David LaPell
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- Joined
- Mar 9, 2008
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About 3 weeks back I took my 2002 Merc Grand Marquis into the local Ford dealership to get an alignment (none of the garages up here have an alignment rack so its either them or drive 20 miles). So I take it there, and I am not expecting greatness as it has 183,000 miles on it. Well, I go there hand the keys to the tech and go outside, they had a nice older Mustang across the street so I go over to look at it. I see the tech go out and take my car from the side of the building to the rack, about 40 feet at the most. I go back inside after 15 minutes and they tell me there's a boat load of stuff wrong with the car. Lower control arms, idler arm bushing, pitman arm and the steering box was froze (found that hard to believe since the car steered ok). I had to ask the girl 5 times what the price was, and she came up with about $2000. I told her not a chance and to see if they used aftermarket stuff. The girl is telling me that there was "only" about $50 each for the lower control arms. So $100 is not a lot to her but to me, big difference. Well, the service tech is telling me my car is about to come apart and it needs to get done right away. I take it to another garage and he gives me a whole different outlook. Control arms yes and the steering box isn't froze but its a bit rusty. Two guys looked at the pitman arm, no play at all and the idler arm bushing was fine. The difference in price all told, $1006 overall. Not to mention after getting the paperwork back from the dealership, they list a test drive being performed, one wasn't, and they listed an alignment being done, one wasn't. They didn't charge me but still, I watched how far they drove the car, and McDonalds drive through was longer. I penned a nice polite letter to the dealership and I get a call from the Vice President, who tells me that he stands by the tech and then tells me that he hopes he doesn't see my name in the local paper because I got killed driving the car after it needed to be fixed. Then he insults the other mechanics telling me they're idiots and I shouldn't let them work on the car. I politely tell him I'll stick with them, he rants and raves, telling me I'm lucky I didn't get a bill for an alignment, one that never happened. I bring up the test drive, and he told me he believes the tech. Then tells me since there's nothing more he can do he again hopes he doesn't see my name in the paper because my car came apart. I then put a review on Cars.com about it, with only the facts. Yesterday the owner of the garage that did the work calls me, the dealership called him wanting a copy of the invoice of the work he did on my car! The owner tells the dealership to go pound sand, then I called the dealership up and ask why they wanted the info and was told that since I slammed them pretty hard that they wanted to get the invoice and compare things to see how they could do better next time. I asked why didn't they just call me and ask and I was told since it had gotten out of control and since I slammed them for no reason that they decided to get them from the garage. I told the dealer that if I decided to that I and I alone would be bringing them the invoice (they're not getting it). I can't imagine why they would want this, and since they went behind my back to get it if they were going to try something like a lawsuit. The review on Cars.com was honest, I put in all the facts and figures and I have all the paperwork, but for a dealership to go to this extreme over a review? Especially since there is a spot for the dealer to respond, I've never heard of this before. To me, take your lumps and deal with it, but has anyone else ever heard of a dealer doing this?