O'Gorman's West Towne Auto, Inc.

Hello,  In regards to customer complaint #[redacted] our response is as follows.  We recommended that this customer contact you because I felt she was done listening to me explain the facts.  Let's take the complaints in order of appearance. ...

Her reference to "the woman who was at the front  was very offensive in her approach" I don't think was correct.  As the owner, I have an office in the front and can hear every conversation that takes place.  I was listening to this one as the gal in front is a newer employee and I did not find her speech offensive at all.  The customer mentioned to me later that she didn't like the fact that someone else was taking care of her this time than last time.  Perhaps that was her consternation.  But to me [redacted] seemed to talk well with this customer.  The customers next complaint was that the estimate for the thermostat we gave her was too much as she "spent 5 minutes and found that it would take 15-30 minutes to replace the thermostat".  The problem with that is that the labor guide calls for around 6 hours to do the job and we have done them before and that is a correct time as an entire front part of the car has to come off.  Another problem with this is that the car exhibited a different problem than the thermostat which would make for an awfully expensive mis-diagnosis on her part.  The water pump is the most likely culprit but a thermostat is in the same general area and it would be wise to do this also.  The water pump impeller ("fan") is the part that fails causing the water not to circulate.  The timing belt is recommended for the reason of mileage concerns and is no extra labor.  Again, I noticed no "snide" remarks or exchanges by [redacted].  When this discussion was finished with the lady and she left, [redacted] was in tears and went to cry in the bathroom.  She was so confused as to why because she didn't understand why the lady was nasty to her and why she complained to me about the [redacted]..        On the matter of the temperature light coming on for us and the customer, our policy is to have the technician write down everything that he notices in conjunction with the complaint.  In the body of the inspection sheet all issues are recorded at the time (and not later) of the inspection.  Our tech recorded at this time that the temperature light came on right away for him.  I offered the customer the opportunity to come and see the report that was written up before her complaint about the light.  I didn't tell the customer that the light must not have come on for her as I don't know that.  Besides, there's nothing we can do to make her temperature light to came on from overheating.  Actually, the light SHOULD be coming on because coolant is not circulating in her system and she brought her car in thinking she needed a thermostat.  On the timing of her car taking about a half hour to get it back to her she does leave out the fact that she showed up before we had a chance to call her about the car and put things back together so we had to scramble a bit to get it back to her.  About the one-half hour part, might have been some miscommunication between our gal and the customer or our gal and the tech in the back, I just am not sure.  But again, showed up before we were done with the car.  Hopefully this helps to clear the matter up a bit.  Please let us know if any documentation or more information is needed. Thank You[redacted]

Thank you for your attention to this matter.   Mr [redacted] car was towed in because as the initial vehicle complaint states "vehicle cranks and starts but vehicle will shut off right away." Our technician investigated and found out the customer had a 'PO100' code stored in his computer...

which is a reference to a failed Mass Air Flow sensor.  There were no other codes found in the computer. After verifying the failure, we recommended to Mr. [redacted] to replace that part to start with and we would drive the vehicle and make sure there were no other issues experienced.  we also recommended the air filter get replaced and he accepted.  After the part was replaced we took the car for a drive and it ran fine.  The vehicle would not stall out as before and there were no more codes in the computer.  At that point we are done and we called the customer to let him know the vehicle was running good and he could pick the vehicle up. Four days later the customer contacted us and said he was experiencing similar conditions with the vehicle and we said he could bring the vehicle in that day but could not guarantee we could service it that same day.The customer then got angry and used profanity towards our manager and stated that he was going to take the vehicle to the Lexus dealer because we could guarantee service that same day.  The customer than came in on March 6th, an employee greeted him and found the source of his complaint , asked the customer to wait while they found the manager to talk to Mr. [redacted]. The manager talked with the customer and Mr. [redacted] provided the paperwork from the dealer which indicated they found a different code which pointed to the oxygen sensor which they replaced.  Our determination is that the vehicle was towed in, but driven away after our repairs which indicates the issue we experienced was taken care of. We serviced the code we found and there were no more codes when we were done. We can go no further after that point.The customer got back to us four days later meaning the car would not stall any more after coming into our facility not able to keep running.  He was here complaining on the 6th and was here maybe a total of 15 minutes, not the 'many hours' as he said.  We saw the receipt from the dealer and it said the oxygen sensor was replaced, not the 'same sensor' as Mr [redacted] states. We would have been glad to replace that sensor if there was a code for it originally and acting up.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
I don't believe that this business operates in a reputable manner.  I did not say that I don't think they had anything to do with the electrical issue.  I didn't have that issue before I brought it to them and am concerned that they caused the problem.  With respect to the water pump - I took the car to the Audi dealer.  I would imagine that they are more familiar with the brand and as such know what they are talking about.  This [redacted] is ridiculous.  Clearly this business does not have knowledgeable or competent mechanics nor an effective customer relations practice.  In addition, this business clearly has no intention of righting its wrongs.  While I do not accept their response, I do not want to hear from them again.  I will share my experience with anyone considering them for service and will post the same in any forum where my dissatisfaction is able to be shared. 
Regards,
[redacted]

