Holy Scam! I'll let you decide...read on
I had my car towed to this Merlins because it broke down. Dan, (and some blonde guy) who works there did the quote. I had actually worked with Dan at a different Merlins in the past, he tried to rip me off there too. I was surprised to see him at this one.
He wanted nearly $1800 for front brake pads and rotors and rear brakes and rotors (Which were under the 200,000 mile warranty!!!) and by the way only had 20,000 miles on them! The repairs also included a pulley and 2 tires.
When I said I wasn't interested, he tried to tell me all sorts of things: He told me I would just have to pay a ton of money to have it towed somewhere else, he told me he would"eat" the labor and do it for $1500...(the parts not including the tires only cost $300!!!). He then said I would need to decide right away because they would have to order the parts. Funny, because I told him I didn't need the car for a few weeks. It was a late Friday so I left and said I would call back with what I was going to do.
When I called them back to say it was going to another shop, their response was, "we took time for it so we would like some sort of work out of it." I said no....last time I checked estimates were free. he then said, "what if we just sold you the parts"...I said no....I said someone else was fixing the entire car and I wasn't going to mess around. He then said "what if we fixed it for free"....out of curiousity I asked what that meant...he said "we'll do the whole thing for $500" Excuse me!!!! Repairs you were originally going to charge me $1800 for you can now do for $500!!!! No thanks!!!
I got it fixed with a FULL Warranty (3 months on labor and lifetime on parts - no games) for $770. (AND THAT INCLUDES THE TOW)
.THEY DAMAGE CARS IF THEY DON'T GET THE BUSINESS ALSO!!!
Update: as of 4/07/2010 I have filed a complaint with the consumer protection agency because not only did they try to rip me off, but they damaged parts of my car. I know this because t
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