This place is incredibly unprofessional and untrustworthy. I had a flat tire on my way home from…read morethe US back to Canada, and AAA told me to take my car here given it was late at night and this was one of the only places open. It was midnight when I brought my car in. The employees advised that it would take at least several hours to fix my car because they needed to break the lock to change the tire; they could not give me an estimated time of completion for the car. Given that it was midnight and I am a young woman travelling alone, and given that they did not offer me an indoor space to wait, I asked if they would be able to hold onto my car overnight and let me pick it up the next day, rather than me waiting outside their location for hours in the middle of the night. They agreed to do this. They did not at any time tell me there would be an extra charge for holding onto the car overnight. I told them to text me when the repair was done.
The next morning, I got a text saying the repair was done; however, they said they only accept payment with cash, Apple Pay, or Cash App. They refused to let me use a credit card, a debit card, or PayPal, or to give my car back until I paid. They had not told me that these were the only payment methods available until the work on my car was done. Being Canadian, my phone doesn't allow me to use Apple Pay or Cash App; these apps are available only in the US. I did not have access to US cash. I informed the employee of this and told him I would try to get an American friend to send the money. He agreed and said the price for the repairs would be $250. I thought this price was very steep since all they did was put a used tire on my car to replace the flat one, but given that they were refusing to give my car back until I paid this outrageous price, I got a friend to pay the $250.
At that point, the employee offered to drive the car to me rather than having me pick it up. I agreed to this. He did not mention an additional price for this or that part of the $250 was for him driving the car to me; if he had mentioned that, I would have gone to pick up the car myself, rather than agreeing to let him drop it off.
When he returned the car to me later that day, the car had a pungent smell of weed. Additionally, the settings of the car had been changed to "sport mode," the volume had been turned up, and the passenger seat had been set to recline. There were also several items missing from the car, including my iPhone charger. When I called the employee about this, he admitted to smoking weed while working on my car. He denied stealing the iPhone charger, but admitted he had moved other items that he believed were garbage and had thrown them out. The employees were the only people who were in my car; they were the only ones who could have stolen the charger. I subsequently filed a police report for theft of the charger.
To make matters worse, the employees had put the wrong size tire on the car and had filled an improper amount of air, leaving the car to be unsafe to drive. I then needed to go to a different tire shop to have the right size tire put on the car.
When I called the owner, he acknowledged that his employees had been negligent, and he said he would provide a full refund by the end of the day. However, he did not provide the refund. Initially, he texted me saying he was sending the Apple Pay transfer "right now," but he did not send it, and he refused to answer my calls or texts. Clearly he has no intention of acting honestly or ethically. His employees saw a vulnerable young woman travelling alone and decided to take advantage to make a profit for themselves. The owner then promised a refund but lied and went AWOL rather than providing it. The people involved in this business are unscrupulous crooks who want to take advantage of vulnerable travellers experiencing car trouble in order to extort money out of them. I have reported them to the police and will commence a civil suit in small claims court to get my money back if a refund is not provided as promised.
