In April of 1998, I took my car, an 84 Buick Century, to Spartan Tire in Howell, Mich to have a front end shimmy looked at. They said they could drop me off at my work. We drove my car and the mechanic drove it to the shop. A few hours later they said the car was ready and I asked them to deliver it to me. 30 minutes later I get a call saying that the car started blowing smoke on the way to me and they were going to tow it to the shop. I went to pick it up and they said it had a transmission fluid leak. They said they didn't do transmission work so I drove it to another garage. The entire way there was smoke billowing out from under the car. An inspection of the of the transmission showed a 6 inch crack in the housing. This was spewing fluid all over the place. The mechanic who knew nothing of the other garage asked me if I drove it rough. When I went back to Spartan Tire I asked them what they had did to it. They denied they had done nothing and according to them, the transmission was that way before they ever saw it. I said that there was no smoke when their driver drove me to work and they continued to deny it.
Eventually I had to take them to Small Claims Court and sued them for $1500. The Garage Manager admitted during his testimony that his driver had bottomed out the car on a bad bump and then the smoke started. The crooked Judge ruled in their favor. He also said to us, " I've had 20 years of good service with Spartan Tire and never had a complaint." I'm sure his service will really improve now.
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