The Auto Doc

Reviews 3

BE

Beverly Hills

DO NOT VISIT AUTO DOC! Recently, Dave, the owner, called ME two or three times personally. He would ask how my Jeep Cherokee was holding up and also ask about my son. (I used Auto Doc years ago for a couple of repairs, but felt that they were higher than the average auto shop so I found other places to have my car serviced.) During those conversations, I told him about my Jeeps current issues and he asked me over and over to give him a chance to look at it FOR FREE, no diagnostic charge. He repeated this several times during our conversation. Since my temp gauge was going all the way over to the hottest setting, I told him that I had AAA and would have it towed over. He then told me that his shop was a AAA authorized shop so I was entitled to a discount which was also confirmed by AAA. Dave called me on Tuesday and said that the water pump was busted, the fan clutch needed to be replaced and the belt was cracked and also needed to be replaced. He said that it would cost me $541 and there would be a $50 charge for the diagnosis, totaling $591. I reminded him that he said that he would not charge me for diagnosing it. He started with "but......". I told him that I would call him back after making a few calls. He quickly changed to "ok, hold on a second". When he came back, the price was $553. I agreed to let him do the work because I do not have a regular mechanic to turn to. On Wednesday, he called to tell me that there was some sort of leak in the back of the engine, blah, blah, blah. He said that he added Stop Leak and wasnt sure if it would last forever or temporarily. He mentioned another $10 charge. I arrived to get my car and told Chris that I was not paying the additional charge because I did not authorize it and no one discussed it with me prior to doing it which is SOP. Also, I was still uneasy about the diagnostic charge conversation. He said that I would have to wait for Dave who had left the shop. When Dave arrived, I told him the same thing. He immediately became visibly angry, stating that he had made too many concessions for me already. (What concessions? Keeping your word?) He told me that I needed to take my Jeep somewhere else in the future. WOW! I told him no problem. As he was checking me out, he started a speech about how he done me some grand favor and I interrupted him. I told him that I did not want to hear another word, you should have called me prior to adding anything to my bill. He looked up, furiously and very rudely, he gave me back my money, threw my keys in a drawer and told me to come back when I had the additional charge and started to walk out to the garage. In disbelief, I said, "You called me several times to ask for my business. I give it to you and this is how Im treated? You have to get my authorization before doing any extra work and for any extra charges." He turned around, took my money, slamming papers and drawers all the while. Mostly cash, the balance was given on a debit card. He asked me what the difference between the cash and the debit was and I told him. He starting punching a calculator like a mad man, finally slamming down the card receipt, the repair receipt, which showed no discount whatsoever for being a member of AAA and my key. I signed and walked out. Although $10 may seem minimal, it could have been $50 or $100 and either way, he should have called. After reading some of the other reviews, I feel that this shop is immoral and sheisty. To be treated so disrespectfully and to lose a customer over $10 after asking me to bring my car over is just plain crazy. I will also be reporting this to AAA.

JA

Jason Songhurst

The Auto Doc... What a huge disappointment. I went in for a check up on my Jeep. All the systems were working fine, but I had a given a coupon for a free oil change and checkup to make sure everything was good under the hood. (I am not a mechanic.) They gave me a coupon for a coffee at the coffee shop around the corner and I waited for the verdict. They told me that the main belt needed to be changed as it was quite old and the throttle assembly needed to be cleaned. I figured that they were honest guys and they thought that that was what needed to be done to make sure my car was safe. So I agreed to the work, although the quoted price was quite steep (over 600 dollars). They did the work, and I got my car back. After a couple of days, the throttle started idling high at stop lights, nothing too bad, I just had to pump the gas pedal and it would drop down, but this was new behavior. And in the system that they had repaired. Worse, the air conditioning system started to intermittently blow warm air. I had to leave the country for a planned trip and didnt get a chance to bring the car back to them, but my roommate, who used my jeep while I was gone, did bring it back to them. She told them that they had changed the main belt and now the a/c was only working intermittently. The mechanic told her that the pully clutch on the a/c system was shot and the compressor needed to be replaced even though he demonstrated that compressor was still fine (touching it and showing it was cold), and they would do it for $1000. She declined. When I heard that I was shocked. I did my own research on the internet and found out what can cause the pully clutch on the a/c not to engage. The #1 reason? Low refrigerant levels. Had the mechanic said anything about that? No. He just said that he would do a really expensive replacement of a working part. That tells me that they are either incompetent (they should know what causes malfunctions) or they are cheats (they do know but they sell unneeded repairs). I added some refrigerant myself to the system and it has worked fine ever since. I dont have enough evidence to prove it, but it seems to me like they could very easily have let a little of the refrigerant out to cause this problem. Whether this was intentional or not, the resulting recommendation to replace the working (!!!) compressor tells me all I need to know about this mechanic: do not return.

A

Anonymous User

Used to respect the owner as a caring,fair,friendly guy. It saddens me to report that in my last visit, this high esteem was misplaced. I just think that the economic pressures of purchasing adjacent land/house to expand his business got in the way of the owners former integrity. The problem was being overcharged, not because of the high hourly rate, but because I was not charged the amount of time the technician told me it took to do the service. I told the owner about the discrepancy (not just a little off, but 2.5 times the actual time)and the justification was not only lame but changed from one story to the next. At first the justification was that I was actuallty being saved money because it would have been alot more expensive to replace the module compared to servicing it. That may give you some insight into how pricing is arrived at. I might have followed that logic but there was no reason to replace the item when the "standard of care" is to do service work on the item. Apparently realizing how lame this explanation was, Dave then said he arrived at the time spent by adding time he had to discuss the repair with his technician. Sounds fair, right, but over one hour of discussing the work, for a service time of less than one hour, seems a bit much. The bottom line is that he didnt back off what was clearly unreasonable, since I had no other recourse than the "good will" of the owner to be fair, and it wasnt a day that that was happening. By the way, the cost of the repair was a little over three times (including parts) as compared to a quote from a reputable dealership. So unless you are blessed by an abundance of money, be aware that when the work is done and you are presented a bill, dont count on the logic and fairness of the owner to be a factor on what payment is demanded

Other organizations