Precision Tune Thieves

Time to step away from politics for a bit here, but if you bear with me, you may save yourself a lot of time, money and frustration.

Last week I brought my SUV into Precision Tune to have them fix a few minor problems that I never seemed to get to. During the course of their inspection, they found that I had a bad axle-shaft seal, so I told them to replace it.

After I picked the vehicle up, I noticed that there was a whine coming from the rear-end. At first I thought that they may have accidentally installed a liberal, but it was a different kind of whine.

I brought the truck back and left it with them so that they could check it out. When I called later in the day to see if it was ready to pick up the guy told me that he was just preparing an estimate. “An estimate?” I asked, “but the noise is from something that you did. It didn’t make that noise when I drove it on to your lot; it did make that noise when I drove it off of your lot.”

He hemmed and hawed for awhile about wheel-bearings and other stuff, so I rudely interrupted him and told him that I’d be there in half-an-hour and we’d discuss it.

Well, to make a long story short, he refused to fix his mistake and I’m pretty sure that I shocked every one of his employees and a few people in the waiting area.

After talking to a few people, I figured out what the whine was: when they changed the shaft seal, they had to drain the differential. When they refilled it, they used lightweight synthetic oil instead of the 90-weight gear oil that was in there. It will work that way, but nobody in their right mind would accept the loud whine that it makes.

What this tells me is that he didn’t even bother trying to find out what was wrong with it; he was just going to charge me for more stuff that I didn’t need! Wheel bearings have nothing to do with the differential, but there they were on the estimate. That is just, plain stealing.

And a few days ago I noticed that I have a new puddle on my garage floor that never used to be there. I hunted down the leak and it turns out that one of the nuts that hold my valve cover in place was missing. By the look of it, it had been there fairly recently. And, coincidentally, the manager had told me that I had a bad valve cover gasket when it was originally in there.

I had also originally asked them to find the rattle in my exhaust system. They told me that my exhaust manifold was cracked. I traced it to the cage that surrounds the catalytic converter, which isn’t even close to the exhaust manifold.

These people are lying, thieving hacks.

I wrote to their company headquarters, who put me in touch with a local rep here in town. He suggested that I take it to a mechanic that I trusted and if he found anything wrong with it, we’d all get together and talk about it. I told him that if I knew a mechanic that I trusted, do you think I would’ve taken it to Precision Tune? I also told him that I didn’t have the time to piss away running all over hell trying to get their mistakes fixed. I wasn’t happy with their work, their ethics or their attitude, and any reputable company would be very concerned about that and try to make the customer happy. I told him that I’d just fix it myself, but would miss no opportunity to warn everyone that I can away from Precision Tune.

And this is part of that process. Be warned: these people have no scruples. Their only principle is more money at any cost. They will not hesitate to screw you. Stay as far away from them as you can and warn anyone that you know who has car issues to do the same.

Thanks for bearing with me.