Work quality seems fine, but it was nothing but a hassle to get it done. This is a one man operation and while he might know how to fix the car, he certainly doesn't know how to operate the business.
First of all, I scheduled the drop-off. We had an email exchange, agreed to date and time. Listed the day of the week (Friday), the date, and a 2-3 hour window of when I would be able to come by. Got to the shop and he wasn't there and told me over text that he got confused by the email. OK, fine, not ideal, but it happens. Email was correct and clear, but whatever.
Plan was for work to be done while I was out of country for 10 days. Turns out he was missing some paperwork needed, but he didn't know that until day 7 or 8, which means he didn't start doing anything until that point. Had he said something in the first few days, I could've sent it to him. Instead he's trying to contact me while I'm in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. So I can't get him the paperwork till the day I return.
Then it turns out that the insurance company didn't have everything approved that was needed (shocking, right?) so now we finally get to start the back and forth with them, which at this point is almost 2 weeks after I dropped off the car originally. So lost week plus repair time, 3 weeks.
It's unclear how much was his fault and how much was the discount liability insurance company (not my insurer), but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on the repair time once started, even though in hindsight, he's probably not handling this as well as he could. Still, I'll say that's not his fault and be generous.
After all the paperwork is cleared, he does the work, I'm stuck in a POS rental, (something I was trying to avoid scheduling over vacation), the insurance company has committed to sending him money, but because he hasn't recieved it, HE WILL NOT GIVE ME MY CAR WITHOUT PAYMENT IN FULL. Insurance company had given me $800 upfront, but the balance of about $1400 was going to be sent to him directly.
At this point I'm done with the whole thing. It's taking a lot of time out of my work days to manage him, try to contact the insurance company, extending the rental car 2-3 days at a time, etc, so I told him I would pay the full cost of repair to get my car and then he could refund me once he recieved the money from the insurance company. I don't think that I should have to do this, but I can float $1500 for a few weeks without a big problem and figure he's an honest guy, and this was the least bad option to me.
So, fine, I have my car, repairs look good, as far as I can tell, all I need is my money. I figured in 2 weeks, he'd get checks from the insurer and I'd get my money back within a week of that. Well, the first part was right, but the second not so much. I'm very busy at work and I travel for work a lot. Running over to his shop isn't exactly on my way home or anything, so I check in to see when he gets all the money so that I can make one stop and get it all and be done with it. I check after a couple weeks, he is missing one chunk of the payment but has about half of what he should. Ok, I tell him I'll check back in later. A week goes by, I'm on the road, the credit card bill is due, so now I have to actually pay it or take an interest charge. (It was clear that asking him to refund my card when he gets the checks was a non-starter.) I pay the card off. Now I'm starting to need the money. Try to coordinate getting the money. Can't work out meeting. Then he offers to send it via Zelle. Great, I have that on one bank, sent him the info. He can't get it to work. Fine, I send him a request for it, no big deal. Afterwhich, I text him and tell him that I sent the request. For most people that would mean go check. He's not most people.
So I figure he's busy, it was a friday, his hands might be greasy, whatever, I give him some time. Another full week goes by to today. No money. I send him a message and ask "What's up with the money?" He responds with "I was waiting on you". There's a record of my text to him where I told him that I sent the money right above it. That was pretty much the last straw for me. I fortunately had worked from home, and fortunately had an empty hour, so I told him I'd come by to get the check. I also made it clear that this was a major incovience.
When I got to the shop he handed me the check with a smile. No apology. Maybe a better man wouldn't have done this, but that did it for me and I let him know it with a few choice words exactly how I felt.
Through all this there was never an apology. Not for "misunderstanding" the drop off, not for wasting a 10 days of repair time, not for not checking the paperwork properly (He inspected car and paperwork a week prior, said it was all good), and certainly not for delaying the refund of the money that I floated him.
Go somewhere else. There's plenty of other options. read more