I was in the process of driving to Las Vegas when my car began to over heat. I pulled off of the freeway and called AAA to have them send a tow truck. When the tow truck showed up, I had him tow me back to Baker since I was only about 10 miles from there.
The shop my car was taken to was Freeway Automotive, right at the end of Baker Blvd. I was then told I would have to stay overnight since they did not have the part I needed there. So I stayed at a cheesy 70's * flick looking hotel just down the road.
The next day I overheard the owner of the hotel and her husband talking about how they had a good thing going with that auto garage. Here is how the scam goes: the tow company takes all people to the same shop, that shop refers all those people to the same motel, and they all charge higher than normal fees and basically split the amounts between the 3 places. Nice scam.
So here I am at 6:00 P.M. And finally I get to my car where they claim the repair for my car cost 1200.00 - to replace an intake manifold on what was a 1998 Crown Victoria. I paid double what I should have paid, and they had the balls to ask me to stay 1 more night to fix something else, what they wanted to "fix" I could not tell you, so I said no and drove the car home, nearly 200 miles.
The next day, I took the car to my regular mechanic, who had just checked this car 3 months prior, and found no problems. Well apparently when this so called "GARAGE" fixed the intake manifold, they cracked one of the seals for one of the fuel injectors, basically causing my little drive home to fry my engine, and put my life at risk as the car was now running pure fuel into the catalytic converter.
So this car which had at one time been running smoothly with no problems was now a potential fire trap. All because this Freeway Automotive cracked a seal and basically caused me to junk the car and shell out 6700 on a new car.
Cal State Dept. Auto Repair is useless. The person I dealt with from there did nothing but sit there eating donuts for 3 months then closed the case without telling me. Absolutely useless.
So please, if you get stuck, I beg of you, pay the little extra to get towed to Barstow, you will only get screwed in Baker.
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