Misdiagnosed misfire as a bad coil and installed spark plug wires that didn't fit my car. After 2 days they called telling me they found out it was a broken spring in the head and it would take another 2 days to fix - now it's taken 4 trips back for fixes to their $1,100 repair.
I picked the car up and immediately noticed a new static "ticking" noise coming from my radio that went up and down with engine RPM's. As a guy that worked installing car radios through college I immediately suspected spark plug wires that were improperly grounded. I popped the hood and was surprised to see my Ford wires were missing and had been replaced with some no-name off brand wire.
I returned the next day and asked them to look into the problem. They told me there would be a $40 diagnostic fee for the electrical system. I told them that was unacceptable, as I'm only asking them to look into a problem that started after they made repairs. After talking with the manager they agreed to "rule out" the spark plug wires as the cause for no charge. After waiting for over two hours they pulled the car into the garage and checked it out in less than 10 minutes telling me the wires are fine and they didn't hear the ticking noise. I went to my car and was surprised the noise was gone. Unfortunately, in less than two blocks, the noise was back.
I returned two days later and asked them to check again. After another 2hrs they again told me everything was fine and it was definitely not the wires, likely a bad alternator or bad ground on the battery.
I decided to take a peek myself that weekend. In less than 5 minutes I found one wire just barely seated itself onto the coil and when I touched it, it turned the static on and off like a switch. Why couldn't these guys find this?
I returned and showed the shop the problem, after much more debate than should have taken place and hours of waiting I got them to install a new set of wires. When the manager handed me the keys he said, "these don't fit great either, you probably will want to buy some better wires on your own." Long story short, I gave him a piece of my mind about secretly installing $20 no name wires that don't fit and then telling the owner to deal with it after a $1100 repair.
To top it off, 6 months later, the head gasket they installed started leaking. Had I not been on the ball about the leak they could have easily ruined my entire engine. New head gaskets failing is very rare, just about the only cause is improper install in that the head bolts weren't torqued in the proper order but that's just an educated guess. To their credit they did install a new head gasket under warranty - but it did take them nearly a week to get it done.
Wait, it gets better, I just realized they stole my umbrella - thanks a lot.
Pros: None
Cons: 4 returns to fix problems w/repairs and stolen umbrella
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