*BEWARE HIRING AUTO SPECIALIST IGOR ZUBKO*
He charges a premium compared to other mobile mechanics, and the day i needed my starter replaced as soon as possible since i was stranded, i hired him as he was the only one available, and because he says he guarantees his work and offers warranty on his labor and parts (4.9* on yelp at the time of review). Not even 5 days later after he replaced my starter with a brand new one, it blew up along the 1 highway. Causing me to be stranded somewhere completely remote. There were warning signs, which i relayed to him immediately (starter started going off while driving and would only go away once the car was off on day 2), but this only happened 3 times briefly.
However, we were met with zero response, and ignored phone calls everyday. I believed in his word, 4.9 stars on yelp that im convinced was fabricated. His guarantees and warranty is JUST words. There were no contracts or invoice, so theres absolutely no liability for him.
He was 40 mins late on the agreed upon time, took 1.5 hours to "complete" the job, lied about his guarantees.
On the other hand, Abdul from QUICKFIX, was absolutely phenomenal. He also costed a premium(but tow trucks and shops were quoting me 3x more since i was stuck on the 1), however he came EXACTLY on time, and only took 20 mins to fully replace the starter compared to the 1.5hrs igor took. I will update this review to change the high praise of abdul if my starter dies within the month, but at the moment i was very impressed. From his quick diagnosis also, he quotes igor made a obvious and terrible mistake that most mechanics would honestly only make if they worked on the car in complete darkness with no light; he worked on this at 2pm with not a single cloud in the sky. he installed it where the trigger wire was touching the hot wire as shown in the picture below with the blue triangle, indicating the failure of the part and this whole experience was due to INSTALL ERROR.
It was a scary experience the car knocking and cranking even after the key was pulled out, and heavy smoke and smell of electrical fire coming from the hood, and not having the tools on hand in the car to detach the battery. All we could do was hurriedly take all of our valuables out of the car 20 feet away, call the police because of the potential fire, the knocking and screeching lasted about 10mins until the battery finally died. We are very lucky it didnt catch on fire, or worst caused the battery to completely fail and kill the brakes while we were on the highway 1 and rolled off a cliff. We had to cancel our 3 day camping trip and just go home because of this stressful situation.
Anyways, youve been warned. If he was an honest mechanic, and addressed the issue immediately, this whole situation couldve been avoided entirely. read more