Do NOT take your car to Clutch Butchers!!! On 8/6 I took my Mini Cooper in to them to replace my clutch. I dropped it off first thing in the morning, but by late afternoon I'd not received a call from them and so I phoned. Kevin, the manager, said it was "ready" but had a lot of "play" at the top of the clutch, more than they liked, and he thought it just needed to be driven more. He said that he thought I would just need to adjust my driving habits. I went out, paid for the work, and then drove my car around their parking lot. I thought I was going to DIE. There was no clutch action at all--my car felt like a runaway train. It was now rush hour and I had to drive across town in traffic to pick up my son. No WAY could I do that. I came back inside the shop and told Kevin that I could not drive it like that. He assured me there was NOTHING wrong with it and that I just needed to get used to it. So I asked my friend who'd given me a ride there, a guy who knows a bit about cars, to drive it. He drove it around the parking lot and then took me aside and said, "He's full of s**t." He suggested I call my regular mechanic and describe the issue. I stepped outside and did that and Maya, a technician at Pacific Motorsports, said I should NOT drive the car in that condition. I went back inside and told Kevin, "I'm leaving it here for you to fix. I will pick it up tomorrow but I need it by noon." He again said there was nothing wrong with it, and acted like I was a crazy, difficult customer for even asking him to fix it, but said he'd look at it. I phoned him the next morning reminding him I needed it by noon and said I would have to call a tow truck to take it to my mechanic if he couldn't fix it. At that point, Kevin said, "I did find that one of the lines was wet," and he said he had ordered me a new line. (It was the line from the clutch line section from the firewall to the junction before the master cylinder.) He replaced the line but nothing changed. When I went to pick up my car at noon (meeting the tow truck driver) Kevin said he was about to replace the master cylinder as that is all he could think to do, but that I needed to give him more time to try that. I told him that I had ZERO faith that Clutch Doctors could fix my car, or that any more time would help anything--besides I was out of time because I had to have my car shipped two days later. As you can see from the photo, my car had to be TOWED away from Clutch Doctors--a car that was working fine when I brought it in, and was now not even drivable. The worst part is that Kevin tried to get me to drive that death trap out in traffic--which would have endangered me, my car, my son, and all other drivers on the road.
The good folks at Pacific Motorsports found the issue: the line had not been properly bled. Here is their report: "Slave cylinder and brake reservoir are covered in wet brake fluid. Cleaned both and dried. Checked for leaks, unable to find active leak. Removed slave cylinder and pressure bled system several times. Found large air pockets in hydrolic system. Reassembled and test drove. Clutch pedal feels firm [now].
"Clutch was replaced at Clutch Doctors and now clutch won't engage until all the way at the floor. Customer says it does not feel safe. Clutch Doctors bled system and replaced soft line. Loud clattering from engine. Checked oil and found oil low 4 quarts!! Topped off and noise has gone away."
I will be reporting this to the Better Business Bureau. BBB will ask me, and I will say: Yes, I did try to resolve this with Clutch Doctors. Kevin is on vacation and the owner is unavailable (apparently) to return my message I left last week. All I asked was for them to reimburse me for the extra work my mechanic had to do to fix their issue. I used AAA for towing so they would be getting off easy: $275.10 to reimburse me for what Pacific Motorsports had to do to bring it up to drivable condition. Unnecessary charges if they had just done what they were paid $1100 to do in the first place--something they are supposed to SPECIALIZE in! NO REPLY FROM CLUTCH DOCTORS; although last week Eli said he would leave a message for the owner, I never got a call back.
Stay away from this company. They do not stand behind their work, they don't know what they are doing, and they attempt to cover up shoddy work by putting their customers in danger. They seriously need a negative or zero star rating here. They do not deserve a star. read more