After spending about a year searching for THE car that I wanted, I found it over in Bremerton…read more Part of the deal when I bought the car was to have the engine rebuilt top to bottom, and a new windshield. The dealership then sent my car over to Wicked Autoworks, and told me it'll be about 2 weeks until I get my car.
A month later, and several uninformative phone calls later, I'm told I can come pick up my car. Had I not been as excited as I was about finally being able to leave with my 'new' car, I would have done more than accept the apology for them having not replaced my windshield, but also having removed my tonneau cover, and stowed it away in the back of the shop. At the time, I was given the "we have a new guy" excuse, which didn't explain why it was hidden in the back of the shop. After telling them to reinstall it right then and there, I was told they don't know where the mounting hardware is, so I told them to find it. 2 hours later they claimed to not be able to find it, but they'll keep looking. It wasn't until 6 months later they called me and claimed to have found the hardware. Spoiler alert, they only found half of it, and tied half the cover down with wire.
After leaving the autoshop, I went straight down to the ferry, to get back over to Seattle, which is where I found another red flag. Not even halfway through Seattle, the car starts to overheat. After getting pulled over, I found that the thermostat was bad, which indicates the car was not tested after the engine had supposedly been re-installed. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I was just glad to finally have my car, and this was a super simple fix.
After a week of light driving(WFH in Kenmore), my passenger side CV boot went out. During a call with Wicked Autoworks, they kept suggesting replacement parts that would not work on the Turbo version of my car. I ended up having to search for the part on my own, which wasn't a huge deal. What was a huge deal, was just how badly the dead CV Boot was damaged. The amount of damage and wear on that boot makes me think eyes were never laid upon it the whole time the car was in their shop. When asked how this wasn't noticed when the engine was being removed or replaced, the most I got was a "I don't know.".
Fast forward a few years, I take my car into Subaru for normal maintenance and a multipoint inspection, with notes about checking for an oil and coolant leak. When I get my car back I'm informed my head gaskets are leaking. I asked about what could cause that, as the engine had just been rebuild about 3 years ago, and the Subaru tech. told me it doesn't look any work had been done on the engine, and I'll need it rebuilt soon.
With that info, I looked back through my paperwork and found that Wicked Autoworks was only suppose to pull and re-install the engine. The engine was suppose to be shipped to Spokane to be worked on. After reaching out to the rebuild shop, I found that they only use one specific brand of head gaskets. When I checked the gaskets on my car, I found that they were not the brand used by the Spokane shop.
Once I realized what likely happened, I called the dealership(NorthWest Rides), the autoshop(Wicked Autoworks), and the rebuild shop(Sunwest Auto), and they all claim to not have any records of anything over 3 years old.
TLDR; They attempted to steal my tonneau cover, didn't replace windshield, more than likely took my money, and didn't do the work I paid them for.
