If you need an interlock please go anywhere, but AlcoAlert! I would have given them less than 1 star if I could. #1. The day after my interlock was installed my car would not start. I had it towed to a mechanic, and turns out that I needed a new starter. I can't say for sure that it was the fault of AlcoAlert installing the interlock the day prior, but it is very coincidental that it is the starter that they tamper with during installation and it was my starter that went out. Moving fwd #2. Their interlock was almost on a daily basis messing up on me. It either said I was not blowing into it, or my volume was too low, or my volume was too high! Either way it resulted in showing that I refused a test. They charge $40 for each test refusal. I would call to explain the situation but they wanted to charge $40 anyways, unless I wanted to go to a service center, so they could troubleshoot my interlock. Mind you that this happened on almost a daily basis, so constant trips to a service center is highly inconvienant. Plus, this would still happen within days of being at a service center to have the thing recalibrated. Seems very shady. #3. I had to constantly call the place due to the alleged test refusals, and I had very long hold times. Understandable, but when the customer has to call as often as I did, during working hours, it was also very inconvient. The long hold times are obviously due to the minimal staff. For example, when I had the installation done at the Montebello location nobody was in the office. The phone was just ringing. I walked all around the place and eventually found a guy working on another car. Even while he was working on my car and I was waiting in that office the phone just kept ringing. Also sometimes I would speak with a girl, I believe it was always the same girl. She was always very pleasant, but they may want to add an extra operator. #4 (Ties in with #3) I had the unfortunate displeasure of speaking with Brian often, a service technician, who would have to guide me over the phone on how to reset my interlock due to it constantly malfunctioning. There was one very upsetting conversation where he was not only rude and hung up on me, but he was implying that I was a liar. He questioned why it took me so many days to contact them, I explained that I called daily but since I was on hold so long I would have to hang up and go back to work. He found that hard to believe since he says there's more technicians on weekdays than on a Saturday (when I finally got someone). To which I said that the only technician I seem to get everytime I call is him. #5. Once in a while the interlock would malfunction to the point that it would lock me out for 10min before I could restart my car. I won't get into everytime this happened, but there was one very embarrassing time that I stepped out of my car at work to open the gate in the parking lot. When I got back in I was in 10 min lock out. So, I was blocking the entrance/exit of our parking lot while coworkers had to sit and wait for 10min to go in or out. One of the most embarrassing moments of my life, and Alco alert said they could not start it, that I would have to wait the 10 min. #6. More faulty functions on the interlock. There were some days that I would blow with every breath I had in me to start the car, and it still said low volume. Then there were days that I barely blew into the thing, and it would say volume too high.....Overall their interlock does not function well then they want to consistently charge you for their crap. Please go elsewhere. read more
