Back on 05/23/14 after 8am I had stopped at Melendez Tire due to a cylinder misfire and sputtering per the Auto Zone computer feed. I had decided to take my car to a small mom and pop shop as opposed to what I call "corporate" mechanics to get my car evaluated and repaired. I had a looong drive that day because I was leaving Vegas to drive back to Texas. So having a vehicle in good working order was important to me.
When I first arrived and explain the situation to a mechanic named Jose, he flat out said...we need to change the spark plugs it's $40. I said cool!
I went down the street to the autozone and got 4 new spark plugs for about $3-4 bucks.... Not bad.
Went back to the shop with the new spark plugs....then another mechanic named Ramon joined forces with Jose to put the spark plugs in and get me all set....they did eventually ask me how long has it been since I got the spark plugs changed...I told them possibly late last year summer. Jose had the old spark plugs in his hands and looked confused and I did too because the old spark plugs did not look all that worn out!
As I was sitting there in the office I had noticed that Jose and Ramon looked puzzled....they were testing out my car after the spark plugs were changed and my car was still sputtering... Ramon suggested that I go back to autozone and get the "Champion" spark plugs because the other new ones had I just got minutes earlier were not working. So I went back to autozone and got the "Champion" brand name spark plugs for my car.
Meanwhile the owner Tony came through with his wife or girlfriend or whoever she is and went inside the office.
They all spoke on Spanish and Tony left the office to come and help Jose and Ramon evaluate my car. After the 2nd set of "Champion" spark plugs were installed....my car was still sputtering. It took forever for Tony, Jose, and Ramon to figure out what was going on with my car.
Meanwhile I was getting impatient as I was anticipating a long drive and wanted to leave Vegas sooner instead of later.
And also meanwhile, they were helping other customers with their tire issues and such which depleted my time there.
Eventually Tony came to me and said that my car needs 3 new ignition coils since my car runs off of 4 cylinders and 3 of the coils are bad and that is why the sputtering. He quoted me 2 prices... $100 each coil or $75 each coil...by then the time was about 12 or 1pm...so I told Tony that I will need to think about this and I will be back. He was cool with that. I had to pay $40 for the spark plug install before I left to find cheaper coils per Tony because the "labor" was performed even though the spark plugs were not the problem and I told Tony that Jose himself told me I won't have me pay for it. :/
Eventually after 4pm I had came back to the shop with the new coils that I had got at this Carquest store on Industrial and DI for way cheaper $50 per coil!
It took Jose a good 20-30 minutes to install the coils, test out the car, car worked fine and Tony just charged me $25 for labor.
They are pretty good mechanics...I felt that a lot of my time and my $40 was wasted off of a misdiagnosis earlier when Jose said that my car needed spark plugs, since that wasn't the case.
If the misdiagnosis did not happen I'd be in and out in about an hour or so, not damn near the whole day! 8am-4pm...SMH.