On my aunt's recommendation, I brought in my 2002 Durango for a transmission repair. Now she…read moresupposedly has a "relationship" with them due to her company using them a lot. So at least I expected the decent service that I would hope for from anyone.
What actually happened was this:
I stopped by on a Tuesday to see about an estimate. I waited patiently with my baby for ten minutes while they finished up a phone call. I began telling the manager about my trouble and he took another call, then left me waiting with the baby for another 15 or so, with seemingly no concern and no apology, until he finally got off the phone and addressed us again.
He said he wouldn't have time until Thursday, so I said I'd bring it in first thing. On Thursday morning I dropped it off an hour before they opened (I thought I'd have to come back but they were in, so I gave them the key at 7 instead of 8 a.m.). The manager took my number and said he'd call when they had an estimate. Instead they called my aunt (who is, incidentally, a terrible communicator) so I didn't learn that there even WAS an estimate until two days later (now the weekend). My aunt informed us that it would be $2000 and she verbally told them to go ahead with the repair. In my past experience for ANY work this expensive, the owner should be signing off on a detailed written estimate before any work goes ahead.
As this is our second vehicle, I tried to be patient when I didn't hear about the repair. On the following Tuesday (yes, we were without the vehicle for 6 days!) near the end of the day when I hadn't heard anything, I finally phoned them myself, and once again, he had phoned my aunt to tell her that it was ready, and of course she hadn't told me. This is why I left MY phone number (you know, the owner of the vehicle!). The end price was $2600, quite far off from the original quote to my mind.
The transmission itself was supposedly rebuilt, and it now seems... fine? Maybe? I am not a dab hand with mechanics, hence paying someone else to fix it. It's an old truck so I don't know that anything is supposed to run perfectly anymore. After I got it back, the front heat and defrost were no longer working (back heat is fine). I have no way to know if this is coincidental or if maybe something got bumped while they were in there.
Bottom line: they didn't communicate directly, leaving the OWNER of the vehicle out of the loop, and they did not provide a written estimate. On top of that, they increased the price by more than 25% before it was done. All of that I can attribute to the fact that they may have been confused and thought that my aunt was taking care of it more than she was. But getting it back 6 days later (actually, 8 by the end, since we did not have that money just lying around and needed more time to get it together) was completely out of line. In addition, I was largely ignored even in our in-person interactions. All that for a truck that now works... fine?
In the future, I'll give them a miss.