Avoid this place!!
We took our older RV that we had recently bought in for a check up.
I had said we wanted to know what needed to be done now, what needed to be done soon, and what was coming up sometime in the future.
The mechanic did a test drive, checked out, and came in and handed a piece of paper with notes to the guy at the desk and talked to him as I stood nearby.
The mechanic made a comment that the hoses and belts had been changed but needed to be done again.
He said the idler arm (steering component) needed to be replaced and we needed shocks as going over even a small bump could really be felt (something to those words).
The guy at the desk (Thomas Blackwell I believe) read he notes and said we had to get brand new tires on it right away, like in the next day or two before we went on a short trip - they don't do tires but he said be very afraid to drive on them.
He said we needed a new air conditioner - that we didn't want problems with that in phoenix.
He said we needed new airbags - they were totally flat. I asked what airbags they were (I had the previous owners record showing they were added but no explaination of where). Tom replied they were for towing (raised the back of the vehicle up to compensate for the tow vehicle pulling it down). I replied we never intended to toe with this RV.
I was told that an email would be sent with the tell information of the work to be done in a "but I would get it the next day. I asked what I ordered for that day he give me a fee close to what he quoted and I paid it.
I called every couple days for three times over the next week because I never got an email. I'm used to getting information when I walk out the door and not having to repeatedly bug someone to get it. The last phone call I was told by Tom "sorry that's my fault - I'm tardy and undependable". I told him I was very disappointed as I should've had it long before. I did get one about eight hours later.
I called up the next day to run over the quote.
The quote was written up as typical (mechanic talk), and Tom had difficulty saying what needed to be done or even going down the quote line by line. I asked for each item how did you know the work needed be done. I felt like I was just getting stories - we found a leak was his response almost every time. After a couple of lines he said I know why needs to be done. I replied but I need to know why it needs to be done.
He admitted a couple of items they could not see any problems but guessed they needed to be done.
I knew some of the quote items not need to be done at all. We doubted much of their work needed to be done. We double checked the items and also found a second shop to get another opinion.
Along with the idler arm replacement they had included an alignment. We doubted either of those were needed. We checked it out and test drove it, when we took our hands off the wheel the RV drove straight and true. Neither of us felt any play in the steering at all. Obviously this was not the problem they were making out to be. The second shop we took it to said there was very minor play on the Pitman arm not worth doing any work on and the idler arm was fine.
Shocks were also fine. Trucks decades old never handled like newer ones and they were obviously not familiar with how this Rv should handle.
We had test driven the RV for an hour in 100 degree heat last year and we knew the air conditioning worked just fine. It was pretty cool now in wintertime, but we could tell that we got a little bit cooler air with the AC on. We seriously doubt there's any issues with this but will double check it in the summer.
We knew that with RV tires how old the tires are matters greatly, not just the tread condition. Tires are replaced at five years always. Based on the date on the tires we still had almost a full year left on the tires, there was no urgency to replace them. While a huge deal was made about these while I was there - the quote had no mention of the tires.
The quote also didn't mention the airbags - I am used to seeing future/potential future items listed with a note.
Some of the fluids to be replaced on the quote did not need replacing as reported by the second repair shop. The second repair shop did not just look at the fluid color but they tested it to make sure things were still good.
The quote was for over $1800 plus $1500-$2200 to replace the air conditioning -
Not including the airbag or over $1000 for tires.
It cost me over $100 to get that bad quote.
The only work that was truly needed was less than. $200 for one fluid change