I am not sure using a public platform is the best place to air out one's differences; however, since meeting in person is something you declined, I am left with no other alternative but to defend my families 55 year old company. You have made some pretty strong accusations. 1. Price Gouging: Your vehicle came in on a wrecker with the lower ball joint completely separated from the lower spindle. Our Service Manager called you and informed you of the cost of parts, labor, alignment and a total. You were given an option of purchasing a lower priced ball joint or a more costly problem solver ball joint. The difference in prices ranges from 80.00 to 150.00. You called back and questioned prices with the Service Manager with prices you found on the internet. We followed policy and let you know that we don't purchase our parts that way and that our Garage Keeper's Liability does not allow us to install customer parts. (We have had a Claim due to customer supplied part).
If we were going to "Price Gouge" you, we would have purchased the economy part at 50.00 and sold it for 150.00. Then remove all the markings so you wouldn't know. The next step would have been to remove both lower ball joints and decline to put it back together unless you replace the upper ball joints. A method used by some shops, BUT not ours. We informed you that we would check the upper ball joints and let you know if you needed them. In your case, your upper ball joints were good. Automotive Shops purchase their parts from the same place the public does and we sell the parts at suggested retail. In this case, it was sold to you at suggested retail. We place our orders for parts electronically through Activant/Epicor. These orders are placed with up to 6 different Hubs/parts houses. Your parts came from a Hub store/Warehouse in Tulsa. The parts supplier you mentioned is not a place we buy parts. In our industry there are certain parts suppliers that do not meet the manufacture's standards. No one is trying to deceive you. We did not know we were in a situation that we needed to defend ourselves.
Part numbers: When you inspect a part for a part number, there is usually three letters that are not on the part. These three letters tell you who made the part. The part number itself can be the same at several parts supplier; however, those three letters tell you who the manufacture is. It does not mean they are the same part. When we place the order electronically we have the choice of the quality of part, depicted by the three letters.
Simply sitting down to discuss this would have been more professional, but I can sense your frustration from your post.
I recommend an App for my customer's who travel or have moved, "RepairPal". This is a good App I recommend for anyone reading this post.
Sincerely,
Dean Robertson
Note: We tried to respond to this post on January 22, 2014; however, we had to wait on Yelp support. read more
