rev:text
| - Stay away from Brake Masters!
I've had two bad experiences here (I keep kicking myself for not learning from the first time around):
1. My first trip here was because my car was slowly leaking engine coolant (I was adding about a cup of 50/50 each week). I had called before going in and expressed that I wasn't sure if it was a leak in the radiator, reservoir, or what. The sales guy agreed that it could possibly be the radiator and said they would look at it to examine the problem. As soon as I arrived, I was quoted for a new radiator before they even looked at the car. I asked "aren't you going to check it out first?" to which the sales guy mumbled "Er...uh...yeah....of course." Red flag. Later that day I was called and told that the radiator needed to be replaced. Two days after the "repair" I was back to refilling with engine coolant. When I took the car into a different shop the following week, they took me to the garage and showed me an obvious leak in the reservoir (that had not been replaced). Fixing this solved the problem. I had a funny feeling that this had been the problem all along and not the radiator.
2. A couple years later I noticed a preliminary slip in my SUV's transmission. Not remembering the radiator problem, I took the SUV into Brake Masters specifically asked if they would check the transmission. The next day I received a phone call letting me know that the transmission appeared to be in "great condition" and proceeded to use scare tactics to quote me for $3,000 in "critical" repair needs including replacing the radiator (haha, yes this one again) and replacing the entire A/C system. I was hesitant, but my wife needed the car back soon so we went ahead with most of the "critical repairs." TWO DAYS later, the transmission that checked out in "great condition" completely died. What's more, while shopping around for transmission repair, we got a quote from another place on the work that Brake Masters had done (just out of curiosity). The quote came back at just over HALF what we were charged by Brake Masters.
We will never be going back to Brake Masters, and I would strongly caution anyone else considering this shop. At best, they are horrible at diagnosing a vehicle's real problem (or don't even try). At worst, they are a bunch of crooks!
|