So I take my car in to my local shop who I have used for years…I haven’t been there in a while, but I do know that the owner who was there for years is no longer there…I’m not sure why.

I had a broken ball cup on the shifter linkage. I would have done it myself, but with work, and it being my daily driver, I just didn’t have time. With a wait time of 5 business days as the part was not in stock locally I decided it was a great time to get a FIsterD short shift kit to fix the problem.

I asked Darren, and then to be sure, the shop, if the kit would fix the problem and sent them the link. They both confirmed that yes it would fix the problem. The mechanic kept giving me warnings about aftermarket parts possibly not fitting, but I had dealt with Darren before, and that, with his reputation here on Rennlist I felt more than confident it would be a breeze.

Darren shipped out the part on a Friday, before he even received payment from me and it arrived Monday. The mechanic installed it incorrectly, so it didn’t fit. That night I emailed Darren, he quickly assessed what they did wrong and how they fix do it—this delayed the completion of the job until the next day.

The above text is mainly to give a back-story and say how great working with Darren is. The following is what pissed me off about the shop. I need recommendations for a new one, and please let me know if you think I am overreacting

I got a call that it was done on Tuesday afternoon I said I would be there by 6, he said I’ll be here for a while after if you are running late. I arrived at 5 minutes to 6 in my old truck. I went in and as he was ringing me up I asked how much it would run to do the power steering rack with a remanufactured rack. He said $2-3k, the rack is $1k+ and the labor is $1k to $2k. I said “I can get remand racks for$500-$600”, and he said “oh I can’t get 'em that cheap, so if you get that, the whole thing would run probably a little over 2 grand.” This irritated me because its more than double what it should cost. So I decided that I might have to start looking for another mechanic. I paid the $300 for the shift kit install (is this high?). I then asked where I should park my truck to come pick it up later and he said the street behind the shop is safe.

As I walked out of the office to go park the truck I saw a couple of the guys messing around in the truck of my car. I was curious, but I figured they were reconnecting the battery. As I drove around the corner I thought “why would they disconnect the battery when working on the linkage… but figured that maybe they were being extra safe or something.
I walked back about 2 minutes later and there was my car waiting for me idling. I hopped in and took off. Shift kit feels nice… I turn on the radio and the code thing pops up, I enter the code and a radio station I never listen to comes on. I drive to the grocery store 2 miles away. I come back to the car and it is dead. “Clickety, click click”. I get really pissed off as I realize they had run the battery completely down, and with my 2 month old Optima they either had to leave a light on for the 4 and a half days it was there, or were using my radio as the shop radio for that time. What REALLY bugged me about it was that they jumped it right before and didn’t tell me. I would not have driven it for the 2 and a half minutes to the store and turned it off had I known. I would have taken it straight home and thrown it on the charger. I called them at 6:15 and they didn’t pick up. I was and still am very annoyed.

So what I need now is a new shop. It seems that every 15 years or so when a shop changes hands or someone retires, this kind of thing happens. I live in the west SFV (Calabasas) so who’s good and fair priced?

Thanks for the input and recommendations

 

TRE seems to be the go-to up that way, unless that's where you were already going:
15854 Strathern St.
Van Nuys, CA 91405
Dave Bouzaglou (818) 909-9220
info@tremotorsports.com

Werks II has had Timo Duncan formerly of Callas for the last few years:
918 Chestnut St.
Burbank, Cal. 91506
Galen Bieker (818) 845-2530
sales@werks2.com

A bit further south, I've been told that 200 N. Motorsports near Beverly Hills is good.

 

Hey - I live in Calabasas, as well. I have received many recommendations to TRE, but haven't tried them for myself.

You might consider mentioning the shop with which you had a bad experience so that we can be cautious or mindful when considering whether to use them.

 

The shop is Performance Plus in Canoga park. I do not know if this is typical of them, but after this experience I will not be going back. The shop was previously owned/run by Mark Schuster who was great, and for 15 years or so I used them and they were good and very reasonable. I really am not the type to write someone off after one incident, but I sent my ex-wife there for some minor repairs on her Beetle in the last year and I was a little taken aback by the prices she mentioned them charging. Her car was running rough and they replaced a few things which didn't seem to help then gave her a list of things that they thought she should do to the car. She called me to tell me that it was still running rough and they wanted to do 300-400 dollars more worth of work, mainly replacing filters and should she do it? I said filters? I asked her to read off the list of recommended things and cabin filters were on the list with pretty high parts and labor costs. While they may not have outright said that the filters were needed to fix the problem, she was left with this impression.

The reason I am giving up on them after my recent experience is because of the nature of it. It felt so unprofessional, it wasn't a simple mistake. What bugged me was what appeared to be the covering up of something they did wrong.

This is only my experience and it may be unique.

 

+1 on TRE, I had a very good experience with them when they PPI'd my car.

 

Andrew, sorry to hear about your experience. I'm glad they were able to get the SSK installed properly. We charge $100-$150 to do the install. $300 seems a bit steep.


Darin

 

Yeah I figgered it was kinda steep, Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it, and the kit feels great