We lost our brakes! Learn from our experience....

[ShrimpBurrito]

Originally Posted by wmtire

From the way you described everything, I would figure that where you had this done rhymed with "FEARS"

No, but you're not totally off base. It was actually a corporate Valvoline shop. Not as household as Sears, but well known for sure. But Sears and Valvoline do have some sort of co-marketing and sponsorship agreement....

Dave

We had a similar experience recently, but not as serious...
We were leaving for a week long family trip on Saturday. The alternator on my Astro went out on Thursday. I would usually do this kind of job, but due to time restraints, let the shop do it. $700 later I had my van back and immediately started to load it up.
Saturday at 3AM we pile in and leave only find out my AC isn't blowing any air out of the dash. Luckily my rear AC was working fine so we managed ok and had no real problems on the trip.
When I finally looked at it upon our return home, the mechanic had broken a vacuum line fitting when replacing the alternator and didn't bother to correct the problem.

You pay top dollar for the experts to work on your vehicles, only to get bargain basement workmanship.

[Wavery]

Thanks for sharing your story Dave. Scary stuff for sure.

I hope that you make them replace your caliper and wheel. You shouldn't have to risk not knowing if the caliper is damaged from the incident and you know that the wheel was damaged.

Be sure to ask for replacement at a dealership and make sure that you mention that to the Bureau of Automotive Repairs.

[ShrimpBurrito]

UPDATE:

I later determined that the Valvoline shop is a franchise location, and owned by a private company called RFG Oil.

After receiving ZERO response 3 weeks after this incident, despite pestering them with phone calls, I finally fired off a written demand letter to them, cc'ing several organizations, including the BBB and state agency California Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR). That didn't do squat in eliciting a response from RFG. BBB eventually sent me a letter saying that after attempting written contact on 2 separate occasions and not receiving a response, they were closing the case and putting the complaint in RFG's file.

BAR, on the other hand, was a bit more responsive. They actually sent an investigator to my house to inspect the vehicle and take pictures, and he subsequently interviewed shop mechanics and after many phone calls and other attempts to make contact, company management. The company was clearly being evasive. He summarized his findings in his report, which I was not able to read until 3 days ago....which was my small claims hearing vs. RFG. It took them 2.5 months to provide ANY response to me whatsoever, and that response wasn't very impressive to say the least. He offered to pay about 1/5 of my lowest estimate, and since it took that long to get ANY response, and a lame one at that, I filed suit.

I presented the judge with 3 estimates, and I was subsequently awarded the middle one, plus all court costs.

Prior to walking into the courtroom Monday, he again offered me the same amount as he had in his only letter to me. I flatly refused, but countered with an offer that was $100 less than what I won, and he basically laughed. So I said, no problem, let's see what the judge has to say.

The BAR investigator's report was admitted into evidence. He had determined that not only was the repair faulty to the point of being gross negligence, but they had removed the brake caliper when in fact that was not even necessary to begin with in this instance. (apparently you can swap out brake pads on some 4-cylinder calipers without dismounting the caliper). Furthermore, he found they violated numerous state statutes with record keeping (they had no record of the repair) and no access to mechanical specifications (like torque specs).

They "defended" their case by saying that since I was so knowledgeable about auto repair, I should have made my complaints known before leaving the garage. And furthermore, by leaving, I subsequently approved the repair. He also speculated to the judge that my claim was perhaps fraudulent. He blamed the tardy response on the fact that their claims manager was out of the office because she was "unfortunately pregnant".

Unbelievable. I don't know if I could have even made that up. After court, I suggested that perhaps they get their act together before they get someone killed. I should have also suggested that if that ever happens, there's a chance one of them could spend some time in prison. Maybe that's what it would take to make an impression.

Dave

Good Job Dave! I'm glad you got some satisfaction on this matter.

Good for you!
Chances are the calipers are the S13WE or SE13E casting meaning they are 199mm and use the thick Tundra calipers. There is a 13WL 213mm wide that uses bigger pads even. In either case hopefully you have a set of brakes under there now.

Originally Posted by ShrimpBurrito

UPDATE:

They "defended" their case by saying that since I was so knowledgeable about auto repair, I should have made my complaints known before leaving the garage. And furthermore, by leaving, I subsequently approved the repair. He also speculated to the judge that my claim was perhaps fraudulent. He blamed the tardy response on the fact that their claims manager was out of the office because she was "unfortunately pregnant".


Dave

I have a feeling that they didn't endear themselves too much with the judge, by the choice of words used. I also assume that since this was small claims court, their side was not represented with an attorney.

You did the right thing. I find it ridiculous that any business would have acted like this.

