The vehicle was originally brought in for a "Rebuild rear axle" which is not simply a service. Upon disassembly and inspection the ring and pinion gears were found to have severe wear and chipped teeth. When the customer was informed by phone that the ring and pinion gear was bad he claimed that he had looked at them and they were fine. However when he came to the shop and was shown the parts he agreed that they needed replace. At this point in time we had eight hours in disassembly and cleaning in part due to a couple of the bearings that required cutting in order to remove them and because of what is called a torque tube design, which significantly increases the cost. We were not able to source new parts for the vehicle but had found a used unit. Since the supplier of the used unit could not give us the condition of the internal parts it was unknown if the ring and pinion were of g[redacted] condition. It would have required disassembly of the used differential and transfer of the ring and pinion. The estimate assuming the used parts were acceptable was $2020.71 not $2300. The customer stated that he found a rebuilt rear end / differential for $250, which was significantly cheaper that the used unit. At this point because the shop policy has been not to install customer supplied parts and the customers attitude towards us, I did not want to continue working on the vehicle. Unfortunately the tow company refused to tow the vehicle because it would require lifting from the rear bumper, which they were afraid that the bumper and the body would not handle due to the rust and corrosion. Going against company policy and with no way to deliver the vehicle back, we agreed to install a differential supplied by the customer. Upon receiving the customer supplied differential, the technician discovered that the bracket for the track bar was on the opposite side of the pinion and that the brake line layout was different. The customer refused to pay the cost of changing the parts over and the custom fabrication that would be required to make the differential supplied by the customer work, nor did the customer want us to fabricate new lines. So the differential was installed as is, no track bar, fluids, etc. When the customer came to pay and tow the vehicle home it was discovered that the lift had caught the driver's side kick panel below the door. We called Traditional Auto Body to give an estimate on the repair. They gave us a ball park estimate of between $600 and $800 to repair the damage. At this point the customer was given the option of taking the vehicle, with no charges for the work we performed or we would get the vehicle to the body shop,(which is a block away) for them to make the repairs. The customer was adamant that we were going to "fix it" and that he would not accept the vehicle until it was repaired. In order for the body shop to work on the vehicle we had to at least get it into a rolling condition with brakes. Our technician installed a temporary brake line and did the fabrication necessary to make the vehicle movable. Just to note fabrication is not what we do or are experienced in and second the customer was not charged for this and had refused as mentioned earlier to have it done professionally. The body shop completed the repairs and the customer was called. At this point we had not looked at the car and it was believed that the repairs were satisfactory. However when the customer and the service writer (Elliot) inspected the vehicle, the color obviously did not match and there were sanding marks evident. This was on a Friday night and we were unable to contact the body shop until the following Monday. On Monday the body shop agreed to correct the issues. When we received the vehicle back from the body shop the second time the customer complained that the body line of the door to the kick panel was not right. The body shop explained that now that the kick panel was now straight it made the bowed door line show up. It is my understanding that the body shop only agreed to make the lines match if the customer agreed not to give them or us bad reviews. This customer has not honored that agreement. The door being bowed was not caused by the lift or part of what we took responsibility for. It should be noted that the damage and repairs were complicated by the severity of the corrosion and rust of the vehicles body. (Pictures of the area are available if Revdex.com requests them) I believe that we in g[redacted] faith tried to meet the customer's needs and expectations. At no time did we instruct the body shop to do the job cheaply! That is just not how I do business. The customer on a multitude of occasions want us to perform work or repairs for free. This is not a charity it is a business. I also believe that because he knew we had driven the car to the body shop he assumed the car was street worthy. The repair order which he refused to sign and of which he has a copy of clearly states that the vehicle was to be towed and that there were no brakes! These were some of the exact repairs the customer refused! I would like to know which intersection he supposedly almost crashed at and if he continued driving or towed it. This episode is a clear example of why the shop has a policy of no customer supplied parts and why we even have a storage fee. Our policy on storage is if the vehicle is not picked up within three days of the notification of the works completion, a fee of $35 not $45 will be charged per day, unless prior arrangements have been made. The customer received everything of which he paid for and then some. It is my belief that no refund is warranted. Will be awaiting your advisment. If you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerly, Harold W[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
[redacted]
Dear Revdex.com,I believe communication and impatience is the key issues with this complaint. I also believe thatit is common knowledge that problems in communication are not one sided but a result of both partiesfailures. Add to the lack of proper communication impatience you have a recipe for disaster,...
