Donovan at Automotive Aid advertises on Craigslist. He claims to have an ASE Master Technician certification and markets himself as having 18 years experience as a mechanic. His ad says he charges 1/3 of shop rates. This all sounded good to me, so I made the 40 mile treck from my home for the discounted services.
I show up, and this guy works out of his garage. No surprise really, for the discount, you can't expect a lot of overhead. I follow him to autozone to purchase some parts "at discount" on his account for my vehicle. Immediatly, I should have known there were going be problems. Over the phone, Donovan quoted me $160 for the parts. The parts ended up being over $300.
The second problem can when there was supposed to be a mail-in rebate for the parts. There was no such thing, and the guy at Autozone had no Idea what Donovan was talking about. So, now I'm up to $380 on what was originally quoted at $160.
Still, not a bad deal compared to shop rates, I buy the parts and drive back to his place to let him do the work. A few hours later, the text messages me and says "the car is ready dude - come pick it up when ever you want".
Upon driving the car home, the alignment was totally screwed up. The brakes were also very soft and not working correctly. He was supposed to install new front and rear strut and new front brake pads. I have no doubt that he did this, however, the alignment and camber were totally off - and the car was almost undrivable. Additionally, the OLD brake pads I had on there had twice the stopping power of the new brakes.
All said and done, I find out he never bled the brakes after the brake job. Then, to make matters worse, I find out he didn't put my hubcaps on right, and one went flying off somewhere on the ride home.
To sum things up, this guy with his home PC printed diploma won't do anything to fix my car right. If you take him your car, he will screw it up big time. I should have listened to the other review on here, but I like to give people the benifit of the doubt. Do youself a favor and pay a real shop to fix your car - you get what you pay for, and this guy will cost you more money in the end.
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