Caution: Potential Bait (Low Price) & Then Jack Price Up When Approve Quote
This is my experience and why I believe this car repair center is unethical and shady based on my individual experience. My feedback is solely related to potentially unethical and definitely shady business practices.
Why Did I go Here? Reviews and quantity, professionalism during initial quoting process, and the quote was lower than 2nd next lowest by $100
Summary
1. Increased price of one of the repairs after approved quote. I was told the quote was for the was rear stabilizer link (even though front or rear was not called out on quote).
2. Increased labor cost for an approved repair strictly because they said it was taking a long time to get wheel bearing off because older (min. of $150/$180 or more depending on how long takes) *
3. Paid Invoice doesn’t breakdown (labor with hours spent vs parts cost) for each repair. Total labor cost showed at end.
4. Pin Point Oil Leak Inspection from their initial courtesy inspection started at $180+. Way over national average or max for this type of inspection.
My Experience
With the rising costs of everything and just wanting to be a smart consumer, I decided to 1) research repair centers and 2) obtain a couple of quotes.
Based on quote being better than competitors, as well as my interaction with rep. up until this point, I approved the quote.
Now here when things get strange.
I came in to drop my car off on scheduled service date and I was told the sway bar link was for rear if front needed to be replaced it would be more (Note: front or rear was not called out on quote). After I followed up, I told the lady I worked with that it was the front.
I was then told it was going to cost significantly more because it was the front one. Before I approved the additional like $100 cost, I reviewed the 2nd best quote I received because the sway bar repairs were cheaper on that. Plus called out cost for front vs. rear. Front sway bar was cheaper than the rear, which leads me to be believe that it tends to be less not more. Since it was only about $50 difference in total cost, I decided to keep my car there.
*Preference the other quote was from another place that I tend to go to on a regular basis.
So then I get a call later on in the day telling me that it is taking them longer to take off the wheel bearing and as a result they are charging me $150/$180 min. additional labor and could go up if takes longer.
I mentioned to lady that like I have no choice but to approve this because you are already in the middle of completing the work. I even followed up via text message stating I never heard of anything like this (additional charges as a result of other parts and/or repairs needed yes but not this). As a result, I need a complete breakdown of labor cost including hours vs part cost for each repair, along with in writing why I have to pay an additional costs for labor to repair the wheel bearing.
I never received a response back but when I called to see if my car was done she told me that they are waiving extra labor charges because we want to make sure our customers our happy.
In my head, I knew they weren’t doing this for customer satisfaction because if that was the case they would have never charged it especially when I expressed major concern about charge. So in my opinion this was only done because I asked for a breakdown of costs, as well as, in writing why I have to pay an additional labor charge. I think they knew that I probably was filing a complaint with the State of Michigan.
Even when I went and paid, she said it was the same as original quote but it was a little more b/c the based some charge off the amount they were gonna charge vs. the quoted amount.
On top of that, I messaged about an oil leak that they had mentioned was major on inspection side. I already was planning on getting the work done somewhere else but I wanted to see what they were gonna quote me now for them to run a diagnostics test. Because the lady was like we would have to complete an additional diagnostics to pinpoint leak. They said the inspection starts at $180. I already knew what they were trying to do.
Just for apples to apples, the place I’m taking my car to get repaired only charged $102.5 for an hour inspection. It only took him a couple of minutes to pinpoint leak as a result he charged me $30.
