Tom's Garage

I contacted the business by telephone on a Friday afternoon at around 3:00 PM to inquire if they had time to change pads and do an oil change. I arrived at 3:30. (I had a dinner party to attend at a friend's home about an hour away at 6:00. I figured that an hour and a half for this type of work was more than sufficient because when I've had the pads changed before, it's never taken more than 35-40 minutes.) They said they did, for me to come on in.

I had already purchased the pads from an auto parts store and it turns out they were the wrong size. Conveniently for Tom's, there's an Auto Zone directly across the street. However, instead of going to get the parts themselves, they asked me to go across the street and buy them. Since I had to have the work done ASAP because the brakes were in bad bad shape, I obliged. Got the pads and went back across the street to the garage. So I'm thinking I'm squared away and set. Still going to get to the dinner party on time. Well, no. After my car is jacked up and one of the wheels is off of it, they tell me that they didn't have the oil I needed in stock. Can you go across the street to buy it and bring it back? We don't carry that type so it's not included in the price. So I go back across the street to Auto Zone and spend another $48 on the oil I needed. 

It ends up taking them until 5:30 to complete the repairs, making me half an hour late for the dinner party. When I arrived, all the other guests had been waiting for me. I felt like such a jerk! Before I left, the owner told me that I might notice a couple spots of oil after the car is parked but not to think anything of it because it was oil they had used to seal the gasket on the filter. 

When I arrived at my friend's house, the car had smoke coming from under the hood. Not a lot, so I guessed it was spilled oil. When I left after the evening was finished, there was a spot in her driveway about 8" in diameter that was quite clearly oil. Again, I noticed it but didn't think much of it because he'd told me there would be some. 

On Sunday, I'm at my friend's house again, this time just the two of us were hanging out. On my way home afterward, my car's dash lights up with the warning, "STOP IMMEDIATELY! OIL PRESSURE DAMAGE!" Truthfully, it probably should have been towed but I was only a half mile from their house. I get it back over there and my friend's husband offers to take a look to see if he can figure out what's wrong. (He is NOT a car guy at all! He's a whiz with electrical and computer engineering but has limited experience with vehicles.) The whole underside of my car is dripping with oil. We Googled some videos and step by step photographs of oil changes done on my particular year and model of vehicle. Once we figured out what we needed, we went to an Auto Zone and purchased ANOTHER entire oil change set, a set of ramps to put the car up (the set was less expensive than the jack we would've needed) and attempted to buy an oil pan plug and washer, just to rule that out as well. Unfortunately for me, none of the stores had that part in stock. Of course we didn't have the proper tools to change the filter or measure the torque. At this point, I was already in this endeavor by about $130, including the price of the ramps, the oil and filter and the garage's charge for labor.

Once we get the car up on ramps, drain the oil and take out the current filter and O-ring...there's 1/3 quart of BLACK oil in my car!!!! My car requires 5.2 quarts at an oil change. Basically my car was two seconds away from the engine locking up completely. The filter we took off was full of debris and BLACK oil, not clean brown oil as one would expect from an oil change done two days before. The O-ring was BROKEN into three pieces. 

My friend's husband was a true champ though. He did the best he could do with the diagrams and pictures he found online. Still, once I made it home, my car was still leaking. 

I called Tom's Garage the following day (Monday) and he told me to come by so he could see what the problem was. As he bills himself "Honest Tom," he told me that they'd made a very stupid mistake. He said they'd left the old O-ring in when they changed the filter so there were two O-rings and that's why there wasn't a seal. Any first week high school auto shop student knows better than that, so why doesn't this garage?! I know people can make mistakes but this is the only vehicle I have and I was pretty upset about this stupid mistake that almost cost me my engine. 

"Honest Tom" reimbursed me for the additional oil and filter that I purchased but absolutely refused to reimburse me for the ramps. The ramps that I had to purchase because I had to put my car up after his poor work! I had considered taking him to small claims court for the cost of the ramps and the value of the time RUINED for three people trying to figure this out on the fly with no previous car experience. Had the costs associated with preparing for and time off work missed for court outweighed what I would've received in compensatory damages, it would've been worth it. 

Instead, I just tell everyone I can think of to tell to not use his garage. And now I'm telling you, Angie's List!

Too Long; Didn't Read: Lazy mechanic botches oil change that took way too long (if he did it at all). Makes me late for dinner party where guests are held up because of my tardiness. Almost causes engine lock down from elementary mistake after oil leaks out. Refuses to reimburse for all items purchased to try to fix it on my own 70 miles from home on a day he wasn't open.