I took my 5 year old car here to have it looked at for a possible serious engine problem. He charged $500 to tell you what is wrong with the vehicle and if you have it repaired there, he deducts this from the repair bill.
He quoted me a repair price that I thought was steep, but it had to be done and he already had the car apart. As the repair progessed, additional things were found "wrong" and the bill continued to grow and grow. He also doubles the price of what he pays for most parts. For example, if a radiator costs $150 at the dealership, he charges $300. The final bill was close to what I paid for the car. When the car was being repaired, I was given conflicting information from both the owner, Russ, and his sidekick mechanic, Dean, about the status of the repair. When I picked the car up and questioned some of the excessive charges he had for shipping charges for the parts, I was told those were UPS charges and there was nothing he could do about them. The truth is that his mechanic told me several days before I picked the car up, that they picked up the parts in person, at a local dealership. They were not shipped in.
A few months later I was having some other work done on that car at a dealership. I told them what was wrong with the car and what was done at Russ's. They laughed and thought I was kidding when I told them what I paid. I also discovered I could have bought a rebuilt ENGINE, yes, the whole ENGINE, and had it installed for 1/2 of the price of what Russ bilked me for, for a moderate repair.
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