I took my car in because it was overheating intermittingly and my generation of Honda has a pretty strong history of making crappy head gaskets. I had already had the thermostat replaced at a different garage (One close to where it first overheated, but not my preferred garage because of the circumstances) that only cost me about $80 total.
But when it overheated again I took it to Eric's Auto because they claim to be great at diagnoses, and I had been a previous customer with not only this car, but my old Ford Focus. I had probably spent about $700 total as a previous customer with them.
I told them the car was overheating intermittingly and that I was pretty sure it was the head gasket, that I wanted a full diagnose on the car done for possible reasons as to why it was happening.
I made an appointment for 8am the next day, dropped my car off the night before, and didn't hear back until 5pm that evening when I called them asking what was up with my car. They apologized it had taken them so long and said all the tests came back that there was nothing wrong with it, and that it would be around $40 for the diagnosis. Ok, I was very happy because of course I didn't want to shell out $1000 for a new head gasket.
A day and a half later and less than 75 miles, my check engine light came on while on 75 and immediately began flashing, SCARY! I pulled over to the side of the highway and called Eric's and asked them what the problem could be. Chris had been the one who looked at my car and we discussed the possibilities, though I didn't blame them I thought this was incredible unusually because other than the overheating issue that had only been present about a week, the car ran great. We went back and forth and eventually I started the car up again to drive down the highway. No check engine light anymore but less than 5 miles later the car started to overheat AGAIN, I called back and asked why my car would overheat when they had just supposedly done a diagnosis on all the possibilities there. I began to get annoyed and that's when Eric took over on the calls. He started it with telling me to "shut up woman" (that comment made me infuriated!) and how he was a reputable mechanic, and that it had to be some problem with my crappy car, blah blah blah, we argued back and forth, and finally I told him I wanted a refund for the diagnosis because obviously they hadn't done it at all, or hadn't done it correctly because the car was still overheating and I would have to take it to someone else.
He accused me of just trying to get work for free, which is not the case at all, and told me after much back and forth that he would refund me my $40.
That was Friday, and its Monday now. I haven't received my refund and doubt I will. I did take my car to a garage on 2nd street on Saturday and they quickly where able to determine that it was indeed my head gasket, and that there was some line that had accidently been knocked loose and that was the cause of the check engine light, of course I don't believe Eric's did it on purpose but it just shows their crappy workmanship. I'm also spending about $1,100 with the other garage, almost all labor, to replace the head gasket, which I have no problem doing. Nicely enough, they also did the diagnosis and reconnected the knocked lose line for me for free since I was also paying the $1100 in repairs, they wanted me to be happy, and be a return customer, which I definitely will be.
My advice, go somewhere else! I can't stand to be treated like some simple woman who doesn't know a thing about cars. I would have spent the $1100 with Eric's Auto if I hadn't been treated so badly, but glad I found out how they operate before I got any real work done on my car with them.
. read more
