I just got back from picking up my car which was in need of some serious repairs. I don't want to make this long so i will try to get to the point.
Our car is now over 9 years old. I know...most people get new cars after 5 years and most of the time sooner. We tend to not care too much about wasting money on new cars and tend to try and utilize our car for as long as possible.
Now being over 9 years old you can only imagine what kind of things will need replaced especially that we really have only put about $3000 into the car since we purchased it brand new. Our car was puttering and sounded like it was either having clutch problems or one of the cylinders was not firing.
We took the car to Canadian Tire and told them what the problem was. a young guy called me twice about 1 hour apart after taking the car for a test drive. both times he called he asked what i thought was wrong with the car as he could not figure it out. It felt as though this guy never worked on a car before or he was so busy he didn't have the time to really test drive it. I told them to take it for a drive because it was extremely easy to see how badly it is driving. Canadian tire did a full inspection (well at least that is what they told me they were doing and billed us for). A few hours later they said they checked everything and said they could not find anything wrong and that all i really needed to do was use Lucas Fuel Injector Cleaner and to just add it to my gas tank before my fill up and it will fix the problem. Well after running through a full tank with Lucas Fuel Injector Cleaner, the car was still acting up, so i repeated this 4 times for the next month. Nothing. the car just got worse.
First thing i did was call up Dandy Auto, they did some work on our car when we first moved to this province 3 years ago so we thought, "hey, everything they fixed on our car before still works fine". i think the main reason we never went to Dandy Auto was because they are more expensive than Canadian Tire.
Well there is a lesson we learned here. You get what you pay for!
The first thing we noticed was that the lady at reception who answered the phone had a much better idea of what could be wrong with my car than the mechanic at Canadian Tire. They got me to take my car in quickly and they dropped me home with the Free Shuttle Service they provided (Bonus points). They called me later that day and gave me a list of all the apparent problems that is wrong with my car, and boy was it a long list. i needed a new Clutch, Timing Belt, Spark Plugs/Wire, Axle Seals, Slave Cylinder, Gaskets, Water Pump, ETC most of which were all original parts. They also found out that 2 of the 4 new DIRECTIONAL WINTER Tires that were purchased and installed by Canadian TIRE were put on BACKWARDS, so they corrected that.
Not only did they fix the everything within 2 days, but they did a full detail of the car, looking like the first day we purchased the car. They made us feel like we were true valued customers. When we came to pick up the car the auto mechanic foreman as well as the 2 front desk girls, who may i add were also very knowledgeable and friendly, took the time to go through all the work which was done in detail and showing me the parts that were taken out and how those parts worked. they took the time to explain exactly what was fixed, why it needed to be fixed. it was apparent how passionate the people are at Dandy Auto are. I am happy to say that the car runs smooth like butter!
Besides having a roof over your head, the second most important thing is your vehicle, It is worth putting out the extra money to have your car fixed by a true professional as the difference is having a your car not only last years longer but keeping you and your family safe. We will always get all our work done at Dandy Auto for now on!