Review: My significant other ([redacted]) and I dropped off my car 2003 Mitsubishi Montaro to O'Gorman's on Thursday 1/23/14 for sqeaky brakes. The car shop called back the same day and said there were a number of things that needed to be fixed. [redacted] and I agreed to it. They later called back and said more things were wrong with the car and we agreed to get it fixed. They also said that they would finish by Friday afternoon because they did not like to carry work over the weekend since they close on weekends. We get a phone call late Friday afternoon saying that the problem with the car was complicated and that it would be ready Monday (1/27/14). We get a call Monday saying that the wrong parts were ordered so they would not have my car ready and did not know when the new car parts were arriving but that it would not take weeks for it to be ready only day. They offered me one of their cars to drive in the meantime and I picked it up once they had it ready for me at 5:45p.m. that day. We did not hear from them until Wednesday night (2/29/14) before they were closing around 5p.m. Erika who was the receptionist that had been working with us said that the car was ready but if we want, we can leave it over night so they can test drive it in the morning to make sure it was fixed. We said that was fine since it would defeat the purpose if the car was not fixed. Erike said she would call by 9am Friday (2/30/14) morning which we did not hear from her until late morning. [redacted] picked up the car after getting the call from Erika and as soon as he drove off the lot, he noticed a whinning sound from the steering wheel. He took it back but O'Gorman said it was due to an interior steering wheel pump that they did not touch when fixing the car. They did however changed the steering wheel belt. I spoke with the manager name [redacted] and she said it had nothing to do with what they fixed. It would be an additional estimate of $677.00. Now the engine light is on and the steering wheel has resistance. [redacted] did not drive the car to work because he did not feel that it was safe.Desired Settlement: I just want them to fix the whinning noise because when I dropped my car off, it was not like that. I just want it completely fixed without the noise and want the engine light off.

Business

Response:

To Whom It May Concern,

We did work on the 2003 Mitsubishi Montero for Ms.

[redacted]. It is accurate we did not finish

the vehicle Friday January 24th.

We offered [redacted] (the person we were told to speak to) a service car for

the weekend and he declined. We had

ordered a seal for the customer and the “after market” part we were getting was

not correct. The parts companies listed

it to be the correct part for the vehicle but it was not the right seal. Monday,

after trying more seals we could find locally, we ordered the part directly

from Mitsubishi and paid for the cost difference of the part and for it to be

overnighted. We told the customer the seal was not fitting correctly and we had

to get it straight from the manufacturer. On Monday when we spoke with [redacted] in

person, he picked up a service car free of charge, that we would not see the

seal until late Tuesday and we would most likely not call until Wednesday. He said he understood and that was ok. When the customer came to pick up the vehicle

we made him aware of the power steering noise.

When the vehicle came in, the exhaust was very loud. We told him that we were unsure if the noise

was there (couldn’t hear over the exhaust) or not. We asked him to drive the vehicle and tell us

if it was a new noise or something he had heard. He drove the vehicle and stopped back, letting

us know it was not there before. We did

not move nor disturb the power steering pump in any of the repairs that we did

for the customer. The pump was not

leaking, it was an internal failure. The

estimate of $677.00 was given at the counter because he wanted an estimate

right away. [redacted] let [redacted] know that

was the worst case scenario and that she would look for a less expensive pump

or find out what we can do for the customer and get back to him. Jody called the shop and did speak to both

women. We did explain to her that our

repairs could not have caused the pump to go bad.

The customer brought the vehicle back to shop because the

check engine light came on and the noise from the power steering in the

truck. The check engine light was

flagging due to a vacuum line, we replaced the vacuum line and the EGR solenoid. This is something that may have been

disturbed during the initial repairs. We

did remove and replace vacuum lines. We

gave the customer a service car free of charge while we worked on the vehicle.

