Christian Brothers Automotive Bedford

I am writing this letter and sending the attachments in response to my visit to your shop this past month and the issue I had with Raymond (I believe this was his name). Now I have discussed this with a number of people on how to handle the issue I had and I may be actually doing something very stupid. b IF my car has issues again and it’s within the next year or 12,000 miles and is under the warranty work that Christian Brothers did to my car, I will have to take my car back to them with the hopes of them not doing more damage to my car to spite me. I am not saying this is what will happen but I do take the risk of it happening.

I took my car, a 2005 Chevy Equinox, to Christian Brothers off of hwy. 121 in Bedford early in March. I explained to them that it was over heating and that I had done some research on the car and that blown head gaskets were a common problem with this model and year. When doing so, Raymond told me that I was looking at $1700 and I at that point made my concerns clear to him about the cost, he then said that he would have to take a look at it but the high end would be $2000. Now let me state that at this point this was the only time during my entire four conversations after this that a dollar amount was ever mentioned.

After leaving the car, ”I” had to call back up to the shop to find out what they found, at which time he told me that it was the gasket and that they would have to send the parts to the machinist and then they would get started back on it. I was also told on first visit that it would be back on Friday, I dropped it off on Tuesday morning before 11 am.

“I”, then made a call on Thursday to see how the car was going and was told that they were still waiting on the machinist and that they were still hoping for Friday. On Friday again, “I” called them to see what we were talking about and they told me that it was back from the machinist and it would be Monday that he still had four hours left on it, and this was at 3pm.

Monday came along and, ”I” called at noon and they then told me that they would have it by four and that they had some other things that needed to be done. I called again at 4 and was told that it was ready, and then, at this point, and at no other, not once before now, I was told that the total came to $2500. I was in total shock and asked why it was so much. He informed me that there was 17 hours of labor at $95 hr. Again I was in shock. He also told me that there was a charge for the machinist and that they did some other work as well. I told him I would be there in a few mins.

I then called my old mechanic that I have used for 20 yrs but was too far away for me to take this car at the time. He informed me that a head gasket should have only been 10.7 hours. That’s a huge difference. Now, after taking my car to the shop, I can say this was my mistake, I looked up the reviews on the Christian Brothers that I took the car to. At this point I found a number of negative reviews for over charging and scaring customers into spending money, and other mal practice issues. I should have done this first but with the car over heating I wanted to get it in the shop fast and they were close.

So when I got to the shop to pick up the car I informed Raymond that I was upset that it was $500 over what he personally told me would be the high end. He then informed me that he never said that and that he told me we were at $1700 before we even got to the machinist. I told him that he did not say that and we got into a he said she said argument that was going nowhere. I told him that I know what was said and to run the cc and that was it, he continued to tell me that what I thought was said was not how it happened and we continued to argue. I again asked to run the cc and that would be it. This continued two or three more times until it was all done and I left.

Do not take your car here and DO NOT deal with these people. They don't know how to work on cars and and way too overpriced. I gave it a one star rating only because it wouldn't let me submit a zero rating.