On Wednesday August 8, I took my 2002 Mercury Sable to Midas at Brownsburg, Indiana. I had detected a slight bump in the suspension. The owner, Dan McKibben, drove my car for about five minutes, without me in it. When he returned, he told me I needed 4 struts and springs. He said the left rear spring was broken, and took me to the bay to see it. He did not show me the other springs, nor did he say there was anything wrong with those. He only pointed out the broken one on the left rear. He then told me that because one was broken, all four had to be replaced.
McKibben said this was necessary for the car to be stable on the road, and that if only the broken one was replaced, the car would not handle correctly and I would continue to feel the bump. I asked him how much this was going to cost. He ran his calculator, printed out the estimate and said, $1,997. This was for replacing four single after-market strut/spring units. McKibben never looked me in the face when he was giving me the charge for this work. I was incredulous at the cost. Yet, I needed the broken spring repaired, and felt I could trust McKibben. Additionally, he told me that if the broken one penetrated the tire, my car would wreck and possibly be totaled unless all four struts were replaced.
As the mechanics started work on my car, I began to feel something was terribly wrong. Two thousand dollars is an extreme amount of money to pay for any type of car repair. An engine or motor wouldn't cost that much. There aren't enough parts to replace in a car that would add up to $1,997. Could McKibben be fleecing me? I thought it odd, too, that there were no other cars at this Midas.
Next door, at Big O Tires, there were so many customers that the bays were constantly full and the parking area was running over. And the Midas store has been in business over twice as long as the Big O shop.
I walked out of the store to the Holiday Inn and called Capitol City Ford service department in Indianapolis. I did not tell the service manager that my car was being worked on at the time. I asked him what the price would be for replacing struts and springs on a 2002 Mercury Sable with less than 82,000 miles. He said struts on Sables don't need replacing, that they normally last the life of the car, and always for over 100,000 miles. I mentioned that one of the springs was broken. He said to replace that spring and strut, along with the unit on the opposite side, would be $616.00, including labor, parts, alignment and tax.
I felt like I had been hit in the stomach. This was a dealer price, dealer labor cost, and still was less than 1/3 of the price Midas/McKibben had charged me. Plus, the dealer, who could easily have suggested replacing all four struts/springs, insisted that they don't need changing, unless broken.
At that, I told him that my car was in a shop having all four replaced, that only one spring was broken and I was being charged $1,997. He didn't ask where, he just told me I was being swindled and I should stop the work.
I ran back to Midas, where McKibben had already changed the front struts&the ones that didn't need changing. I said, Dan, I just asked a Ford dealership how much this work would cost and they told me $600. Something is wrong here. They also said the struts/springs never need replacing. Why did you tell me they did? And why are you charging me $2,000? We're going to stop the work right now. He replied, If they don't wear out, why did was the spring broken? A spring can break, particularly on Indiana roads, but there was only one broken spring, not four, and McKibben had not shown me anything wrong with the front ones.
I asked him to call the Ford dealership to confirm what I had been told. I believe he called another one as well. All prices were about $1,000 less than McKibben had charged me. I forced the numbers on him; that they were considerably less than the $2,000 he was ripping me off for, and did he have a good reason for his exorbitant invoice? He then reworked my bill, still bringing the final charge to $787.84! And that was for only the front two, that shouldn't have been changed at all, and without an alignment. He became very defensive, still without ever looking straight at me, and tried to justify his scam.
The owner of Brownsburg Midas, Dan McKibben, Did knowingly and deliberately attempt to steal $1,997 from a customer by inflating the normal and market-based charges for parts and labor on a vehicle. Committed fraud against a customer by replacing parts he knew did not need replacing. Endangered a customer by not replacing broken parts that could potentially have resulted in an accident.
After replacing front struts and springs, deliberately failed to align the wheels. Knowingly and deliberately scammed a trusting customer, lying to the customer regarding the cost of parts and labor and the condition of customer's car.
Following are quoted costs from area repair shops for the identical work done by Brownsburg Midas to my car. Quotes were provided without knowledge that my car had been at Midas:
Paul Harvey Ford, Indianapolis, $714.00 — parts, labor, alignment, tax.
Capitol City Ford, Indianapolis, $340.00 labor and alignment, tax.
Big O Tires, Martinsville, $616.00 labor, alignment, parts. Tax.
Sears Auto Center, Indianapolis, $587.00 parts, labor, alignment, tax.
Big O Tires, Brownsburg, $ 511.00 parts, labor, alignment, tax.
All these quotes can be verified. Big O Tires, Brownsburg, is adjacent to McKibben's Midas shop. I went there for the remainder of the work, the repair that should have been done first and only, while I was at Midas on August 8. There were many, many customers in Big O at the time, and they all were told what happened to me at McKibben's Midas shop.
Anne
Indianapolis, Indiana
U.S.A.
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