We did replace the power steering pump for a very minimal cost due to the hassle

of having to bring the vehicle back, being inconvenienced. [redacted] had spoken with Jody and came to an

agreement about the pump. We have spoken with the customer since all of the

repairs and they have reported no issues.

We are thankful for their business and will provide our 12,000/12 month

warranty on any of our work. We are under the impression the customer is

satisfied with the work and the conclusions we came to.

Review: I took my car in to be serviced and was told that the Diagnostic fee was separate from the repair fee and would not be included in the total should I opt to have them complete the necessary repairs. The woman who was at the front was very offensive in her approach. She said "I can tell you're the kind of person that doesn't spend a lot of money" and she kept reiterating that she "worked for me". However, when I specifically asked her what the labor time would be for replacing the thermostat she said she couldn't tell me that "it would take several hours to put that together". I spent 5 minutes and found that it would take 15 to 30 minutes to replace the thermostat. There was a lot of unpleasant back and forth between us and my instincts told me to take the car and go somewhere else but I didn't.

When I came back to inquire about the results of the diagnostic she very snidely said that the problem was that the water pump needed to be replaced. She said there was "a fan that got broken somehow" and that "caused the water pump to stop circulating the water". She also said that it needed a timing belt and that they would also replace the thermostat "even though that wasn't the real problem". She then informed me that the red indicator light was "on when the mechanic turned the car on". That light had never come on before they had my car in their care.

When I told her I wanted my car back she told me it would take 30 minutes. When I asked why it would take so long she indicated that they had to "put it back together". I informed her that it was parked out in the lot and asked her how it could be parked out there if it wasn't put together. She stuttered and then said, "he needs to put the radiator cap on because he pulled it out there to test the pressure in the system". I said "and that takes a 1/2 an hour?" and she said I'll have him pull it around now.

When she went to the back the manager finally came out of his office and asked what the problem was. I told him that she had been rude and he said he didn't think so. I told him what my concerns were and that I wanted my car and I was done with them. He said okay and went back to his office. When I got in my car the red overheating light came on. This had NEVER happened before. I got home and called them to ask what they had done to my car to cause this and the manager said that because he had it in writing from his mechanic that the light was on when he got in the car he was not liable for any issue related to that.

Just because somebody writes something down doesn't make it true. I believe they did something to my car to cause this so that they would have a larger repair to bill me for.Desired Settlement: I want the O'Gorman company to pay to have whatever is causing the red light on my vehicle to be fixed by another shop. I do not trust them to ever work on my car again. Their staff and management have ZERO customer relation skills - they are like used car salesmen and are completely untrustworthy and I believe dishonest. I believe they did something to my car to cause this problem so that they could jack up what is otherwise a pretty simple and inexpensive fix.

Business

Response:

Hello, In regards to customer complaint #[redacted] our response is as follows. We recommended that this customer contact you because I felt she was done listening to me explain the facts. Let's take the complaints in order of appearance. Her reference to "the woman who was at the front was very offensive in her approach" I don't think was correct. As the owner, I have an office in the front and can hear every conversation that takes place. I was listening to this one as the gal in front is a newer employee and I did not find her speech offensive at all. The customer mentioned to me later that she didn't like the fact that someone else was taking care of her this time than last time. Perhaps that was her consternation. But to me [redacted] seemed to talk well with this customer. The customers next complaint was that the estimate for the thermostat we gave her was too much as she "spent 5 minutes and found that it would take 15-30 minutes to replace the thermostat". The problem with that is that the labor guide calls for around 6 hours to do the job and we have done them before and that is a correct time as an entire front part of the car has to come off. Another problem with this is that the car exhibited a different problem than the thermostat which would make for an awfully expensive mis-diagnosis on her part. The water pump is the most likely culprit but a thermostat is in the same general area and it would be wise to do this also. The water pump impeller ("fan") is the part that fails causing the water not to circulate. The timing belt is recommended for the reason of mileage concerns and is no extra labor. Again, I noticed no "snide" remarks or exchanges by [redacted]. When this discussion was finished with the lady and she left, [redacted] was in tears and went to cry in the bathroom. She was so confused as to why because she didn't understand why the lady was nasty to her and why she complained to me about the [redacted].. On the matter of the temperature light coming on for us and the customer, our policy is to have the technician write down everything that he notices in conjunction with the complaint. In the body of the inspection sheet all issues are recorded at the time (and not later) of the inspection. Our tech recorded at this time that the temperature light came on right away for him. I offered the customer the opportunity to come and see the report that was written up before her complaint about the light. I didn't tell the customer that the light must not have come on for her as I don't know that. Besides, there's nothing we can do to make her temperature light to came on from overheating. Actually, the light SHOULD be coming on because coolant is not circulating in her system and she brought her car in thinking she needed a thermostat. On the timing of her car taking about a half hour to get it back to her she does leave out the fact that she showed up before we had a chance to call her about the car and put things back together so we had to scramble a bit to get it back to her. About the one-half hour part, might have been some miscommunication between our gal and the customer or our gal and the tech in the back, I just am not sure. But again, showed up before we were done with the car. Hopefully this helps to clear the matter up a bit. Please let us know if any documentation or more information is needed. Thank You[redacted]

