ACTION AUTOMOTIVE

IAction Automotive was supposed to fix my riding lawnmower and look at my go-kart and let me know what it would take to fix my go-kart. They came to the house and picked up both vehicles and took them back to their shop. After about a week I asked about the status of my vehicles, and the owner said it cost $100 to change the oil on the lawnmower and tune it up, but he would not charge me anything and just call it even, because he had a buyer for my go-kart. I told him I did not want to sell the go-kart. He said it was no good anyway and I wouldn't be able to sell it to anyone else. I told him I needed my lawnmower and repeated that I did not want to sell the go-kart, asking when I could have my vehicles. He would not give me a definite answer. This infuriated me. The next day I took off early from work and called to say I was coming. He said they had closed early that day and I couldn't come. I was on my cell phone passing the police department as he told me this, so I informed him I was going to see if I could get police assistance because I believed he had already sold my go-kart. He told me he would counter-sue me or something like that and hung up on me. The officer at the police station said Action Automotive is outside Liberty Hill City Limits, so I would need to complain to the county sheriff if I had concerns about theft or theft of services. I went ahead and drove to the shop. Sure enough, the gate to the place was locked and it was way before 5 pm. I called Action Automotive again and left a message. I said I would be leaving a check for the repair of my lawnmower in his mailbox and if I didn't have my go-kart and lawnmower back by the time I got home from work the next day, I would visit with the sheriff about him. The next day when I got home from work, my lawnmower and my go-kart were back in my driveway. The lawnmower worked for one session of lawn mowing and then I needed to call another repairman. The go-kart did not seem much different from when it had been picked up. What kind of business hangs up on its customers? What kind of business tries to sell (or keep) items under its care without the the permission of the owner of those items? What kind of business quickly closes its doors before 4pm to avoid a customer who wants to see her vehicles? This was the shadiest mechanic I have ever encountered.

I dropped off my car to be serviced because it would suddenly stall while driving and the power steering would not work so you were unable to control it as it stalled out. I was not contacted again until the next day about it. The owner called and had a whole list of things to be done, including an oil change and new tires. I do not work on cars and don't know anything about repairing them so I said no to the new tires but it was ok to go ahead and do whatever else he mentioned needed to be done. He said ok and that he would call me when the repairs were completed, probably by the end of the week. I called my dad right afterwards and told him everything they wanted to do to the car. He is very knowledgeable about vehicle repair but lives 200 miles away so could not help me with my car directly. He said that it sounded like this man had no clue what was wrong with the car and was doing unnecessary work. I immediately called the repair shop back and got no answer. I left a message on their machine telling them to stop doing any work on the car and to call me back as soon as possible. This was 20 minutes after I had spoken to the man directly on the phone. I did not hear back from them again that day. I tried calling the next day(Friday) and they still did not answer the phone. My husband tried calling as well and left a message for them to call us back. On Saturday they still had not returned our calls and I tried calling again and this time the owner picked up and said "Hello". I said my name and told them what car I owned and immediately he hung up. I tried calling back and got an answering machine or voicemail. My husband and I immediately went up to the shop in person and found that they were closed. Our car was locked inside. We were very angry at this point and didn't know what to do so we waited until Monday and tried calling again, went to answering machine again. Later that day the shop owner calls me back finally and says the car is ready and he has completed all the repairs. I asked him why he never called me back and he said he never got my messages or my husband's messages. I also asked him why he hung up on me and he said, " I was at my deer lease and I get terrible reception there". I was livid! The next morning we went to pick up the car and he acted like everything was fine. I told him that he should answer his phone during business hours and that he got our messages but ignored them. I told him that we were not going to pay for everything he had done since he ignored our messages. He said that if we didn't pay that we couldn't have our car. Then I tried to negotiate to pay for some services he had performed but he would not budge. We decided to pay for it and that we would later make a complaint against him. I tried to pay with a check from our credit card company and he said he could not accept this kind of check because it would take too long to clear. I was so angry I gave my husband my credit card and walked out. The owner then told my husband that I was pregnant and hormonal. He also said that 'times are tough" and "it's the holiday season and I have to buy Christmas presents". My husband went ahead and paid and we left with our car. The car continued to have the same problem so he didn't fix what we came there for and we left with a $2500 bill.