Smittys Garage & Detailing

Despite advice to turn this customer away at her first appearance at our business, we hesitantly welcomed her and listened to her concerns regarding her 1990 Ford Escort Station Wagon. Against our better judgment, our business agreed to help her with her vehicle repair. The Ford Escort brought in...

was not running and had no compression on the number 2 and 3 cylinders. The diagnosis was that the vehicle needed a new engine. The customer was advised by us and many others that the car was not worth repairing because it was an old car and would continue having issues. The customer insisted she wanted a new engine because she loved the car. We ordered an engine for the vehicle and installed the engine in a timely manner. The Ford Escort started and ran good. It was test drove several times before the customer was called to come pick it up. The customers comment listed in the original complaint about the vehicle barely wanting to run is false. Also, no one at my business told the customer to "ride it out". We are a very professional business with high end technology and educated and polite staff. Our technicians are Master ASE Certified and Advanced Level Specialist and we have Master GM and Ford trained technicians on staff. Our number one priority is customer satisfaction and we work one-on-one with each customer to make sure we are meeting all of their needs. The customer was never told her vehicle issues needed to "smooth out". When the vehicle left our business it was running good and it also was not towed to our business a second time. It was towed in the first time because it was not running due to having a bad engine. The customer drove the Escort to our business because she said we broke her mirror switch. We looked at the mirror switch and it looked perfect. We made a follow up call to the customer and finally obtained more information regarding the mirror being inoperative. We then diagnosed the power mirror circuit and found a broken wire inside the driver side door. The customer assumed we had broke her mirror and we explained to her that we had not done anything to her door or the wires inside it while replacing the engine. We repaired the wires inside the door and called the customer to come pick up the vehicle. The customer returned to our business a week later complaining that the vehicle jerked while driving. They brought the Escort out and we test drove it several times and could never duplicate her concerns. The vehicle ran perfect. A couple weeks went by, the customer called back saying the jerking was getting worse so we went to her house and picked the vehicle up and noticed an extended crank when cold and did duplicate the jerking. We brought the vehicle back to our business and performed initial diagnosis on the vehicle and found that the scan tool would not communicate with the PCM. So our diagnosis of the Escort at this time is that it needs a PCM and a throttle body. During the initial diagnosis of the PCM, our business received this complaint through the Revdex.com. We called the customer and talked to her husband. We asked him about the complaint and he stated he didn't know anything about it and that she must have submitted it behind his back. We advised him that our business has done everything we can to assist them as our customers and that it appeared there was nothing else we could do to satisfy them and their vehicle repair needs. We asked them to come and pick the car up and also stated that we would write down our diagnosis. We never stated we wanted the car off our property. The accusations stated by the customer in her complaint against our business are false and have no merit. We have hundreds of customers that are extremely happy with our business and we strive for 100% customer satisfaction.
According to the customers desired resolution she is wanting reimbursed for the engine and the install. The engine we installed in the vehicle is a good engine and is mechanically sound. This is a 25 year old vehicle and it's going to have problems. Just because we replaced the engine, does not make us responsible for every minor issue that occurs from here on out.