One star is two stars too many. Loren is a crook, and this is old news to the Oshkosh Police Department. Unfortunately Loren knows how to protect himself under the law. We paid $540.75 to have our car towed. Here's the story:
On a rainy Saturday afternoon, with two small children, 2 hours from home our car would not start. A worker from Loren's Auto towed us less than 10 miles to a Toyota dealership, but the Toyota service center was closed. Loren's tower called Loren, and Loren claimed he could get a replacement part by 6:00 p.m. that same day or by Sunday morning. A wiser couple would have smelled the rat, but eager to fix the problem, we agreed to be towed to Loren's Shop, which was 2 miles from Toyota.
At Loren's shop, we were offered shelter in his office. The office and the garage looked like abandoned junkyards. With my gut in knots, I asked the tower to take us back to Toyota before he unloaded our car. Disgusted, he called Loren, disconnected the car, and told us his boss was on his way.
Loren, who lives next door, was there within a few minutes. He led my husband to believe a fix was possible. After no more than fifteen minutes of inspection, I interrupted Loren. He said there was no easy fix and he would have to do drilling. I said no. We were emotionally drained and we needed to get to the UW campus by 3:00 p.m. to find a return ride to Wausau. (We were in OshKosh for a state piano competition and hoped to hitch a ride with our daughter's piano teacher.) Loren offered to drive us downtown.
Back in Wausau on Saturday night, I Googled Loren's Auto and found scathing reviews. Heeding warnings from the reviews, I called the Oshkosh police department on Sunday morning. Afraid Loren would work on our car, just to take money from us, I asked an officer to tell Loren not to work on our car. The officer did just that, and he told us that to get our car back Loren demanded CASH .
My husband drove two hours to deliver the cash on Sunday. Loren charged the following: tow $75, Toyota wait time $125, boss to shop $85, work on car $80, ride to campus $50 (no mention at time of ride), storage $35, meet to collect cash on a Sunday $65, and other unlisted costs for total of $540.75.
Then we paid $65 for a different towing company to tow us to Toyota. read more