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| - My beloved Taurus wouldn't start one day when I was at Basha's on 7th Ave and Osborn. So I called AAA and they sent out a tow truck. I requested that the car be towed to the nearest AAA repair facility at 12th and Camelback, but the tow truck driver had a better idea: Clark's on 19th Ave (which was a lot closer to my house than the official AAA repair facility). The driver also said I'd get a 15% AAA discount for taking my car there. I also (incorrectly) assumed this repair shop was affiliated with Kelly Clark Automotive. Big Mistake. That's because I found Greg Clark Automotive not to be particularly honest, and that they'll try to take you for everything they can cajole and bamboozle out of you.
After they looked at my car, they called me and said I needed a new starter ($342). But then the service guy said I also needed a least a half dozen other things, and that it would cost me in excess of $2,000. I said my car (aka known as "The Greatest Car in World History") had over 300,000 miles on it, and that it had also been previously totaled so it wasn't worth anything; and I adamantly said I didn't feel this was a good investment, putting that kind of money into an old car that could go out at any moment. But "No" does not mean "No" to Greg Clark Automotive. And it that didn't stop the service guy from transforming into a used-car salesman, trying to convince me that my car would be "as good as new" and that I have "many more years left in it" after the repairs. I even got the scare tactic from him: "Your wheels could fall off if you hit a speed bump." After I heard that I should have called AAA and had my car towed off the lot, but I went ahead and had them fix the starter. Big mistake.
As I later found out, this shop charged nearly double what that repair typically costs for that vehicle, and when I went to pick up the car, I asked, "You took the 15% off (as promised by the tow truck driver) for my AAA membership, right?" And he said, "Yes." Lie. First of all, as I later discovered, there was no discount on the receipt, and I also realized that he had no way of knowing I was a AAA member. I never mentioned it on the phone! Heck, I was too busy insisting that I would take my chances with my wheels not falling off with each trip over a speed bump.
Needless to say, after this escapade, I complained to AAA. Which didn't do any good, since this shop is still a AAA shop, and it makes me wonder about the credibility of that seal of approval. (I'm guessing other people have complained about Greg Clark Automotive as well.)
And as far as the car needing those additional repairs, the only thing I had done to the car in the 33 months following this episode was to have the radiator replaced under warranty. I never did any of the other work(!) suggested, and the car was only recently retired to that car graveyard in the sky with nearly 340K on it. So I saved myself nearly $2,000 by not doing the suggested repairs. And, NO, the wheels never did fall off(!), even after going over a great many speed bumps. (Including those whiplash-causing ones at L.A. Fitness.)
Update: Regarding the owner comment directed at my review, I can only say I hope that you do learn from our feedback, and that you do clean up your act. Because we (i.e., the customers) want you to succeed. We want you to thrive. But for you to do that, we can't feel as though we're getting the short end of the stick; that we've been taken for a ride. WE WANT RESULTS, NOT HOLLOW WORDS AND EMPTY PROMISES. Through the Internet, customer experiences can now be broadcast to the entire world. Now, more than ever, those businesses that fail to heed this will quickly perish. In the past, a wonderful (or poor) experience would have limited us to telling our acquaintances. Now, we can tell the world! And so, I really hope you are listening to us. We will make, or break, you; in very short order. I hope it's the former, not the latter.
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