This company had several weeks to repair the crease in the left front fender…read more
I was there when my girlfriend entered the business to pick up the car (after I paid the deductible): we were told "I wasn't here Friday."
For no apparent reason.
Why? I can only evaluate this statement in terms of what we were to learn later. (For several reasons, I took the precaution to make a record of this and subsequent encounters.)
We picked the vehicle up, being told that all work was completed after I paid the amount owed, my girlfriend left in her car -- just to be clear, I am the customer who brought the vehicle in for repairs -- and she called me while driving to say that she was getting repeated cautions and warning on her vehicle annunciator. She's not an engineer or a risk management expert, so she wasn't sure whether this was just a glitch or what.
Truth be told, almost every safety system of the vehicle was disabled: anti-skid inop; auto-braking inop; collision mitigation system inop; lane-keeping alert system inop; vehicle stability system inop; adaptive cruise control inop; and, more than a half-dozen other related systems were warned of being inoperative.
As my girlfriend was leaving, she said that she was driving to her Honda dealership to have the car window-tinted and to purchase floor and trunk mats. No mention was made of the problems still existing with the vehicle. No word of warning that the vehicle's safety systems were disabled. Nothing said about the vehicle being unsafe. Several people had a chance to say something: no mention was made that the repairs were incomplete, that critical safety systems were inoperative.
Calling Devries after her arrival in Prescott, she told them about the caution and warnings she saw on the annunciator, and apparently, was told by someone that Devries would pay for having the problem with her car fixed. This they did, but charging her insurance significantly more than the cost of the incompleted repair work .
I spoke with someone there days later about this, and was told that a problem with the car was discovered LATE Friday afternoon and that, as it was so late in the day, he didn't call Honda. Later in the subsequent conversation, I was told that the problem was found Friday morning and they couldn't fix it. Odd contradiction...
I was also told that he wasn't there Monday morning when we paid for repairs, the car was released to us once the bill was paid, and we drove away. Why did he make this statement? I didn't ask the question about his whereabouts.
Why were we allowed to take a vehicle with most of its safety systems disabled or inoperative on Monday morning? Why wasn't the vehicle flagged as being unsafe? There was no critical reason why the vehicle had to be moved or used for a 71-mile drive on predominately 2-lane, winding, mountain roads.
The person I spoke with outside of the business days later said to me "Nothing happened on the drive to Prescott, did it." No, but what if her vehicle ran over something that caused a tire (or several) to blow out? What if another driver crossed the centerline of the roadway on those winding, narrow two-lane roads? (We lost two friends not long ago on that very roadway from a head-on traffic accident.)
They knowingly allowed a vehicle with its safety systems disabled to leave the premises, telling us that the vehicle was repaired and ready for the bill to be paid,... all repairs completed. Perhaps they just didn't care about the consequences of their decisions, whether it might cost one or more people their lives, and/or cause grievous, permanent physical injuries. Don't care: don't have to.
Why did someone tell us, first thing upon entry into the building that Monday morning, that they were off Friday? Sounds very suspicious... and the more that I was told days later, the worse it has become. One might believe that there was something deliberate about being given answers to questions we didn't ask. Yanno?
We chose Devries because they used to have a stellar reputation -- clearly not the case now -- and that a friend personally knew the owner: we want our little town where we shop to thrive, so we try to support local businesses. We do, as it was made exceptionally clear to us both in this case, have other choices. Talking with others in town, trying to sort out this shocking mess, they've told us to avoid doing business with Devries for a wide spectrum of reasons -- and, because of neglect, incapacity, lack of concern, lack of compassion for other human beings, or just being mean, we've learned the same lesson.
If you're considering Devries Custom Coachworks for any reason, don't.
Whatever the reason, we've found them to be untrustworthy.