[Wavery]

Originally Posted by ShrimpBurrito

UPDATE:

I later determined that the Valvoline shop is a franchise location, and owned by a private company called RFG Oil.

After receiving ZERO response 3 weeks after this incident, despite pestering them with phone calls, I finally fired off a written demand letter to them, cc'ing several organizations, including the BBB and state agency California Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR). That didn't do squat in eliciting a response from RFG. BBB eventually sent me a letter saying that after attempting written contact on 2 separate occasions and not receiving a response, they were closing the case and putting the complaint in RFG's file.

BAR, on the other hand, was a bit more responsive. They actually sent an investigator to my house to inspect the vehicle and take pictures, and he subsequently interviewed shop mechanics and after many phone calls and other attempts to make contact, company management. The company was clearly being evasive. He summarized his findings in his report, which I was not able to read until 3 days ago....which was my small claims hearing vs. RFG. It took them 2.5 months to provide ANY response to me whatsoever, and that response wasn't very impressive to say the least. He offered to pay about 1/5 of my lowest estimate, and since it took that long to get ANY response, and a lame one at that, I filed suit.

I presented the judge with 3 estimates, and I was subsequently awarded the middle one, plus all court costs.

Prior to walking into the courtroom Monday, he again offered me the same amount as he had in his only letter to me. I flatly refused, but countered with an offer that was $100 less than what I won, and he basically laughed. So I said, no problem, let's see what the judge has to say.

The BAR investigator's report was admitted into evidence. He had determined that not only was the repair faulty to the point of being gross negligence, but they had removed the brake caliper when in fact that was not even necessary to begin with in this instance. (apparently you can swap out brake pads on some 4-cylinder calipers without dismounting the caliper). Furthermore, he found they violated numerous state statutes with record keeping (they had no record of the repair) and no access to mechanical specifications (like torque specs).

They "defended" their case by saying that since I was so knowledgeable about auto repair, I should have made my complaints known before leaving the garage. And furthermore, by leaving, I subsequently approved the repair. He also speculated to the judge that my claim was perhaps fraudulent. He blamed the tardy response on the fact that their claims manager was out of the office because she was "unfortunately pregnant".

Unbelievable. I don't know if I could have even made that up. After court, I suggested that perhaps they get their act together before they get someone killed. I should have also suggested that if that ever happens, there's a chance one of them could spend some time in prison. Maybe that's what it would take to make an impression.

Dave

Good for you Dave....there was absolutely no doubt that you would prevail in that case.......now......collecting the $ may be a different matter. It may take another trip back to court to file for a Receiver. The Receiver will sit in his business and collect funds from customers. The shop will have to pay for the Receiver's time (probably $200+ per hour).

[ShrimpBurrito]

ANOTHER UPDATE:

The repair shop appealed the case.

Apparently, in small claims, you need not any grounds to do so. You just need to file for appeal and pay the fee.

So back to court we went for round #2. I couldn't believe it. I tried to put myself in their shoes and think of a reason why they would appeal, but I couldn't think of any. I dug a little into the company management, and it turns out the company was at one time owned by brothers. And they sued each other. So perhaps their egos play a bit too much in their business decisions.

In any event, the appeal hearing was a trial de novo, meaning we started all over, and nothing from the first hearing was considered. I presented the case exactly as I did before, and this time, they said they did not dispute liability, but rather just the amount of the repair cost. After that, the judge wrapped things up quickly, and a few days later, I learned I prevailed again, being awarded a judgment in the exact same amount as in the first hearing.

Nearly a month had passed and I still hadn't received payment. I started to prepare to send a sheriff to their shops to seize payments received by customers (the costs of which would be added to my judgment), and then the check arrived. They simply were stringing things out till the last possible moment, which in hindsight isn't surprising, given that's what they had done at every step of the game up until then.

So case is now closed. I'm glad I prevailed, but it was alot of work and it took nearly 10 months to resolve. But given the audacity of the shop, if it ever happened again, I wouldn't do anything different. And now I can navigate the small claims process very easily, so it wouldn't be nearly as time consuming.

Dave

[Wavery]

Be careful Dave. This guy doesn't seem to be a well balanced individual. I don't mean to alarm you but I would be a little concerned about this guy seeking revenge. This seems a bit to personal on his end. It is very clear that they were in the wrong. For him to not see that suggests that there may be some other issue in play.

I could be that he has other law suites against him and may be faced with criminal negligence and was just hoping for a more lenient judge. However, for one judge to over-turn the decision of another judge is pretty serious business. The outcome on this should have been pretty clear to this guy...Maybe he was just hoping for a "No show" which is typical... there is something that seems "not right" here.