Amazing people, could not be happier. One of their technicians, Abd, is a great man. Let me paint…read morea picture.
My wife and I are in Houston for the weekend from Dallas driving my AMG E63s. We get to town, 4pm on a Friday (the 13th maybe I should have figured it was a bad omen). We park at Specs to get provisions for the weekend, come out and start the car, and it will not shift into drive or reverse. I called and talked with them, no way could I get it there before they close at 6p. I was told I could drop it in the lot and put my key key fob in the key drop and they would look at it in the morning. Bear in mind, we are in town for the ballet, and have to be home Sunday for our son, the work week, etc.
They open at 830 Saturday, I planned on getting there to speak with the team fill them in on the issue, and plead to have it repaired because staying past Sunday was not an option. I come around the corner in my rental at 832 and see Abd already in the vehicle with his scanner to see what is going on. We spoke for a few minutes and I got checked in, and left him to work. Abd called about 45 minutes later to let me know the issue, a steering column sensor, but wasn't having luck finding the part, but would continue to look a couple other places and would call me back in an hour. An hour later Abd called me back, no luck on the part, they were 2 business days out at best.
But, Abd said he was able to reflash the module to clear the error that was keeping it from shifting and the car was drivable, but not likely a long term solution, however it should be good enough to make it home if we don't make a bunch of stops. This was Saturday, and we weren't leaving until Sunday, and not wanting to risk driving it and valet at the hotel, potentially risking the error tripping again, causing me to tow it again, they let me keep the car in their lot overnight so I could grab it on my way out of town Sunday morning. And if by some chance it errored again I would at least have the car in their lot, and would just need to make other arrangements to get home and return to get the car once the repair was done.
Thankfully I was able to get it in drive, made it home to Dallas, and will continue the repair at my local Euro shop. I wish I could have had the repair completed at Autohouse of Switzerland because they certainly earned the business, but timing and parts didn't work out. They did me a great service allowing a stressful situation not derail our weekend, and got us home safe.
Abd, thank you so much, you are a great man.