This is probably the only instance where I've actually felt a negative star review is warranted,…read morebut in this case, being as I was robbed by this place for $500, it's more than justified. I don't like to make a habit of dragging local businesses, but when you've been laid off and every single dollar counts, I'd like to warn others not to spend their hard earned money here.
So, over the summer, the air conditioning in my car stopped working. The car is less than 10 years old, and I've had this model before with little to no issues, so I felt more than comfortable grabbing a checkup from this particular station, especially knowing it's family owned. I was charged about $300 for a "AC RECHARGE & DYE" labor and materials. Fine; if that's what it takes, it sucks to spend money but at least my ac is working.
I noticed right away that the ac worked intermittently or not at all. Took it back to this same station, they ran some kind of test and concluded it's fine.
But the thing is, it was never fine. I didn't pay for a partial repair, I paid for a FULL repair. As in, I expect my ac to function after specifically shelling out my limited wages that week to pay for it. Is this an unreasonable expectation? I guess so.
So let's fast-forward me being gaslit for about two months to when I was driving home from a particularly brutally hot day at my temporary job, and being mad because, Goddammit I paid for ac and I'm not getting it. I brought it back to this same place since it's blatantly obvious they never actually fixed what they charged me for. Today I was charged almost $200 for "A/C DIAGNOSTIC: PERFORM SYSTEM TEST FOR PRESSURES AND A/C FUNCTIONS. CHECK FOR AC DYE. WE FILLED OVER THE SUMMER AND IT IS NOW NOT WORKING. COMPRESSOR NEEDS TO BE REPLACED. FLOW SENSOR INTERMITTENTLY WORKING."
OKAY SO. The last sentence appears to be the only thing that makes any sense. However, "WE FILLED IT OVER THE SUMMER AND IT IS NOW NOT WORKING" is misleading and frankly, false. To say "NOW" it's not working is entirely untrue, because it wasn't working directly after the first "repair." As I said, I brought it back after the first "repair" and I was gaslit because "sometimes the ac kicks in." Nice. As for the second part, that the "COMPRESSOR NEEDS TO BE REPLACED", WHY on God's green earth did you not recognize this little issue the first time you supposedly diagnosed my car? They proceeded to provide me with a $700 estimate for an "actual" repair.
Ma'am, you already charged me $300 for absolutely nothing, I was gaslit into thinking that sometimes-working-ac-is-better-than-no-ac-at-all (until it stopped working altogether), and now you charge me nearly $200 to evaluate the first diagnostic you dicked up and for which you gave me the wrong "repair"? If you had the capability to know what was actually wrong in August when I first brought her in, what was stopping you from doing whatever sort of magic diagnostic you did today, that you charged me $176.49 more for? I would have paid the $700 you gave on the estimate then and there.
So, overall, I paid about $500 (while I'm between jobs), for my ac to be broken and remain broken. This is absolutely predatory behavior for a business (local or not).
Save yourself a lot of money and go somewhere else.