking noise. I went to my car and was surprised the noise was gone. Unfortunately less than two blocks later the noise was back. I returned two days later and asked them to check again. After another long wait they again told me everything was fine and it was definitely not the wires, likely a bad alternator or bad ground on the battery. I decided to take a peek myself that weekend. With my wife sitting in the car listening to the radio I touched each wire on the coil. I found one wire just barely seated itself onto the coil and when I touched it, it immediately made the radio either staticky or crystal clear. Why couldn`t these guys find this? I returned and showed the shop the problem, after much more debate than should have taken place and hours of waiting I got them to install a new set of wires. When the manager handed me the keys he said, `these don`t fit great either, you probably will want to buy some better wires on your own.` Long story short, I gave him a piece of my mind about secretly installing $20 no name wires that don`t fit and then telling the owner to deal with it after a $1,100 repair. To top it off, 6 months later, the head gasket they installed started leaking. Had I not been on the ball about the leak they could have easily ruined my entire engine. New head gaskets failing is very rare, just about the only cause is improper install in that the head bolts weren`t torqued in the proper order but that`s just an educated guess. To their credit they did install a new head gasket under warranty - but it did take them nearly a week to get it done.