TL;DR? AVOID. Go to Salt Lake City--I'm sure you'll have better luck there…read more
This is a small shop located behind a building, just off the main road in Wendover. We were on a roadtrip through the western US, and after our drive through the salt flats, we figured we needed to get our overheating engine checked out. Afterall, we still had to drive up to Yellowstone, over to Helena, then to Portland, and right back home to the San Francisco bay.
When we met with the mechanic (still have no idea what his name was (Carlos?), he opened the hood, and did a visual inspection, told us it's probably the thermostat and to replace it it would take 3 hours. Ok, well we had a car load of stuff, and 2 dogs with us. He kindly offered one of his guys to drive us to a nearby park to chill with the dogs in the 110+ heat, so that was nice.
The car was ready in the time estimated, but low and behold! We had bigger issues--now he needed to replace the radiator, but couldn't order one until the next day. Fabulous right? They call up a nearby motel and get us the "Carlos rate" of $50/night (come to find out the owners of the hotel, also owned the shop? wtf?). Again, they offer to give us a ride there.
So there we were, stranded in Wendover in the midst of a heatwave, in a hotel room with stained curtains and carpeting that smelled like dog urine.Felt like a nightmare, but for the sake of "vacation" we tried to make the best of it--at least the dogs were safe in an air conditioned room.
Flash forward 2 days later, 2PM (the promised time), my husband gives the shop a call to check on the car, and they give us the ok to pick it up. We walk over, he tells us no problems! Then charges us DOUBLE what he initially quoted us. I was unhappy, but eager to get the hell out of that craphole.
Once we drove out of town, the car seemed to be overheating again... figured I'd give it some time to even out, afterall, the radiator was apparently clogged before, it's just flushing the system through, right? So it does eventually even out, good news.
About 45 miles away from Wendover, the car locks up, begins to smoke, and forces us off the road. Everything's perfect huh Carlos?! What's worse, after calling our insurance to have a tow truck come out, we wait 1.5 hours to discover--who's our tow truck driver, but the chauffer from the shop in Wendover! You can't make this stuff up. So, we're standing there in the rain, the driver, wouldn't let the dogs into the cab, so they had to ride in the dead car, in a heat wave, with sporadic rain. Could this really get any worse?! Yes.
We get in the truck, my husband refused to have them tow us to S&R again, and we were redirected to Elko, NV... a place our driver had never been to. Oh and did I mention he didn't speak english? We get to the shop, and the guy get's impatient with us, LOCKED OUR KEYS IN THE CAR WITH THE DOGS, and drops off our car in front of a closed shop.
I really thought these guys had saved our trip, but in reality, their competence and "genuine" offers are faked, and us out-of-towners were duped! The car had a warped headgasket, that Carlos NEVER CAUGHT in the 2 days he had our car. Later we find out, other shops would have washed the radiator (saving us $200).
But no, this shop's incompetence caused our problems to simply escalate. I would HIGHLY suggest anyone AVOID stopping here for overheating issues, or any issues bigger than simply an oil change. Treat them like an express oil shop--because you do NOT want them troubleshooting larger issues.
Now I have no car, am out $700 on top of that, and had to spend 3 days, in piss scented hotel rooms in the awful state of Nevada.