to whichboth parties share responsibility.Mr. [redacted]'s complaint states "I should not have to pay for the labor and replacing of a part that wasworking perfectly fine."I am including the repair order to show that Mr. [redacted] did not pay for any labor or partsconcerning the clock spring. Steve while Mr. [redacted]'s vehicle was still in our care informed me of theissue concerning the clock spring. Because I felt Steve should have taken the t ime to speak with Ryanabout the conversation Ryan had with Mr. [redacted], I instructed the technician to reinstall the old clockspring and I removed the charges for the labor and part from the work order. However I wish to pointout that testing of the cruise control switch circuit showed intermittent contact determined to becaused by the clock spring and I stand by the result. (Obvious the intermittent contact is not bad enoughat this point to keep the cruise control from activating)The only charges are for a Lube, Oil & Filter, and Diagnosis for check engine light, Cleaning thethrottle body and repair of the turn signals. All authorized by Mr. [redacted]. I might point out that it wasnot the multifunction switch but the flasher that actually resolved the issue.I hope this answers the issues brought about by the complaint. Feel free to contact me if youhave any questions.Sincerely,Harold W[redacted]President Harold's Quality Auto Repair Inc. [redacted]Please see attached.[redacted]
Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:I do not believe the owner is representing the story accurately, and is attempting to portray themselves in a better way than they actually had gone about things. I intend to prove this statement by pointing out the factual errors in the response.Initially, when the wear to the differential ring and pinion gear were shown to me, it was not until the entire rear end had been completely torn down, with the bearings and races taken out of the axle housing, rendering the axle unable to be rebuilt without new bearings, and thus putting me into the situation where there was no turning back. In my opinion, the tech at the shop should have alerted me to the ring and pinion issue prior to continuing with the job since the damage to the parts would have been evident before any of the bearing would have been removed or the bearing races cut out as Harold claims they were, The job that I had ordered and initially agreed upon, which was simply for the pinion bearings to be inspected, replaced and adjusted properly, and the axle to be inspected for further damages. Prior to making the arrangements for the job to be done, I was assured by the employee Elliot, that Harold’s automotive was capable of finding any and all parts needed for this job (“they knew people that knew people that knew people” was his quote). I was told at the point when the parts could not be found, that I could either pay a towing company to tow the car back to my house, and on top of that, I had to pay for the shop time that it took to destroy my rear end, or I could pay $800 up from for a rear axle from a car that Elliot of Harold’s automotive could not give me any history on, and then pay them to completely disassemble it and inspect it to determine if it was even useable. I told him that I was not comfortable with that situation, and that I felt that I was being taken advantage of, and would prefer to find parts that I could verify myself that were already in g[redacted] condition without having to pay them to inspect since they were unable to source new replacement parts. I found verified g[redacted] parts at a far better price than they were capable or willing to find. Entire parts cars like mine could be purchased for less than the price of the rear axle that they offered me.I was told that they could swap the rear end that I provided, and install everything needed to drive it home. In the end, the shop refused to install the shocks, refused to transfer the brake lines and correct drive line from the old axle so it would be the proper length to fit the car correctly. Before the damage, the shop was charging me $800 to install the axle in place, and not install anything else, leaving me with the rest of the work of doing the installation, a condition that I had not agreed upon. Since I had no other options, and as Harold stated earlier, the tow company refused to tow it to my house, I was forced to accept these horrible terms, and pay an astronomical price to partially install the axle, a job that I had done at my own house that took less than 3 hours of work to full assemble everything back in place by myself. I was under the original understanding that the $800 I was going to pay was going to cover the entire installation without caveats. Originally when I was called and told of the estimate of the amount of damage to the car, I was told that there was $800 to $1000 in damages, and in my experience with automotive body repairs, there could be even more damage to be found and added to the expenses once the repairs begin. Harold in his resonse claims the estimate to the damages was 600-800, Elliot, after I