I don't think that this mechanic, Ken, knows what he's doing and he doesn't want to admit it or he's just an outright scammer. Read on to get a full picture.
I was driving when my car broke down on the side of 35. I was able to pull off the highway and get into a parking lot before the car stopped dead. Ken was the first mechanic to respond.
When he arrived about an hour and a half later, he spent 5 minutes with the car and says the fuel pump is worn out needs to be replaced. Crap. On the other hand, my extended warranty would cover the replacement of the part and labor. Ken tells me that he can work with them. He charges me $100 for the diagnosis and says to get the car towed to his place and he'll work with the warranty people and replace it. He made it sound like it was going to be a quick process, as he said that there's a strip club right down the street from his shop that I can wait at while he replaces the part. It's already late in the afternoon, so I tell him that I'll have it towed in the morning.
My car is at Ken's shop by 10:30am and Ken is no where to be found. I leave the car with who I can only assume is his wife/girlfriend and ask how soon the car may be ready. She says that Monday is most likely. Any chance I can get it by Sunday? I have to get to work somehow. She says maybe.
Sunday comes and goes. I try to contact Ken to see how it's coming, but he never answers his calls directly. He lets it go to the answering machine and might call or text you 5-10 minutes later. I ultimately get no response on Sunday.
He calls me Monday afternoon to let me know that he doesn't know how to work with this warranty company. I left ALL of the info that he would have needed with the car. Additionally, he was supposed to contact the warranty company before any work started, so by the time that I was told that it was supposed to be done, he hadn't even started on it.
I give him the info again and he texts me a half hour later. I need to call the warranty company to work out some details. I call them and apparently, Ken cannot provide a Texas Tax ID, Business License or access a fax machine, so I need to pay it out of pocket and be reimbursed by them.
I call Ken back and let him know that he can get started. He informs me that he doesn't really like working with this warranty company, they're "making (him) do a bunch of paperwork" and that's part of why it's taking longer than expected. This "paperwork" consisted of a single page invoice that included the price, part number of the part he replaced, labor cost and a single authorization number the warranty company provided him. Whole lot of paper work there. Guess he just doesn't like keeping record of what he's doing on customer's cars.
I let him do his thing, trying to keep in contact with him at least once daily to make sure work is getting done. Christmas day comes and goes, and I didn't expect work to get done on that day.
At this point, he's had my car a week and he says that it will be ready in an hour. I get there and he hasn't even put the part in yet. I chill a couple more minutes while he drops it in and makes sure the car runs. It still doesn't start.
He spends the next 3 hours in the engine of my car. It's dark out and he doesn't have a proper shop, so we're sitting on a grass lot in a rougher part of town and he's working via headlamp. He replaces spark plugs. Nothing. Eventually I ask for a ride home and he tells me he's going get a better look at it the next day.
Two days later.
Ken calls me and tells me the timing chains have slipped and he has to pull the whole engine to re-align them. I can't cover this out of pocket so I say fuck it, I'll get it towed to a Lamb's shop where they can be paid directly and I don't have to deal with this nonsense anymore as we were on day 9.
Lamb's tells me they are going to start working on it immediately. They find that the timing chain is fine, but the catalytic converter needs to be replaced. Replaced, it started up. When they went on a test drive, gas was pumping into the cabin of the car. They open up the compartment for the fuel pump (Remember, this is the part that Ken replaced and I had not told Lamb's about it yet) and found the pump had been installed incorrectly. An O Ring had not been installed in it and it was just just sitting right next to the pump, causing it to leak. I let them install it, and they charged me to make sure that is installed correctly. I contact Ken and let him know what happened and that I would be coming back to him to get the money that I had to spend to make sure that it is installed correctly.
He claims that I should have let him take a look at the car and do it, as the part was guaranteed by him at that point. I don't know why he would think I would want him to touch my car after what I experienced. I wanted to make sure that it was done correctly. He claims he doesn't have any money. I've written it off.
Avoid. Caveat Emptor. read more
