If I could give this place a "ZERO", I absolutely would.
My wife took our vehicle in on a Saturday morning and was told the vehicle would be ready for pick-up that afternoon. She picked up the vehicle and it was ready as promised...however she did notice that the seats still seemed to be rather wet. She asked about this, was told it was normal and they gave her a cardboard seat protector/cover to use while she drove the short 5 minutes back to our home. By the time she arrived home, water had soaked through the cardboard cover and had wet her pants.
She parked the car in the garage, took out all the floor mats and rolled down the windows hoping that the seats/floors would dry out by the next day.
When I checked on the vehicle Sunday morning, it hadn't dried out at all...and the passenger seats were STILL soaking wet. I left the windows open and moved a fan into the garage to blow into the car to try to dry it out. I checked on it after a few hours and the seats hadn't really dried out much, so I positioned the fan to blow directly onto the seats, hoping that might help it to dry out.
The next morning (Monday), the vehicle seemed dry and all was good. My wife drove the car to work without any issues. However, on Tuesday, she noticed that the car had a "musty" smell to it - similar to what you'd smell if you forgot to move your towels to the dryer and left them in the washing machine. She had two of her co-workers come out and smell the car to confirm that there was an odor (they commented the vehicle smelled "like wet dog").
She called Mr. Sponge to tell them about the smell and they asked her to stop by so they could check it out. At first, the "technician" she dealt with denied being able to smell anything (my wife told him that she'd had 2 co-workers confirm the smell existed) then he decided to spray a deodorizer in the car, which I can only assume was some sort of industrial strength Febreeze.
We left the car in the garage overnight with the windows open overnight (again...thank goodness we have a garage) in an attempt to air it out, as the deodorizer was extremely overpowering.
This morning, my wife drove the car to work - with the windows slightly down - and texted me to inform me that the deodorizer had sent her into a coughing fit and was making her lungs hurt.
On my way into work this morning, I stopped by their location and informed them that I was extremely unsatisfied and wanted a refund. The manager that was on duty told me that she couldn't give me a refund, but she could have the owner call me and hopefully he could help us come to some sort of resolution.
The manager (not the owner) called me back later in the afternoon to speak to me again and said that the owner wasn't going to be in...but if I could bring the vehicle back in, they'd take another look at it. I informed them that wasn't possible as my wife had the car, was working all day and needed the car to drive to Edmonton tomorrow (which she wasn't even sure she was going to be able to do because of the deodorizer). I told them that my wife suggested Mr. Sponge pay for a rental car for her to do that so she could leave the vehicle with them if they needed it.
Again, the manager told me she wasn't authorized to do that, at which point I asked her to call the owner, pass my number on to him and have him call me immediately.
He called me back about an hour or so later and I went through the whole explanation again.
First, he told me that if my wife had a problem with the seats being so wet, she should've spoken up at the time. I said that she did.
Then, I told him that I was concerned the soaking wet seats may have caused permanent damage to my vehicle (I'm thinking mold, hence the musty smell). He then informed that their insurance doesn't cover them for things like that, because there's no way to prove that they could've caused that damage ("How do we know you didn't go home and spill a bucket of water in your car?")
After that, the whole conversation basically degraded into a shouting match which involved him saying I "clearly had no brain" and after I told him I'd be writing a negative review on Google and Yelp, he said I was welcome to do so but "that kind of thing comes around to get you in the end".
I then asked him if he advertised anywhere on TV or radio...and if he did, I'd be contacting the sales managers of those outlets to inform them how he treats customers. He then told me "I don't need to advertise like that because my business is so good".
The owner then asked for my full name and my bosses name so he could call my work and get me fired. Seriously.
So, to summarize, if you want to end up with a soaking wet interior (and posterior), a raging headache & burning lungs and get verbally abused by the owner, you should TOTALLY take your car here... read more