said that the repairs were not sufficient, claimed that the damages were only 500-700, so I think they just throw a new number out there depending on the conversation, and are not being truthful of this point.I was offered by Elliot to have the cost of the repairs at that point to be wiped clean, and I could have the vehicle back then, but I would have to pay a towing company to tow it back to my house 'as-is'. I did not find it fair to have to pay towing to my house, and I did not want to be stuck was damages that far exceeded the estimate that I was provided, and since I could not drive the car due to the incomplete installation of the rear end that they had done, I was unable to get estimates from other body shops. I figured that they would pay for the full $800 to $1000 in repairs as originally quoted, and not the $300 to $400 that they body shop manager told me that his shop was limited by Harold’s to do. I feel that I was cheated in this regards, and I was told by the manager that for $800-1000, he could have done the necessary repairs to where I would have been satisfied, and not a very poor bondo over job that they were forced to do by the request of Harold.The owner claimed that Elliot had not inspected the vehicle after the first time the damage to the body was poorly repaired, but in fact the car had already been brought in and placed on a lift already, and when I pointed out the issue with the repair, my girlfriend who was with me at the time said that Elliot rolled his eyes and his facial expressions indicated that he was very upset with my response. Elliot downplayed how poorly the repair was made, and only when I became upset and demanded that the repair be made properly did Elliot say that he would send it back to the repair shop. I told him that I expected the body line to match what it looked like prior to the damage, and every effort made by the body shop to accomplish this was unsuccessful.I told the body shop manager that if he would do the repair where the work was done properly, and the body line on the rocker panel and the door matched up properly, I would not leave his business, and his business alone, negative feedback. Once the manager told me that Harold had instructed him to do subpar, cheap work, I told him that I would not leave his business any negative feedback, and that I would go after Harold’s Automotive for their dishonest, and poor work. I am attaching a picture of the bowed out rocker panel after the work was done for the 3rd time, and it was clear that Harold was lying when he claimed it was ‘fixed’, and that the door was not straight and making the rocker panel look bowed at this point.Finally, Harold said that I was ‘not charged’ for the repairs done to make the car able to be transported to the body shop, but this is completely false since the work that was done to get the car drivable to the body shop should have been done for the price I paid to have the rear end installed. I was told that they could install the rear end that I provided for the $800 they quoted on the phone, and at no point did they say that they were not going to do a complete job. I think installing a brake line is a pretty reasonable aspect to installing a brand new rear end of a car, especially when I provided new hand bendable brake lines when I dropped the new rear end off, and installing shocks is a pretty standard part of that job, as well as testing the brakes and adjusting the parking brake.I spent about 4 hours fixing the issues that were not completed by Harold’s, including filling and bleeding the brake system, properly installing the track bar, installing the shocks, properly installing the brake lines and securing them to the frame, adjusting the parking brake that was completely adjusted out and was not operational at all, and thus I didn’t even have a back-up braking system when I left the garage and the main brakes were non-functional. I am going to have to re-repair the body damage that was not properly completed and looks bad, and I am going to have to install the proper length drive shaft that should have been swapped out with the one provided originally, and was noted as being too long in the invoice.If I was not capable of doing my own repairs on this poor job, I would have had to trailer my car to a different garage and have them completely redo everything that I had paid Harold’s to do in the first place, so I believe I am entitled to up to a full refund.
Sincerely,
[redacted]
Here is the work order the gave mr when I picked the car up. There were many factual errors in the work order, so I declined to sign anything. I was told that I could refuse to sign, but if I didn't pick the car up right then, I was going to have to start paying $45 a day in storage fees.The invoice...
does not include the fact that after the damage was found, Elliot installed new brake lines that I provided, welded a different track bar bracket into place (but didn't line it up right and it hit the differential cover when the suspension was bottomed out), Elliot said that I was being charged for brake fluid and transmission fluid as well.
