CarScope Repair & Diagnosis

"Angie's List sent a request to all of our customers that also happened to be Angie's List members and asked them to post a review. [member name removed] had already posted a review on "Review Date: July 20, 2012" ; I guess when they asked him to, he did another review. We responded thoroughly to the first review (which is still on the site) but his review was more negative this time than the first, so I guess our response was not adequate to make him satisfied. We responded in detail about each concern. You can check that page of reviews and see the details and decide for yourself if you think we did him wrong. I think at the root of the problem is that [member name removed] is a do-it-yourselfer and as such it is difficult to get used to what a shop has to charge to stay in business. If you read our response on "Review Date: July 20, 2012" you will find we actually bent over backwards to do a thorough job, and the transmission fluid level checking issue that he is most upset about was never charged to him and it was done to protect his transmission from failure. I have no idea if he specifically told us not check it, that was a long time ago. More likely we just did it without asking, couldn't get a hold of him, thought it was important enough to do without asking, or some such reasoning. [member name removed] paid a total of $213 over 2 visits, for the repair, cleaning and diagnosis. As you'll see if you check our response to his first review, he got quite a bit of diagnostic work for $83. It is sad that after the thorough explanation he is still unhappy, but you can't please everyone. CarScope"

"Thank you so much for the review. It makes our job downright enjoyable to have customers that are grateful for the work and effort we put into "doing it right". We greatly appreciate you as well."

"It's been a while, but we just started checking Angie's List. We pulled up our notes and here is what I found. This was a lot more involved than pulling codes. There were several issues looked at for the price. Best I can tell from the notes we have (it was done in a different software management system than we are currently using so the notes are sketchy, and it has been a while) 1. There was a squeal from the belts, the harmonic balancer was wobbling and the tensioner was determined to be bad, more time was needed to confirm if any accessories or belt alignment issues were behind the squeal in addition to the balancer and tensioner. 2. Checking codes (like the parts stores do for free) does not usually confirm which component to replace. There are a multitude of tools and techniques employed to be sure of which part to replace and it is different for each code one has to run down. A. We pinpoint tested the catalyst efficiency and determined he did indeed need a converter. B. Also tested the Evaporative emissions system and determined a vent canister solenoid was bad C. Apparently the o2 sensor was bad too because we recommended that 3. The transmission fluid that needed to be checked cannot be checked from the top, this model has no dipstick. Usually we ask for authorization to check it because it requires a procedure to check fluid temperature to be sure it is at the right level, and then lift it in the air and remove a plug from the side of the transmission. I do not recall, but if we checked it without authorization, I suspect there was a leak and we thought it urgent to protect his transmission. That was apparently a mistake on our part, we misjudged the customer's desire to protect his transmission. We should not have assumed such a small but critical item would be ok to do. For many customer's it would not have been a problem. 4. If there were delays and it took longer to check all this out, it looks like we did not charge for that extra time because this was a multi-symptom diagnosis, which would normally be a separate charge for each system, so this is not a bad price for all of the conclusions we made. We are sorry he was not satisfied, but it was definitely not like "pulling codes" at the parts store. Here are the notes we have, apparently we also gave him estimates for everything he needed. NEEDS: DIAGNOSE SQUEALING COMPLETELY- $150 HARMONIC BALANCER WOBBLING $268 SERPENTINE BELT TENSIONER $181 CAT CONV $484 O2 $173 TIRE ROTATION CANISTER VENT SOLENOID $119"

"Thank you for the great review. It's our pleasure to serve do-it-yourselfers as well."