Brought my car in for a state inspection monday, was told it failed because my "service engine soon" light was on (which it was). Ran $90 diagnostic test and said problem was a vacuum leak ($105 part $75 labor). They ordered the part, and I paid for the inspection and the diagnostic, and took my car.
The next day, I was driving to albany and the car seized up and broke down. Had it towed to Mohr's. Got a call later that day saying they had run another diagnostic to see what was wrong. I thought it seemed ridiculous that they would charge me another $90 for a second diagnostic in two days. But they said only one thing can show up per test. I later disputed the second diagnostic and they did take it off the bill. They said they had to do more work on the car ($480).
When I came back to pick it up the next day (Thursday), they had charged my for another failed inspection, which I didn't even notice until I got home. When I noticed, I told them, and they said "oh, we'll take that off."
They told me to bring my car back saturday to pass inspection because the car needs to be driven for 60 miles for the computer to reset.in the meantime, I started noticing a grinding in my car's front end. I mentioned it to them when I brought my car back saturday, and they said they'd check it out. They called me an hour after I dropped it off and said my brakes were metel-on-metal, and I needed a brake job (for $300). I asked how they could not have seen that at the two inspections just two days ago, and they said "it wasn't metal on metal when we looked at it." I called my fiance (who was enraged at them by this point) who told me to get my car out of there because they have been ripping me off). We went to his brother's house and did the brake job for $100.
After consulting with many people (friends that are former mechanics included), I came to realize that there was no way they actually performed the two inspections they charged me for. There is no way that they would have passed those brakes, even if they weren't "quite" metal on metal yet. They just inspected it until they found something wrong, then charged me for the inspection, and repeated, charging me for each time. They would have mentioned that my brakes were totally shot if anyone had actually looked at them.
I went in there today to get my keys back, and my money back. They had already agreed to refund one of the inspections, but I told them I wanted both refunded, as they obviously never did either of them more than plugging it into the code-reader. He was all mumbly, and said he didn't know why there had been so many mistakes, and that there was "no rhyme or reason to it, " and he gave me the money for both inspections.
I didn't mean to make this so long, but it was a awful weeklong experience of them trying to double charge me for things thinking that I wouldn't notice, and charging me for things they didn't even do. I am never going back there, and if you do go there (there aren't a ton of mechanics in saratoga), make sure you stay on your toes. Always double check your paperwork, and question what's going on. Don't just take their word for it. They are friendly-seeming people in general, and did refund what I asked them to, but this does not make up for the fact that I feel like they were trying to slip things by me the whole time, and I absolutely cannot trust them to be honest. Watch out especially if you are female (I've heard stories from other women about problems with them).
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