The vehicle was originally brought in for a "Rebuild rear axle" which is not simply a service. Upon disassembly and inspection the ring and pinion gears were found to have severe wear and chipped teeth. When the customer was informed by phone that the ring and pinion gear was bad he claimed that he had looked at them and they were fine. However when he came to the shop and was shown the parts he agreed that they needed replace. At this point in time we had eight hours in disassembly and cleaning in part due to a couple of the bearings that required cutting in order to remove them and because of what is called a torque tube design, which significantly increases the cost. We were not able to source new parts for the vehicle but had found a used unit. Since the supplier of the used unit could not give us the condition of the internal parts it was unknown if the ring and pinion were of g[redacted] condition. It would have required disassembly of the used differential and transfer of the ring and pinion. The estimate assuming the used parts were acceptable was $2020.71 not $2300. The customer stated that he found a rebuilt rear end / differential for $250, which was significantly cheaper that the used unit. At this point because the shop policy has been not to install customer supplied parts and the customers attitude towards us, I did not want to continue working on the vehicle. Unfortunately the tow company refused to tow the vehicle because it would require lifting from the rear bumper, which they were afraid that the bumper and the body would not handle due to the rust and corrosion. Going against company policy and with no way to deliver the vehicle back, we agreed to install a differential supplied by the customer. Upon receiving the customer supplied differential, the technician discovered that the bracket for the track bar was on the opposite side of the pinion and that the brake line layout was different. The customer refused to pay the cost of changing the parts over and the custom fabrication that would be required to make the differential supplied by the customer work, nor did the customer want us to fabricate new lines. So the differential was installed as is, no track bar, fluids, etc. When the customer came to pay and tow the vehicle home it was discovered that the lift had caught the driver's side kick panel below the door. We called Traditional Auto Body to give an estimate on the repair. They gave us a ball park estimate of between $600 and $800 to repair the damage. At this point the customer was given the option of taking the vehicle, with no charges for the work we performed or we would get the vehicle to the body shop,(which is a block away) for them to make the repairs. The customer was adamant that we were going to "fix it" and that he would not accept the vehicle until it was repaired. In order for the body shop to work on the vehicle we had to at least get it into a rolling condition with brakes. Our technician installed a temporary brake line and did the fabrication necessary to make the vehicle movable. Just to note fabrication is not what we do or are experienced in and second the customer was not charged for this and had refused as mentioned earlier to have it done professionally. The body shop completed the repairs and the customer was called. At this point we had not looked at the car and it was believed that the repairs were satisfactory. However when the customer and the service writer (Elliot) inspected the vehicle, the color obviously did not match and there were sanding marks evident. This was on a Friday night and we were unable to contact the body shop until the following Monday. On Monday the body shop agreed to correct the issues. When we received the vehicle back from the body shop the second time the customer complained that the body line of the door to the kick panel was not right. The body shop explained that now that the kick panel was now straight it made the bowed door line show up. It is my understanding that the body shop only agreed to make the lines match if the customer agreed not to give them or us bad reviews. This customer has not honored that agreement. The door being bowed was not caused by the lift or part of what we took responsibility for. It should be noted that the damage and repairs were complicated by the severity of the corrosion and rust of the vehicles body. (Pictures of the area are available if Revdex.com requests them) I believe that we in g[redacted] faith tried to meet the customer's needs and expectations. At no time did we instruct the body shop to do the job cheaply! That is just not how I do business. The customer on a multitude of occasions want us to perform work or repairs for free. This is not a charity it is a business. I also believe that because he knew we had driven the car to the body shop he assumed the car was street worthy. The repair order which he refused to sign and of which he has a copy of clearly states that the vehicle was to be towed and that there were no brakes! These were some of the exact repairs the customer refused! I would like to know which intersection he supposedly almost crashed at and if he continued driving or towed it. This episode is a clear example of why the shop has a policy of no customer supplied parts and why we even have a storage fee. Our policy on storage is if the vehicle is not picked up within three days of the notification of the works completion, a fee of $35 not $45 will be charged per day, unless prior arrangements have been made. The customer received everything of which he paid for and then some. It is my belief that no refund is warranted. Will be awaiting your advisment. If you require further information please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerly, Harold W[redacted]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
Sincerely,
[redacted]
Dear Revdex.com,I believe communication and impatience is the key issues with this complaint. I also believe thatit is common knowledge that problems in communication are not one sided but a result of both partiesfailures. Add to the lack of proper communication impatience you have a recipe for disaster,...
