SCAMMERS- I'm spending time during my vacation writing this because I couldn't let another day pass without writing a truthful review about this awful business that takes advantage of people who don't know about cars. I came in on a Thursday to get my oil changed and received a call from Harold that my cabin air filter needs to be replaced and would I like to have it done? Sure, what do I know. I go pick up the car and bring it home (in my military uniform, you'd think they wouldn't scam a service member but here we are). The air doesn't work at all (max blast, defroster, heat, AC, nothing) but I was leaving for Whistler for the weekend and decided to call and take care of it Monday (wasn't using my car for the trip so not urgent to get fixed). I call them on Monday to let them know something got messed up with the air when the cabin air filter was replaced because I was getting 0 airflow. They say they have time to look at it Wednesday (have to skip another half day of work for this). I drop off at 8am and Harold calls around 1pm saying "ok so the electrical component of your blower fan isn't working- the fan works fine but the electrical component that drives the fan doesn't work. We know this because we set the fan up to jumper cables and it still works. But we suggest you replace the entire thing because it's a gamble to just replace the electrical component and not replace the fan because the fan may be making the component fail. So we're quoting you $750." I was frustrated and asked why my air worked perfectly fine when I brought it in and then they replace the air filter during the 3 hours they had it and the air stops working- why am I being held responsible and out 800 dollars to fix it? He said "it's a really weird coincidence but they have nothing to do with eachother." Feeling like I had no other choice I gave them the go ahead to fix it. I had a very strange feeling in my gut that they were taking advantage of me and how weird of a "coincidence" this was. I called my friend who has replaced everything in his car up to and including rebuilding his engine and asked what he thought. He said it would be an extremely strange coincidence and unfortunately they are probably taking advantage of me because I don't know any better. He said he'd take a look at it. My other friend who has taken apart and fixed electrical components on a 2000 E class Mercedes (mine is a 2010 C class) said that component rarely fails in these cars and should last a lot longer and that it sounds fishy- and that their quote sounds awfully high. He also said he'd take a look at it. I called back maybe 10 minutes after Harold had called me and said "nevermind, please don't fix it, my friend who works on cars said he will take a look at it." I go in to pick it up still feeling suspicious and the woman at the front counter was very snappy with me while she was typing up my paper. I asked to speak with Harold and she said he had gone to lunch. So I started explaining my suspicions to her and she cut me off and said "I'll go get Harold then" interesting, I thought he'd gone to lunch. I confronted him about how strange it sounded that this component broke the same time they had the car while they were replacing the air filter. He just shrugged and said yea it is. As I went on he cut me off and said "I don't know why you're upset, the air works again" now I'm furious and say "excuse me? So you're telling me if I had never come in to pick it up myself so my friends who know about cars can look at it, you would have fixed a component that was never actually failed and charged me $800??" And all he had to say was "well no I wasn't going to fix it because you called back and said not to" only after I asked my friends and had a suspicious feeling!!! I went to my car and it worked and still works to this day (2 weeks later) and think that the electrical component had never failed. I went to the car shop on the NAS Whidbey base because those guys are trustworthy and awesome dudes and explained the situation to them (I wanted to get their feedback to see if I was acting crazy) and they shook their heads with a small laugh and said "those guys were trying to make a little extra money during the Christmas holidays. My guess is they unplugged the fan while they changed your air filter on accident- but should've seen that when you brought it back in and it should've been a quick easy free of charge fix. Or they did it intentionally knowing you'd come back in needing it "fixed" and charge you an arm and a leg to fix it because they know most people don't know about cars." Such a shame and it makes me sick to my stomach that these people sleep at night scamming people like this- and a service member no less! I really hope customers read my review before going here and it deters you- go somewhere else!!! read more
