SANDERA'S AUTO WORKS

It took about two weeks to locate and replace the valve cover gasket of my 1995 Jeep Wrangler. The shop hourly rate was about average for this area.

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During the 22 years I have lived in Southern Humboldt County I have always owned 2 or 3 vehicles over 15 years old.  As a result I have had a lot of experience with automobile repair shops in Northwest California.  The worst repair shop I have ever used is Sandera?s in Fortuna.  In my opinion a one star rating for Sandera?s is too high.  The services they have provided to me have fallen short in the following ways:
1.  Sloppy work.
2.  Requested work not accomplished.
3.  High prices.
4.  Failure to make a good faith effort to resolve my complaints.
5.  Refusal to take my complaints seriously.
6.  Unusually unpleasant personal interactions with Sandera?s co-owners and staff.
 I have gone to Sandera?s three times in the last five years for problems with air conditioning in my vehicles.  My first interaction with Sandera?s resulted in adequate servicing of the AC in my sedan, but was marred by collateral damage.  My radio antenna was severed.  In my second encounter with Sandera?s I brought in my van that has both a front and a rear AC fan.  Both fans were running intermittently.  I paid Sandera?s for repair and servicing of my van?s AC system, but they failed to resolve the problem of the intermittent
operation of the two fans.  It turned out that both fans had faulty grounds.  This ground problem was either overlooked by Sandera?s or beyond their electrical expertise. 
My last encounter with Sandera?s was the worst and resulted in my deciding never to use Sandera?s for AC repair and servicing again.  Sandera?s was asked to convert the air conditioner and put it in good working condition in a used sedan I had recently
purchased.  They said that the sedan?s AC could not be converted; replaced one part with a part from my previous,
nearly identical, sedan; and refilled the AC with R-12 coolant.  They charged me $465.89 for their work.  The sedan?s AC worked on the way home to Southern Humboldt from Fortuna and never worked again.   I took the sedan to a local repair shop in Southern Humboldt and found out that the AC system had a leak that allowed all of the new coolant to leak out.  I complained to Sandera?s staff and one of the co-owners and was essentially hard-nosed.  The co-owner I interacted with accused me of being angry.  I was
merely being firm, a technique I had learned in 25 years of service as a U. S. Government contracting officer.  It is best to thoroughly work out your position ahead of time and consistently maintain it through initial discussions.  I was told that the sedan?s AC was working when it left their shop and that was the end of their responsibility.  They claimed that they had found out, at their expense, that the sedan?s AC system had a leak that allowed all the new coolant to leak out.  Of course this information only duplicated information I already had.  They made no effort to discover the source of the leak.  At this point I made an offer to pay for all parts required to repair
the sedan?s AC, if they would pick up the labor costs.  They never made a counteroffer and told me I could pick up the sedan whenever I wanted to. I asked to have the other co-owner call me to talk about the problem and he never returned my call.  My
interaction with Sandera?s owners and staff was unusually unpleasant.
I later found out that Sandera?s contention that the AC in my sedan could not be converted was inaccurate.  I  took the sedan to a
repair shop in Eureka and they converted and serviced the AC in a couple of hours.  The Eureka repair shop charged me $252.84 or a little over half of what Sandera?s charged me for servicing the A/C without converting it.

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