Business

Response:

Hello,In response to the rejection;We mentioned to the customer at the outset that the labor of taking the front of the engine would have to be done to confirm our findings of a faulty water pump. We removed a coolant hose coming from the engine that should be squirting coolant out of it if the water pump was working properly. there was no spraying/circulation of coolant whatsoever. These cars have a regular pattern failure of broken plastic cooling fins as a defect from Volkswagen. We have found many of these cars to have this problem and this car exhibits the same behavior, but would have to be verified by disassembly. Even if we took things apart and found them to be OK, the customer wouldn't be charged for that. We do feel strongly however that they are faulty. We never said the timing belt was bad or needed just that it is recommended to be replaced if the water pump was because that comes off anyway meaning the labor is free. Obviously the belt can stay on if it was just replaced recently or if the customer just doesn't want it replaced. We suspect if the heater core is replaced her problem of low heat will continue as we found only 130 degrees going in and out of the heater core when we checked it, coming from low coolant circulation. Heater cores need about 175 degrees to give out heat inside the cabin.The owner of the car now says that the light is being caused by an electrical issue that she thought we were the cause of it. I'm glad she no longer suspects us as the cause. We still suspect the light is coming on because of low circulation in the cooling system. Did I read that right that the owner says that bad thermostats can't cause overheating? Did the shop that diagnosed her heater core as failing tell her that? Who doesn't know that's incorrect? Thermostats can cause cars to over or underheat. Newer cars more the latter. And who ever said she had a bad one? That wouldn't be us. That was only recommended as a matter of money savings because we're in their already and temperature issues. About the year and a half ago the parts in question being replaced, is that we've had new water pumps from Volkswagen go bad three times in a row as they have been that problematic. She never told us that those parts were replaced already, but nevertheless we recommended them because of an apparent failure was observed. So the owner says the heater core is the issue with her low heat and that would cure her problem. If she would want a refund we would need the car back to verify her low heat problem was fixed and that her coolant circulation issue would need to be inspected.After just now having another consult with our technician who diagnosed this car, he said he just checked a similar Audi this morning, removing the same hose coming off her upper radiator hose and going to the overflow bottle and there was coolant spraying, equaling coolant circulation. When the owners car was in here as was stated 130 degrees on the in and out hose on the heater core hoses (too cool) and he just told me also at the upper and lower radiator hoses was the same (too cool) while the coolant temp in the engine was @ 240 degrees (too hot) That's overheating in our book with coolant not circulating. We believe she will be disappointed in a heater core replacement. Thank you.

Consumer

Response:

Office personal are friendly. I was not happy with their prices. Labor charges are $10 - $15 more per hour than other auto service places in the area, not "comparable" as they told me. I was charged $650 for an exhaust system that would have cost $335 at [redacted]'s in Wales, or $350 at [redacted] on 92 and National or $300 at [redacted]'s on [redacted], just 4 miles away.
I was charged $333.18 for a starter that I later found in several places on line for less than $100, with no charges for shipping or handling, yet O'Gorman's charged me an extra $23.26 as a 'supply charge'.
Bottom line, I did not pay enough attention to the bottom line, and ended up spending WAY MORE than I needed to. When I brought this concern to O'Gorman's, there response was basically "too bad for you"

Review: We took our shift stick vehicle to O'Gorman's West Towne Auto since they supposedly were good. We took it in because the clutch was a little soft. We thought it might have been the clutch cable again like it was a few months ago.

