I had a car repaired by Euro Specialty about 6 years ago and had a great experience. So, when I had a few small things that needed to be repaired on a used Lexus that I just bought, I took it there for an estimate and didn't even have another estimate done.
For the cliff notes instead of the novel, see the summary at the end :)
The repairs were painting the hood due to old sap damage, a trim piece on the driver's door, repairing a few small areas on a rear door that had been poorly repaired sometime in the past, a piece and painting the quarter panel to blend with the rear door.
When I went to pick the car up, I looked over the bill and noticed that I was billed $155 for a service they didn't do. The manager said it was an accident and removed the charge. No big deal.
When they brought the car around, they mentioned that a tired was low, they put some air in it and reset the TPMS codes (they added an extra 30 minutes to the bill for this).
Then, looking over the car, the hood and door trim piece looked good. That is where the good work ended though.
I noticed that the spots on the rear door, that they were supposed to fix, didn't look much different. When I mentioned this to the manager, his response was that I could bring it back later and they could "smooth it out with some clear coat". Please see pictures. There was also some overspray inside the door that he said must be old (although it is bright blue). Regardless, they were supposed to fix the prior repair. There were also a couple of touch ups that I had asked to be done were forgotten about but the manager said that they'd look at it when I brought it back for the other repairs.
When I went to drive off, I heard a loud slapping sound coming from the back of the car so I pulled back in to their parking lot and found a thick 4" x 6" piece of plastic screwed into my back tire. This was at 5 pm on a Friday and you could tell that the managers priority was leaving. He offered to plug the $210 tire. When I asked if that was sufficient for a screw near the side wall, he said that it was the industry standard and it would be fine. They plugged the tire, I left, and it was nearly flat when I got home. Needless to say, it isn't easy to find someone to fix a tire on a Friday evening. I spent my Friday evening calling everyone under the sun before a very nice person at BJs Wholesale club offered to wait for me and fix it if I bought a membership. I bought a membership, he repaired the tire, but also noted that I should keep an eye on it since it was near the sidewall. The wheel also has some mild damage from the low profile tire going flat.
Euro Specialty also did not reconnect the wiper fluid nozzles (not a big deal but a sign of their lack of attention to detail). They reported that a trim piece (fuel pocket) was broken but I had never noticed it before and now the fuel door doesn't spring open like it is supposed to.
After spending the weekend thinking about the work they had done and the manager's attempted remedies thus far, I decided to cancel the check that I wrote them. I notified the manager and offered to pay for the hood and door trim piece since those were done correctly. The rear door is no better and the rear quarter panel was only painted to blend with the door so it does me no good if I have to have the door painted again. The manager's response is that they did me a favor by plugging the tire. Actually, the quote is "we could have shrugged our shoulders on the tire issue and done nothing about it". He states that he can't remember any customer ever questioning their integrity before. If you look around and read comments, you realize that these days, problems aren't that unusual at Euro Specialty. They had a great reputation and had done good work for me before but things have obviously changed.
To summarize-
- they originally charged me for repair that they didn't do but state that was an honest mistake.
- the rear door needed repairs to 3 spots plus some overspray cleanup. The quarter panel needed to be painted to match the door. The rear door still has the same 3 spots that it had originally, with old and new overspray but I should pay for all of it.
- when I pointed out the spots, their proposed solution was to "smooth it out with some clear coat" when I bring it back.
- the wiper fluid nozzles weren't reconnected.
- minor touch ups that I mentioned when I dropped it off weren't done.
- they added .5 hours to reset codes for the rear driver's tire. This was done at 4:30 pm, air was added, and they said the code alerts were fine. But, at the same time, they say there was no screw in the tire at the time. However, somehow at 5, there was a huge piece of plastic screwed into the tire that made a very loud noise that no one noticed. I was allowed to leave with this (although I only made it 10 feet because it was so obvious and loud). Their solution to the was putting a plug in it, even though the screw was near the sidewall. read more