to whichboth parties share responsibility.Mr. [redacted]'s complaint states "I should not have to pay for the labor and replacing of a part that wasworking perfectly fine."I am including the repair order to show that Mr. [redacted] did not pay for any labor or partsconcerning the clock spring. Steve while Mr. [redacted]'s vehicle was still in our care informed me of theissue concerning the clock spring. Because I felt Steve should have taken the t ime to speak with Ryanabout the conversation Ryan had with Mr. [redacted], I instructed the technician to reinstall the old clockspring and I removed the charges for the labor and part from the work order. However I wish to pointout that testing of the cruise control switch circuit showed intermittent contact determined to becaused by the clock spring and I stand by the result. (Obvious the intermittent contact is not bad enoughat this point to keep the cruise control from activating)The only charges are for a Lube, Oil & Filter, and Diagnosis for check engine light, Cleaning thethrottle body and repair of the turn signals. All authorized by Mr. [redacted]. I might point out that it wasnot the multifunction switch but the flasher that actually resolved the issue.I hope this answers the issues brought about by the complaint. Feel free to contact me if youhave any questions.Sincerely,Harold W[redacted]President Harold's Quality Auto Repair Inc. [redacted]Please see attached.[redacted]
Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:I do not believe the owner is representing the story accurately, and is attempting to portray themselves in a better way than they actually had gone about things. I intend to prove this statement by pointing out the factual errors in the response.Initially, when the wear to the differential ring and pinion gear were shown to me, it was not until the entire rear end had been completely torn down, with the bearings and races taken out of the axle housing, rendering the axle unable to be rebuilt without new bearings, and thus putting me into the situation where there was no turning back. In my opinion, the tech at the shop should have alerted me to the ring and pinion issue prior to continuing with the job since the damage to the parts would have been evident before any of the bearing would have been removed or the bearing races cut out as Harold claims they were, The job that I had ordered and initially agreed upon, which was simply for the pinion bearings to be inspected, replaced and adjusted properly, and the axle to be inspected for further damages. Prior to making the arrangements for the job to be done, I was assured by the employee Elliot, that Harold’s automotive was capable of finding any and all parts needed for this job (“they knew people that knew people that knew people” was his quote). I was told at the point when the parts could not be found, that I could either pay a towing company to tow the car back to my house, and on top of that, I had to pay for the shop time that it took to destroy my rear end, or I could pay $800 up from for a rear axle from a car that Elliot of Harold’s automotive could not give me any history on, and then pay them to completely disassemble it and inspect it to determine if it was even useable. I told him that I was not comfortable with that situation, and that I felt that I was being taken advantage of, and would prefer to find parts that I could verify myself that were already in g[redacted] condition without having to pay them to inspect since they were unable to source new replacement parts. I found verified g[redacted] parts at a far better price than they were capable or willing to find. Entire parts cars like mine could be purchased for less than the price of the rear axle that they offered me.I was told that they could swap the rear end that I provided, and install everything needed to drive it home. In the end, the shop refused to install the shocks, refused to transfer the brake lines and correct drive line from the old axle so it would be the proper length to fit the car correctly. Before the damage, the shop was charging me $800 to install the axle in place, and not install anything else, leaving me with the rest of the work of doing the installation, a condition that I had not agreed upon. Since I had no other options, and as Harold stated earlier, the tow company refused to tow it to my house, I was forced to accept these horrible terms, and pay an astronomical price to partially install the axle, a job that I had done at my own house that took less than 3 hours of work to full assemble everything back in place by myself. I was under the original understanding that the $800 I was going to pay was going to cover the entire installation without caveats. Originally when I was called and told of the estimate of the amount of damage to the car, I was told that there was $800 to $1000 in damages, and in my experience with automotive body repairs, there could be even more damage to be found and added to the expenses once the repairs begin. Harold in his resonse claims the estimate to the damages was 600-800, Elliot, after I