Bad experience with a sydney workshop

[Airzone]

I just got my car serviced by a performance workshop here in Sydney, and I asked them to check out to see if they could fix my rough idle while they were at it. They had a heap of WRX's out the front and I heard they did job on Skylines, so I was eager to give them a go.

They replaced my spark plugs without asking if I wanted copper or not, but that's ok. They changed my air filter even though it was clean, but that's fine also. I don't care about that - they were trying to fix my idle.

But when they forget to do up half of the vacuum hoses after taking the crossover pipe off, you gotta wonder. Here I was the next day driving home from work, gave my car a little boost, and all I could feel was my car doing nothing special and hear all this air going everywhere (after which the engine stalled). The hose going from the intercooler to the crossover pipe had blown off, and the hose clamp wasn't even done up. I looked some more, and half of the other vacuum hoses had their clamps just dangling around the pipe.

Luckily, the owner of the house I'd "parked" in front of came out to see what was the matter, and after a bit of mucking around with a pair of pliers and a shiftey we had it running again. I gave the engine bay a throurough check over when I got home, and attacked all my hose clamps with a socket set (and yeah, the others were pretty loose too)...

Am I alone in thinking this is a little unprofessional?

BTW - they didn't fix my idle - they said they couldn't work it out...

[OKBANANA]

Very unprofessional, maybe lodge a complaint?

[Driver]

Yea i would take it back there and let them know your not happy. You never know, if no one complains they could do it to the next person

[MJ]

That sucks dude. I dont think theres much you can do though, just dont deal with them again and warn all ya mates. Word of mouth goes very far.

[DJ984]

i'd be goin back for my money and if they didn't give me some sorta refund for the troubles and possible damage to my engine i'd be goin straight to the consumer commission / better business beureu and any one else i could think of... that's just plain bullsh#t for a workshop...

[Airzone]

Hah! And yet some more! They didn't put the electrical plug on the TPS back in properly, so my car karked it today after it shook loose. Luckily I knew how to run the ECU diagnostics, otherwise I would have had to get the car towed back home. The plug just clicked back in and now it's nice and secure again.

On a positive note, they did refill my windscreen washer bottle, so it seems they did something right.

Anyway, if anyone's thinking of going to a "performance" shop in the eastern suburbs let me know and I'll tell you who not to go to.

[dale]

can you please name the workshop somehow so the rest of us dont run into problems going htere

do it in code! like write it backwards

[Parag0n]

You paid for a service and by the sounds of it they put you at a risk by driving a car that had not been set back up properly. I would confront them ask for my money returned, if they declined I would ring up the Office Of Fair Trading and lodge a complaint against their business.

[Airzone]

Backup - it's against the rules, man. But you can PM me. I do believe I asked for suggestions for a performance workshop in the Maintenance forum though

Anyway, if they don't give me my money back who would be the best to call? Office of Fair Trading, or isn't there a auto-mechanic body?

[zRoYz]

Backup - it's against the rules, man. But you can PM me. I do believe I asked for suggestions for a performance workshop in the Maintenance forum though

Anyway, if they don't give me my money back who would be the best to call? Office of Fair Trading, or isn't there a auto-mechanic body?

don't waste your time trying to prove anything because you have fixed problem, so no real proof (you could use man that helped you as wit). it is just so hard to prove mech workshops haven't done what you asked, over charge, even bother to replace what they say which is very sad but fact. fair trading might give them a call but that's it, so best option is ask them wtf & you can gauge by what your told how things will unfold. don't think your only 1 because i asked advise went to workshop out west & if was wild west they would be dead.