Repair/Service: replaced gasket, fixed window, checked engine

Hourly Rate: $75

Total Cost: $550

DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR HERE! I am a struggling college student and I own a 95 BMW. I took my car here for three things right before I left town. One for them to replace a gasket, two for them to check out my car and make sure everything is fine for me to take it out of town, and three for them to fix my window. They took their time getting these things "done" but I did not complain because I needed my car to run well. On my way out of town, my engine starts messing up, so I decided to take it to a shop in my college town to see what was wrong. On my way to the shop, I put down my window and it breaks again in the same way it was broken before, that I paid Georgialina to fix. I pay the shop in my college town a diagnostic fee to see what was wrong and they tell me they don't know who worked on my car last, but that either they were either really lazy mechanics or they really don't know how to do their job, as the gasket was replaced so obviously incorrectly that it was put on wrong and the mechanic just mashed it in to make it fit, so the seal was leaking and oil was spattering to make the engine misfire, which makes it unsafe to drive. He said that the shop it was at previously (Georgialina) was not looking at the whole car to see how to make it run better, but just at little things that they could say needed fixing to get money out of me. He also said that I should not be driving this car around, especially the three hour drive from home to college, because it is unsafe. The very same car that Georgialina gave the okay to drive right before I left. I now have to find a way to get my car back to Augusta to get them to do the job right, of course I am going to have to take it to another mechanic to make sure they did something right this time. Everything I paid these people to do they neglected to do or do well. I am really just trying to keep future customers from getting ripped off, especially because I took my car here because they were family friends. So if they did this to me what will they do to you?

by FrustratedCustomer on September 17, 2011