said that the repairs were not sufficient, claimed that the damages were only 500-700, so I think they just throw a new number out there depending on the conversation, and are not being truthful of this point.I was offered by Elliot to have the cost of the repairs at that point to be wiped clean, and I could have the vehicle back then, but I would have to pay a towing company to tow it back to my house 'as-is'. I did not find it fair to have to pay towing to my house, and I did not want to be stuck was damages that far exceeded the estimate that I was provided, and since I could not drive the car due to the incomplete installation of the rear end that they had done, I was unable to get estimates from other body shops. I figured that they would pay for the full $800 to $1000 in repairs as originally quoted, and not the $300 to $400 that they body shop manager told me that his shop was limited by Harold’s to do. I feel that I was cheated in this regards, and I was told by the manager that for $800-1000, he could have done the necessary repairs to where I would have been satisfied, and not a very poor bondo over job that they were forced to do by the request of Harold.The owner claimed that Elliot had not inspected the vehicle after the first time the damage to the body was poorly repaired, but in fact the car had already been brought in and placed on a lift already, and when I pointed out the issue with the repair, my girlfriend who was with me at the time said that Elliot rolled his eyes and his facial expressions indicated that he was very upset with my response. Elliot downplayed how poorly the repair was made, and only when I became upset and demanded that the repair be made properly did Elliot say that he would send it back to the repair shop. I told him that I expected the body line to match what it looked like prior to the damage, and every effort made by the body shop to accomplish this was unsuccessful.I told the body shop manager that if he would do the repair where the work was done properly, and the body line on the rocker panel and the door matched up properly, I would not leave his business, and his business alone, negative feedback. Once the manager told me that Harold had instructed him to do subpar, cheap work, I told him that I would not leave his business any negative feedback, and that I would go after Harold’s Automotive for their dishonest, and poor work. I am attaching a picture of the bowed out rocker panel after the work was done for the 3rd time, and it was clear that Harold was lying when he claimed it was ‘fixed’, and that the door was not straight and making the rocker panel look bowed at this point.Finally, Harold said that I was ‘not charged’ for the repairs done to make the car able to be transported to the body shop, but this is completely false since the work that was done to get the car drivable to the body shop should have been done for the price I paid to have the rear end installed. I was told that they could install the rear end that I provided for the $800 they quoted on the phone, and at no point did they say that they were not going to do a complete job. I think installing a brake line is a pretty reasonable aspect to installing a brand new rear end of a car, especially when I provided new hand bendable brake lines when I dropped the new rear end off, and installing shocks is a pretty standard part of that job, as well as testing the brakes and adjusting the parking brake.I spent about 4 hours fixing the issues that were not completed by Harold’s, including filling and bleeding the brake system, properly installing the track bar, installing the shocks, properly installing the brake lines and securing them to the frame, adjusting the parking brake that was completely adjusted out and was not operational at all, and thus I didn’t even have a back-up braking system when I left the garage and the main brakes were non-functional. I am going to have to re-repair the body damage that was not properly completed and looks bad, and I am going to have to install the proper length drive shaft that should have been swapped out with the one provided originally, and was noted as being too long in the invoice.If I was not capable of doing my own repairs on this poor job, I would have had to trailer my car to a different garage and have them completely redo everything that I had paid Harold’s to do in the first place, so I believe I am entitled to up to a full refund.
Sincerely,
[redacted]
Here is the work order the gave mr when I picked the car up. There were many factual errors in the work order, so I declined to sign anything. I was told that I could refuse to sign, but if I didn't pick the car up right then, I was going to have to start paying $45 a day in storage fees.The invoice...
does not include the fact that after the damage was found, Elliot installed new brake lines that I provided, welded a different track bar bracket into place (but didn't line it up right and it hit the differential cover when the suspension was bottomed out), Elliot said that I was being charged for brake fluid and transmission fluid as well.