Not a Professional Automotive Repair facility at all!
My…read morewife, dog and I were in Florida on vacation in October 2025 when my 2007 Dodge Dakota's clutch went out. We found what we believed to be a reputable repair facility that said that they could get me in right away and could do the repair work on my truck, as they were not overloaded. We had my truck & windsurf trailer towed to Affordable in Clearwater at the recommendation from their St. Petersburg Shop. (Maybe they are better & actually Professional.) This is where the nightmare began. Kevin was able to repair some standard & straightforward (remove & replace) items he found that were in need of repair, but then things fell apart when other items needed to be "replaced", even though there were no signs that they were a problem before we broke down. During our wait in his waiting room while he disassembled the Transmission, he kept us informed by telling us about all of the rusted components and issues he was trying to work around, all the while I was trying to understand what he was doing. While we were waiting, we basically saw no one at this Shop, a troubling sign, but we did not have any other options, as we were from Maryland, 950 miles away. (As the pictures on their website shows, he has a collection of motorcycles and old "hot rods" that he works on, but no standard / typical drive-in repairs being done at this shop.) In the end, after hearing multiple times from him yelling "I've been doing this for over 50 years!" when I tried to have a conversation with him to possibly share some of my expertise with him, we had to rent a vehicle to get back home, as the repairs would take several days that would only begin after the weekend. We drove home and I scheduled a flight back down 2 weeks later. When I arrived & started my Truck, a loud exhaust leak was present, and I knew from his attitude and comments, including how he "didn't get grease and dirt onto my floormats and upholstery, it was there when I brought the Truck in!" that I also just mentioned, that arguing about this with him would be useless. I paid him (over $3,600 for the work he did) and drove home, and documented all of the issues once I was back home with pictures & captions, showing / backing up what I wrote and supporting receipts and explanations that I had planned to attach to this Review to prove that I am not fabricating this Review, but Yelp does not allow downloading Documents, so I have included a 32 "Picture Story" of what was found and what I did to repair the damage done by Kevin & his assistant at this Shop. (He destroyed my Exhaust System's Slip-Joint where the front Y-Pipe joined the balance of the Exhaust System while removing it to access the Transmission, and he didn't even try or couldn't finish the repairs needed to the Exhaust System. I documented what I did and that he could have easily done if he was half as good as he (shouted) he was. He wasn't.) FYI, I am a 68-year-old Mechanical Engineer / Weekend Mechanic who also has over 50 years of experience, working on vehicles and solving problems I am unfamiliar with, repairing / addressing them as best as I can as situations present themselves. Last, back home before I started doing the work shown here, I received repair estimates from Meineke & Midas, and they proposed to completely weld the damaged exhaust system for between $200 & $500, which would have resulted in the Truck not being serviceable in the future. I also took pictures of my garage & driveway areas where I live, showing the actual conditions of my home. (My Truck only has 115,000 miles on it.) I wrote an email to Affordable, documenting what happened and sent them what is included what I have shown here, but I never received a reply from them.
