It's taken a while to write this up. Life gets in the way.
I took my Car to Marty's initially to figure out where an oil leak was occurring. The main problem was the smell of burning oil sometimes so it was obviously dripping on the exhaust somewhere and burning off. After the "diagnosis" I was giving a bill of over $1000 to fix it. Since I had a little extra cash I thought it would be nice to not have to mess with it and let them do it. I just replaced the plugs and intake cover gaskets myself.
After the "repair" I still smelled the burning oil smell. I took it back and they said it was a seal on the end of the valve cover that was leaking now (All the way to the exhaust?). So now more money to "fix" that.
Here's the fun part; When I picked up my car this time I noticed the hood wasn't closed. No big deal, I'll push it shut. I wish I would have opened it and looked.
Fast forward a month or so and time for an oil change. As I open my hood I was shock to see the dipstick for the oil laying up by the windshield. They never put it back in. Looking around further I see that they had broken all the mounts for the upper radiator hose as well as the positive lead from the battery. Both of these were now dangerously close, about a half inch from a pully. No attempt was made to secure them in any way. I had to rig up zip ties. Like I said, I just did the plugs and intake cover gaskets so I know they were not broken. I took pictures of their handywork just in case.
I took my car back to them to express my concern, and the fact that the original problem, the burning oil smell, is not fixed. (I'll leave out names) but he was apologetic, offered a free oil change. He assured me that the person who worked on my car "no longer works here".
I said I would bring it back when I have time for them to look at it again.
Fast forward a month or so and I drop it back by to have the continued oil burning problem looked at yet again. They put it on the lift and after a few minutes a guy comes over and asks me if "I want to see where my oil leak is". You mean what I paid you to fix in the first place?? He proceeds to show me the timing cover leaking, right over the exhaust pipe. Gee. It looks like that was the problem the whole time. The worst part: He says to me, "I'm the guy that worked on this car the first time". So the other guy flat out lied to my face by telling me the guy that worked on my car "no longer works here". Unbelievable. So, they took my money and "fixed" everything except what I paid them to fix. So now, I asked how much is it to fix the timing cover gasket? I was met with "We don't do those here." I swear I thought he was joking with me. They knew they don't do that repair but took my money to replace things they knew would not fix the problem.
It's a shame we live in a time where you simply can't trust anyone to do honest work. read more