I Brought my car here on 5/21/2018 for an oil change, and the way I was treated drove me to write this review because I have never been treated like this in Charleston since I moved here from Maryland. I got into an accident the week before and the lady at fault filed a claim with her insurance. After the claim was filed, I was asked to take the car to a Geico repair shop 5 minutes away from my house in West Ashley, and when I got there they also had a rental car ready for me. When I told the mechanic, what happened to my car, he immediately took offense to the fact that I did not bring the job to his shop. The sentence he took the most offense from and interpreted wrong was this, "why would I bring the car here?" He took offense to the fact that I did not bring the job to him, which he made clear to me when he stated that "I am a part of the educated black people who prefer to take the thousand-dollar jobs to white mechanics and choose to bring the petty jobs to the black mechanics." This statement was outrageous and highly incendiary to me because the only reason I did not bring the job to him was because the insurance company handled everything, which was very convenient because their shop was next to my job, my house and my school. Every other time I took my car to Mr. Mel Brewer's shop I had to drive 20-30 minutes just to support black businesses.
The sentence "Why would I bring the car here?" came from the convenience that Geico accorded me and also because I was a student at the Charleston Law School and did not have the time to run back and forth to several mechanics. Mr. Mel's son went inside and told his father his own preconceived notions of what he concluded I did and they both came back outside and told me they will no longer work on my car. Mr. Mel himself continued to tell me I was stupid, naive, and with all the education I had, I could not decipher that I could bring the car to his job. He further told me to take my car back to Geico for the oil change since I took it to them for the body service. They stopped working on my car and asked me to leave and told me to never come back. When I got back into my car, my engine light was on, which was not on when I brought the car in because I have an Infiniti. An Infiniti usually gives you a notice on your screen when you are due for an oil change, your engine light does not come on unless something else is wrong. From there I was told I was a liar and that there was no way they would touch the car or provide me any more services. I was told never to disrespect my elders as a born and raised African woman, and I left without reciprocating the language or manner of which they used with me. I ended up going to Take 5 which the price was way cheaper than the price Mr. Mel and his son quoted me. read more