| rev:text
| - My husband took my car in to Brake Masters a few Saturday's ago due to my AC blowing cool, not cold, air. Seemed like a pretty simple fix- add some coolant and we'll be on our way. They were convenient because they are open on Saturdays and don't require an appointment. He dropped the car off so they could analyze the issue and would call us later with the diagnosis. They called with the coolant suggestion, but then started going on about how it could be the compressor but they wouldn't immediately know, they'd put dye in the coolant and we were to bring the car back in a week so they could see if it was leaking, etc. Red flags went up in my mind, but he thought they were just covering all bases up front. Ok... just add the coolant and we'll deal with the compressor later if that's the real problem, maybe next summer since it's finally cooling off here in the desert.
Now, I am not saying they intentionally tried to take advantage of us, but you be the judge... My husband takes me to pick up my car later that afternoon and I set off for the 20 minute ride home. Immediately, I notice its blowing hot air- heater hot, not it just needs to cool off from sitting in the sun hot, and the compressor is "struggling"- the fan is cutting on and off, on and off, over and over. We pull in the garage and I call my husband over to hear the compressor and feel the air. He agrees something definitely isn't right so we drive back up to Brake Masters (another 20 minutes, which by then is brutally hot) and I tell the guy about the new issues and, he immediately dismisses me, tells me it's the compressor, and will be $1200 to fix. I ask how it's possible my car is now worse than it was when it was brought in and he gives some excuse of how there could have been a restriction (my technical terms are lacking as I am not a mechanic but you get the picture) or something that got forced through when they added the coolant making the real issue more apparent. He was so unapologetic, and kind of seemed to blame me for a lack of service in my car (I just bought the car a year ago). I asked if he could do it that day and lucky for me, he didn't have the compressor kit in stock but could do it Monday. My husband's and my work schedules didn't permit bringing my car back on Monday and the mechanic's attitude made me so mad I vowed to have anyone but him put a new compressor in my car.
I went straight home and emailed a few shops I found online with good reviews (closed by then on Saturday) and decided which ever one called me first on Monday would get my business.
The ending to this saga- I tell the new shop I need a new compressor- they tell me they will be the judge of that and my car may just need coolant. OK, whatever.... They call me later and ask if I had recently had coolant added to my car because it seemed that the issue was my car had too much added which can cause a compressor to do what mine was doing. I tell them the whole story, they go back to see if the added dye from Brake Masters uncovered any issues but call me again with the good news that my car was fine, they fixed the coolant problem and my compressor works perfectly.
I guess in Brake Masters defense, my husband said they were short staffed that day, and maybe they weren't monitoring the coolant so it could have been an accident they added too much. What I also know though, without a doubt, is they would have installed the compressor kit without a second thought and charged me $1200 for a problem they created.
I will not take my car back there, they may be fine for oil changes and hopefully brakes as their name states, but I'll take my chances with the proven honest mechanic I happened upon because of this fiasco.
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