Here is my story ... it is very long, and there are so many other details about how dishonest and unethical he is/was ... but i'll try to give you the details that summarize my horrible experience. I'm taking information from my opening and closing statements for the court case i filed against him in December of 2018, went to court in June 2019 and no one from SA showed to court ... i caught him in so many lies that he surely didn't want to be under oath when certain questions would be asked about the work. (judge awarded me over $4,000 .. haven't seen a dime, i secured the help of the Sheriff office and through them he agreed to pay $500 per month ... now he's wasting our taxpayer money with the Sheriff office as he hasn't paid anything and they keep sending him late notices and now will go back to searching SA LLC assets, which there are none). ... happy reading!
claim against Simpsonville Automotive for unauthorized work performed on my 2009 mini cooper, and for recoupment of rental car fees that I incurred due to the excessive and unjustified delays of completing the work on my vehicle. Additionally, there is justifiable doubt as to whether or not some of the billed work was actually performed on my vehicle.
Simpsonville Automotive had my vehicle for over 3 months. The initial scope of work was quoted $1700 for a valve seal replacement, not the $2500 that he mentions in his response letter to the court (which i will add was infested with lie after lie about work he did and work we supposedly asked him to do)
The initial work should have taken them a week, 2 weeks at the maximum (I was told a week by Mr. Hammond on the phone). The shop did not even look at my car until 2 weeks after I dropped it off ... and there was no mention to me at the time they could not work on it right away. The car was drivable, it was burning oil at a rate of about a quart every 3- 4 days. Had I been notified that it would be another 2 weeks before they could look at my car, I would not have left it with them and taken on the cost of a rental car. We would have continued to limp by as we had been for a few weeks with putting oil in the car until the time where the work could begin. Or I could have possibly found another repair shop that could have started work immediately.
Week after week I was given a run around of why my car wasn't completed. Excuses such as backlog of inventory, people out with the flu and shop delays at Napa Auto Parts. After the first 6 weeks, I then received a call that the mechanic identified another issue with the car while they were putting it back together. There was a crack in the engine, which would require us to get another engine. Mr. Hammond apologized to me on the phone about having to deliver this bad news and said that he was not going to charge me any additional labor to have to switch out engines due to how long it had taken them to do the initial scope of work. I took Mr. Hammond at his word.
Within a week of being notified about the crack in the engine, we had a warrantied replacement engine delivered to Simpsonville Automotive for them to install. Again, week after week I was given the run around of why my car wasn't finished... all while I continued to incur rental car fees at the rate of about $200 a week. Mr. Hammond and Ms. Brown were both well aware that I had to secure a rental car while our vehicle was in their shop or repair.
Additionally, during the timeframe in which Simpsonville Automotive was installing the replacement engine, there was work and labor performed on my vehicle that was never authorized. We had secured a used engine with a 60 day warranty and we NEVER would or did ask Mr. Hammond to tear apart the used engine to replace parts ... he said in his written statement to the court the used engine was leaking oil profusely ... if that were the case we would have invoked our warranty and contacted the company that sold it to us ... IT WAS A BUNCH OF LIES FROM MR. HAMMOND to extort more money from us when we picked up the car!!!
I would also like to make mention that at no time during the 3+ months that Simpsonville Automotive was working on my vehicle did Mr. Hammond or his store manager, Kim Brown, provide any type of written estimates of work to be performed. The entire transaction was performed solely on verbal communication and good faith that I placed in the hands of the store manager and the owner of this small business that was getting their feet off the ground in my community.
Simpsonville Automotive (Mr. Hammond) deliberately and continually delayed the work on my vehicle with no consideration as to the hardship he was placing on me and my family... both financially and emotionally.
His fabricated statements, inaccurate timelines, dishonest means of trying to offset the responsibility of delays upon other shops other than his own, unmistakable lies to the court in regards to the work performed IS WHY I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND! read more
