*******UPDATE******
I went to another shop and they informed me that the a/c retrofit had ALREADY BEEN COMPLETED by the previous owner. The fittings just needed to be tightened, tested, and the system recharged. So not only did I pay $200 for an inspection, your tech lied or completely missed the fact I didn't need the retrofit at all. Instead, he was too busy coming up with other problems I needed to fix, which were mostly garbage. Dirty clutch fluid? I had the clutch and fluid replaced a month prior, no way. Brake fluid was "above 4% moisture content"? When I got someone else to do a reading in front of me, it came up less than 1% moisture content. Bad clutch fan? Weak maybe. But guess what? The a/c blows ice cold without a new one for now, so I can get to that when possible.
So Jason, thank you for your response. I think it proves how nice and above board your garage seems while making questionable, even disingenuous recommendations. It is true I wasn't pressured to do any of the things on the inspection list. But Hussein did refuse to do the fix I came in for unless I did the fan too. Not to mention that the fact the a/c didn't need to be retrofitted at all was completely overlooked. I would have happily paid for that information, which would have helped me fix the problem and actually saved me money. As far as I'm concerned I paid $200 for a worthless inspection. I would rate 0 stars if possible.
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Called up Argonaut because I wanted to finally get the ac working on my old truck. It's a old r-12 system that needs to be updated to r-134a before it can be recharged and blow cold again. Not a ton of garages will do this work (including my regular mechanic, who I trust) but Argonaut assured me they could do the retrofit. I bring it in, everything seems fine, they are very professional and friendly. The adviser tells me the quote is 200 to do a/c diagnostic will be updated when they look at it, which seems reasonable enough. Fast forward until 2pm (dropped off at 9am) - I have heard nothing - and I finally get a hold of the guy who did my paperwork. He tells me - yep the a/c doesn't hold a charge and I'll have to do the conversion....Uh yeah, no **** that's why brought it in - took them the whole day and 200$ for them to tell me what I already knew.
Then they also tell me about a bunch of other things that need replacing and do a whole write up about the maintenance on the truck. None of which I wanted done - I would have rather saved all the time and money and just done the a/c retrofit like I asked.
Included in the list was replacing the clutch fan, which they tell me I need to do to as part of the a/c retrofit. They quote me $300, plus $275 for the retrofit, none of which includes the $200 I have to pay for the diagnostic. The quote has ballooned to $775 (before tax). They offer to order the retrofit kit and put $100 dollars of the diagnostic towards it, which is a decent gesture, but it all feels a bit slimy. The communication has been poor, a bunch of stuff I didn't ask for gets added into the diagnostic, and now what I thought was getting done hasn't been and I'm looking at a huge bill.
The real kicker is that I look at the fan and it works. It is weak but it kicks on and off fine at temp and at idle. I call my regular mechanic and he tells me it'll barely affect a/c performance except maybe at idle. This is a 32 year old truck - I'm just looking to get the cab cool on long trips - not around town in traffic. I call Argonaut back up to chat with them and they just flat out tell me I have to do the fan. They make doing the a/c conversion contingent on doing the fan. Well, it's a 50$ online and an hour or two of time, so I tell them I'll just do it myself. They say ok, when it's done you let us know and we'll do the conversion. So, basically I paid $200 dollars for them to look at the truck and tell me what I already knew and then refuse to do the work unless I shell out another $575.
After all this, I am not going to do anything at this garage. The whole experience seemed like one giant up sell. I am not saying these guys are bad mechanics - they might be fine - but I wouldn't trust anything they say is "necessary" is actually necessary. The communication and attitude felt more about getting me to spend more money, to do unplanned upgrades, than about working with me to accomplish the basic thing I needed done. read more