Incompetent shops

[Tippey764]

I wish I owned every piece of automotive equipment so I never had to step foot I these places

Pretty much I did a lot of work to my brothers car, new tie rods. Were one of them. Since I did the inners as well the alignment was very very off

I rough aligned the car and drove it to the shop down the street last night

I dropped the car off for 4 new tires and an alignment and said I would pick it up tomorrow morning when they were done

So this morning I come and pickup the car

Within 2 seconds I notice the steering wheel is 45 degrees off and the care drives like ass

I have something to do so I'm forced to drive the car all fucked up to my appointment

Anyways I drive back and complain they fucked up

The guys response? " oh we're sorry the alignment rack was messing up last night "

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK.... If the rack is messing up AND YOU KNOW IT WAS then wouldn't it make sense to test drive the car and make sure everything was alright.

Well now I'm waiting for them to realignment and my day is completely fucked now because its so far off. Visually the left wheel points left when the steering wheel is straight and all other wheels are straight.

Ugh fuck these shops

[AAPOQ]

I hope they fix it for free...

I'd be afraid to take it back there just to have them fix there fuck up

[Tippey764]

Of course they fixed it for free

I would raise all hell if they didn't

It's time I'm going to literally watch the guy do the alignment

They also didn't give me a print out because the printer was broken

[AAPOQ]

I'd be raising all hell for the initial fuck up. #solame

But I hear ya, I literally hate almost all mechanics, and for that reason I have learned so much about basic mech.....

But alignment and tire mounting are kind of never going to be achieved in my garage ...

[Honda_Lady]

oh i know how you feel, I wish I had all my own equipment as well to never have to take it to a shop for them to butcher it (had that happen in the past) Atleast i trust my own work. there are very few people that i trust to touch my car because of all the past shop experiences i have had.

[Tippey764]

At least I got a hell of a discount for using a commercial account

That is the only saving grace, if I had paid full price than I would have made a much bigger deal

[Soufkackicustom]

From a shop's prospective.....you ought to see how much fucked up shit we deal with that people try to do their selves. Luckily I don't do mechanic work, but especially car audio and lift kits...I normally as them " what in the hell were you thinking"

[Amiss]

From a shop's prospective.....you ought to see how much fucked up shit we deal with that people try to do their selves. Luckily I don't do mechanic work, but especially car audio and lift kits...I normally as them " what in the hell were you thinking"

So that's an excuse to not do the job they're paid to do?

They chose to be a mechanic, they weren't forced to do it

[AccordWarrior]

I'm with you...there are very few places I take my vehicles on a regular basis.

I called around to get my Mom a new catback on her Pathfinder. Called a Meineke on a whim and literally had this conversation:

"Mechanic" : How may I help you?
Me: I'd like an estimate for a catback on a 1998 Nissan Pathfinder
"Mechanic" : Catback? What are you talking about? I've never heard that term before.
Me: ...
Me: The exhaust piping from the catalytic converter back to the exhaust tip
"Mechanic" : Ok, but the catalytic converters are part of the system, you must replace those. I do not understand what you mean by catback.
Me: Not really, just unbolt at the cat and replace that set of piping.
"Mechanic" : My program doesn't say that
Me: I was just under there, it's exhaust manifold bolted to a cat bolted to piping
"Mechanic" : Okay, so this is for a Nissan Pathfinder 2WD model
Me: Umm, it's 4WD
"Mechanic" : They didn't make 4WD Pathfinders
Me: ...
Me: They did make 2WD models, but I'm fairly confident it made up 5% of the sales.
"Mechanic" (laughing): It will cost you $1,400 to replace the exhaust
Me: (hangs up phone)

[AAPOQ]

$1400?! what a joke

[Honda_Lady]

OMG are they freaking joking? $1400?!?! screw that. I would have hung up on his ass after that conversation too.

[Mike1357]

Lets just say I've seen my fair share of fuck ups from a performance shop around my parts. They had an EvoX with 6000 miles on it. Came in for a fender rolling. Somehow they thought it a good idea to cut "relief" notches into the inner fenders then bend them in instead of using a fender roller like they should have. Butched the shit out of both quarter panels...

[Tippey764]

Well it ended in more disasted

Well the issue was my brand new inner tie rods have some serious defects in them. They were not made with enough clearnace to actually turn like they should so you can't turn them to align the car, basically the balljoint was too tight

That aside they should have told me this before they gave me the car back, i specifically asked about this since i noticed it myself and the guy told me it was hard but they got them to turn

Then later on when they ran into the issue ( me standing next to the car in the shop ) that they had the same issue earlier. I raised the question of " if you couldn't turn them then how the fuck did you think you even aligned it " he said the machine told him it was fine. BULLSHIT there is no way in hell that happened AND even if it did he should have test drove his work

Well i told the guy " fuck it, try to turn them and if they strip i don't care i will take them back "

The guy tried to turn it and since there was so much resistance it actually loosened the tierod out of the steering rack, yeah thats how tight they were


When that happened i basically just jumped in and ripped the fucking car apart myself and fixed it, i rough aligned it with my eye by screwing the outer tierod farther onto the inter tierod ( the car was 4 degrees out on the toe, you could visibly see it was fucked up )

The part WAS defective i'm sure of that

But they still mishandled everything regarding informing me of the issue

They should have told me first thing that morning when they found it out, i would have fixed it and taken it back. No they let me have the car and find it out AFTER i paid.

[19dabeast85]

The tie rod isn't necessarily defective. The inners especially can be VERY tight when new. The stub that screws into the rack should have a hex shape so you put a wrench on it to hold it still.

But yeah, after Firestone forgot to tighten BOTH tie rods on my wife's CRV (and we drove it 400 miles like that before I found it), I demanded a refund of my lifetime deal with them and walked out. I never plan to go back to a Firestone for anything.


Lesson learned: Just as I double and triple check MY work when I perform repairs/maintenance on my car, I better check behind ANYone else who works on my car.

[Tippey764]

You're not going to be able to reach the part to tighten the inner tie rod because its under hte bellow boot.