SHORT STORY: CORRUPT, SHADY, UNTRUSTWORTHY! DO NOT RECOMMEND UNLESS YOU WANT TO WASTE MONEY! DO MORE SERVICE THAN NEEDED! GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!
LONG STORY: This is a long overdue review but I recently just discovered how untrustworthy and shady this business is. Back in 2021, I took my car in just to get a tire realignment. I had just moved to Pasadena only months prior, coming down for college and it was right around the corner from my apartment and I didn't know of any other places since I wasn't from the area so I decided to check them out since it was so close. The owner was very nice and he assured me they would take care of it. However, I get a call later saying I need all new tires and my breaks are bad. The bill went from an easy couple hundred to over $1,600! Again the owner was being so sweet and nice to me and told me I reminded him of his daughter who was around the same age as me and he would make sure to get my car good and safe since he absolutely couldn't let a young woman who was like his daughter be driving something so unsafe. I felt taken care of and told him to do what he needed, although I was feeling so anxious to have to pay so much money, especially being a full time college student with no income. So car gets worked on, they change all the tires, work on the breaks and do the alignment I asked for. Before I leave, the owner hands me a paper with other things he recommends I get done bc there is a creaking noise that happens when I turn my steering wheel and he said it's super dangerous and I must get this other stuff done. It was gonna be another thousand bucks so I decline for now not having the money but keep the paper for future reference.
Flash forward to present day, I've graduated and moved back home now and my mom uses my car the other day and asks about the creaking noise. I tell her it has to do with what the owner told me years prior and give her the paper. She freaks out that I never got this work done and she has her coworker who is good with cars and her boyfriend do this work for me instead of going to a garage. We discover NONE -- I REPEAT NONE -- of the things on the paper the owner gave me needed to be done and the reason for the creaking noise was simply my muffler just being off or old or something that wasn't even a big deal or dangerous. The kind and sweet owner who said I reminded him of his daughter and he must make sure to help me, lied to me and just wanted to get more money out of me. Makes me wonder if I even needed new tires or if anything was wrong with my breaks before. He finessed at least an extra $1,400 bucks out of me for that first service and tried to get another thousand. Really sad and disgusting of him to use his daughter as a tactic to take advantage of a young woman, who knows nothing about cars and was living in a new city, away from family and was a full-time college student having to dip into my savings for that service. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE! DO NOT TRUST HIM AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! He just wants to steal money and take advantage of you. Very shady and disgusting. read more