I recently took my car in because it started making a knocking noise on the highway once I hit about 65mph. They had told me after looking at it that my sway bar and bushings and links needed to be replaced. I was told they were going to charge me $460 for labor and were calling to get price for parts they told me the total was the 460 for labor whatever the parts came up to which came out to 1243.00 and car would be ready early following day.
They called me at 9:30 A. M saying they were half way done but my water pump was bad and it would be 545.00 to replace it. I told them not to do it. They called me back 15 minutes later saying that they were given the wrong price for the part and it would actually only be 389.00 to do it. I answered whatever just do it since I was at work (active duty soldier in the army) I was told my car would be ready in a couple hours.
I called at 12:30 P.M. And asked if my car was done, I was told to call back at 1:30 so I did and then I was told at 4:30 my car would be ready because they had got the wrong part from the supplier. At 3:15 while taking my son to an appt. They called and said they couldnt get the part the link and my car wouldnt be ready until tomorrow. At this time I told them to put the old parts on my car and I would be there shortly to pick up my car.
Well when I got there the owner wouldnt come out when I asked to speak to him but the lady behind the desk kept running back and forth. They said all the work was done but the link and when the right one came in they would put it in. They warned me that my car would continue to make the noise until the right link was put on. Well upon leaving my car not only made the noise but instead of needing to get on the highway, it began right down the road. Then, any time I hit a little bump my car shook out of control which it wasnt doing before. So after spending $1774.00, my car was in worse shape.
I went to the Mazda dealership to get a quote from them on the cost of the parts and estimate for labor. All the parts came up to 391.30 but then I would get back 25 for the core charge for the water pump and labor would be 552.50 all together coming up to 942.93 total. Keep in mind I already spent 1774.00. So the dealership would have been 800.00 cheaper but my car would have been fixed.
First thing the next morning I went to the Auto Skill Center where I had an honest ASE certified mechanic look at my car. He looked at my car to find there was nothing wrong except they left 2 bolts one on each end of the sway bar extremely loose causing my car to shake and rattle constantly. The mechanic on post fixed this for free and wrote in his report that I had these things replaced off post and the only thing wrong was the bolts were not tightened. Also the labor estimate from them was 294.00 if I would have brought the parts. So there it would have been 294.00 391.00 if I got the parts from mazda. Parts were much cheaper everywhere else in town. But the receipt from superior transmission stated my car would continue to make the noise until they replaced this other link. Either Superior Transmission was extremely negligent, or they purposely did not tighten them to get more business after I took my car back to have them put on the other part.
Oh yeah forgot to mention I had to file a police report because my 8gb Ipod was stolen while they had my car. All that being said, did they negligently or purposely put the life of a U. S Soldier at risk as well as other people on the road to steal a little bit of money. Definitely buyer beware here.
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