We dropped the vehicle off and left to do what we needed to do. [redacted] called us later and said the Clutch Slave Cylinder needed to be replaced because it was close to being blown out. They quoted us originally at about $1,073 which included tax and labor. (I had them on speaker phone so both my fiancé and I heard what [redacted] had quoted us). We decided to call another shop that we know well but was further away. They quoted us differently - less - a lot less.

One of the reviews we saw said that O'Gorman's was willing to come down on price. We called O'Gorman's back again (had them on speaker phone) and told them what the other place had quoted. [redacted] said they could not match it (ok fine) but would not lower the price at all. [redacted] said that she already gave us a good deal by only charging us for 7.0 hours of labor instead of 7.2 hours. [redacted] said she could give us a coupon which would make the total $1,173 and some odd cents. My fiancé who was talking to [redacted] at the time said that was higher than what she had originally told me. [redacted] then said that she never told me a price (which was a lie). When my fiancé called her out on it she changed her story saying that she did in fact quote me a price but that it didn't include tax and labor - another lie. She also began to give attitude - a lot of it.

Anyway, we told O'Gorman's that we were taking the vehicle somewhere else. They didn't want to give us the key at first and were very argumentative when we explained we did not like the way we were treated. They definitely did NOT treat us like we belonged and were NOT friendly and tried to blame us for everything. They told us when we went to get the vehicle that we "probably will not be able to move it". Umm... we drove it here and its been here 3 hours (at most) why would it not move now? Also, we did NOT drive the vehicle at all once we noticed they may be an issue with the clutch - except for when we drove it to O'Gorman's. We have talked to other mechanics since this happened and they do not believe the clutch would have gone COMPLETELY in the time O'Gorman's had it.

Finally she gave the key to the service person to bring the car around. We paid the $48.52 dollar bill they charged for looking at the vehicle then went outside where we watched the service man open the hood of the vehicle, do something and then THROW something away, close the hood and surprise the vehicle didn't start. My fiancé even tried to start it and then he realized that the clutch was COMPLETELY out. There is no way that should have happened or could have happened in the 3 hours it was SITTING and NOT moving in their lot.

[redacted], another lady who worked there was trying to argue with me even after we went outside. She kept following us around trying to say that they didn't do anything to the vehicle and saying see you can't move it and nee all with a snarky attitude. She would not leave us alone AT ALL. And when my fiancé and I were talking to each other about how we were going to figure out getting to work (since we work in different cities and both work 2nd shift) with one car and about what our plan was for getting this car to the other shop, she kept interrupting us very rudely and as if she didn't want us to talk to each other and figure the situation out. We ended up having to have the vehicle towed.

Both [redacted] and [redacted] talked down to my fiancé and I as if we were stupid.

I would NOT recommend this place. After this situation I have talked to others who have said that they make crap up that is supposedly wrong with vehicles and charge more than they should just so they can get more money. There is even a review on their site from August 2011 about how they tried to charge someone more than they should have and said something was wrong with a vehicle that wasn't. It also seems like the reviews (the good ones) were written by employees - especially since most of them are all the same concept and almost same wording. They obviously do not care about their customers.

DO NOT TAKE YOUR VEHICLES HERE, THE WILL RIP YOU OFF AND LIE TO YOU ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY NEEDS TO BE FIXED!!Desired Settlement: Due to the stress and headache of the situation and having to wait for the tow truck we ended up missing a day of work. We would like a refund for the diagnostic bill (when they were looking for what was wrong) since we missed a day of work and had to pay to have the vehicle towed. We do not want store credit. We want it either cash or check.

Business

Response:

To Whom It May Concern,

Review: This shop had my young daughter in a bind with a dead battery. They wanted to test the battery and charging circuit--fine. Replaced the battery--fine--but with a very high-end unit on a 15+ year old car without checking with the customer. However, car was said to need an alternator as well--fine. However instead of replacing with a remanufactured alternator as virtually all repair shops do--especially on a high mileage vehicle--they went with a brand new unit. So out the door for a battery and alternator on a '[redacted], the bill was nearly $700.00 ($685.15 to be exact). When phoned in this regard, the shop was rude and unhelpful.I've been in the automotive repair industry through my adult life, specializing in Cadillacs and even owning my own general automotive repair shop. This bill floored me. Shockingly overpriced. Gouging. One sees a young woman helpless, and this is what occurs. Pathetic.Desired Settlement: I can live with the overpriced batter and labor (though also inordinate). But I want the new alternator removed at no charge and a remanufactured alternator put in its place, and a cash refund of the difference.

Business

Response:

To Whom It May Concern,