Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General My horrible shop experience!!

I have been terribly busy lately and have had no time to work on my poor turbo contour, not to mention the only garage I have access to is filled with industrial equipment. Recently a flex pipe on my rear bank manifold has seperated causing a bad leak on the exhaust, throwing off tuning as well as killing my spool rpm's. So with the referral of a friend I had the car taken to a place called mandalay automotive. This place is about an hour away from where I attend school full time so I dropped the car off las friday and told them I would not be able to get it until today. But I stressed I needed it by today. Anyways, after 3 hours round trip both fridays, the idiots did not even get to it.

When I picked up the car, I heard the guys talking in the back room, and what do i hear? Some kid bragging about how he went joy riding in my car. I immediately grab my keys from their rack, walk to the car and see he put 10 miles on it!!!!!! I also notice the jack point cover is missing. I start the car, and it is running like [censored], and now has a cel. It never throws cels! I also notice that a piece I have fabricated has come loose, this only happens when I get SERIOUS wheel hop. After screaming at the idiots for 30 minutes I drive my car around the block, what do I notice? A slipping clutch. On my way back I can barely control myself, to calm down I turn on my radio, what do I notice? The [censored] bastards blew 2 of my interior speakers. I am so pissed and mad I am literaly sick to my stomach. And they never even fixed my problem. An hour labor in a week!!!!!!!

Here is the damage:
1 Burned clutch
2 Blown speakers
1 gaping hole on my side skirt
1Cel??
+ who knows what ripping the hell out of my turbocharged car did to the engine

And to top it off, the greasy pieces of [censored] did not even cover my seat, so i have a dress shirt covered in grease.

I can't see any reason the owner of the shop wouldn't do his best to fix everything for you. If he doesn't, I'd consider taking them to court.

Don't take it back to the shop. Take them to small claims court as you don't need a lawyer for this. Just make sure you take it to another shop to have it fixed and keep the bills and pictures of whatever you need ready on hand. I think there is a cap of like 5K in small claims. Sometimes they will try to settle outside of court first, but do you really want them to play around with your car again? You need to teach them that they can't joy ride in your car. 10 miles is too long for just a simple drive test.

Scott where is this place? I can talk to my dad if you want?

I'm sorry about all this sh�­t!

I think small claims is considerably less than $5,000. For some reason I thought it was 2 or maybe even 1 thousand.

i wouldn't take it back to them. the headaches will just get worse. take it somewhere else you trust, get a quote, and then go to court.

Wow that's messed up. I would've had a hard time keeping myself physically abusing those morons.

I would talk to the owner of the shop before you go to court. Tell him you want to take the car somewhere else because you don't trust his people now (and rightly so) and get it fixed. Give him a chance to take responsibility for what his people did; if he doesn't THEN take his ass to court.

lol well not to make fun of ya but isnt mandalay the name of the company kramer used on seinfeld? Secondly I would never take my car to a shop that has teenagers working in it. I do feel bad for ya for sure though. Too often do people like all of us work hard to get something special to us, just to have some jerk off that dont give a damn use and abuse it. Id take the bastards to court. Small claims is good for 5 grand in the states. Like what was said before take lots of pics, get a statement from another shop, preferably the last one you went before these maroons. Theyll know what shape your car was in and that will be more credible for your case. Im sure The owner wouldnt want bad publicity for his shop. Im sure hed rather reimburse you than go to court. Hell id even go to the local paper and tell them what happened. Also find out if he belongs to a business improvement group or the such and let them know one of their members is poorly representing them. Sure hope you get satisfaction man. Spread the word, tell people to stay away!

Well it's actually 3 speakers now. I was doing everything I could to hold myself back, according to my girlfriend my whole face was red and I was popping veins like none other. I very very rarely raise my voice and I was just yelling at the top of my lungs.

Basically I am going to talk to the shop owner first, (he was not there at all last week) and make sure he foots the repair bill for another shop. It drives me crazy how the kid could f+++ up my car's exterior, sound system, and drivetrain. It's like something out of Ferris Bueller.

It's horrible that being a young guy I work to scrape together every last dollar just to keep the car properly maintained, and some punk just completely disrespects everything I have worked so hard for.

I just hope somehow I can come out on top.