Our car was running perfect one day and the next it totally died on us. We took it to a mechanic and he said that the water pump broke and caused the engine to overheat and basicly killed our engine. He gave us a quote, but said that we could try going to an engine exchange place and it might be cheaper. So we did a search on the internet and found Discount Engine Exchange.
We took the car in and they said that they could replace everything for $2,700 and it would be finished by the following Wednesday (it was Friday). We paid $2,900 up front (apparently tax wasn't included in the estimate) and signed the paperwork. The following Thursday we got a call and the shop told us that they had just taken our engine out of the car and our car was a mess.
They had a laundry list of things that were wrong with the car and that it would cost at least another $3,000 to get the car running. We have a 2001 Saturn L300 and it's really not worth putting another $3,000 into it, so we declined and asked to just replace the engine as we had orignally agreed.
The following week we got a call saying the car was ready and running and we would pick it up. When my husband went to pick up the car, they handed him a serpent belt in shreads and said that it busted when they changed the engine and it would cost only $14 and a small amount of labor to fix it. The car wouldn't start and so my husband agreed. They then called us back and said that the belt would actually cost $25. We said okay.
When we got the call that the car was ready, I speciffcally asked "Will it start?" and they said yes. We went to get the car and the car wouldn't start. But they did hand us an invoice for over $600. The belt on the invoice was for $77 and $120 in labor, nothing close to the two esitmates they gave us. They also charged us $325 for camshafts. We refused to pay the invoice and the shop said that starting that day they would be charging us $25 and continue to charge us $25 a day for storage until we paid the whole invoive.
We talked to a couple of different mechanics about our situation and we were told that camshafts come with an engine and that was a bogus charge. They also said that everything on our invoice was outragously over priced. I called the shop and said that I would tow the car off of their property and pay them a settlement of $151.06 (total of second quoted price for the belt and labor) that day. They said that my offer was an insult and they would see me in court. I then received a fax with a court summons on it.
Can anyone help? Is this fair? Are camshafts normally included in an engine when it's exchanged? Do I really have to pay invoices taht come in 6 times the orginal estimate?
I know that their is already another report for this company on this website and when talking to the different mechanics, we found a mechanic that used Discount Engine Exchange for some side work and said that they tried the same type of scam on them too, giving an estimate then jacking up the price once they had the car and saying it needed more work that was unnessary. Any other stories would help though, have you ever had a problem with this company?
Very frustrated and still without a car, Jamie
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