Awful experience

I contacted Autoworks to get the brakes done on my Ford Fiesta. It also needed the right rear wheel bearing changed, new wipers and I asked that they look at the aircon and assess whether it needed to be regassed. I was given an initial quote of 2031.49 from Central. I was contacted a day or two later to say that ‘some of the values hadn’t pulled through’ and it would now be 3537.71. Simone the contact apologised and I had no issue with this. I went ahead and booked the service.

I dropped the car to Milnerton on the 18/01. On the morning of the 19th I got a phone call to say that the breaks were worse than expected and the quote would now be amended to 4207.28. This was emailed through and I accepted. At this point work on the Car went ahead. Then another phone call, sorry there was a mistake 5,628. Then another phone call that was a mistake 7240.84, this again was emailed through. At this stage I had no idea what was going on so I went into the branch and asked to speak to the manager George. He said he would look into it and get back to me in an hour.

Hours passed no word, I rang and was told he’d ring me back. When he did he explained that there was someone new working there and he apologised for the multiple quotes as gesture of good faith he would knock 1,000 rand off the 7240.84 quote. I queried specifics on the quote, for example the quote contained a charge for skimming brakes and a charge for replacement of brake discs. George told me he didn’t have the quote in front of him but he would call me back. When he called me back it had gone down to 5680.83. He also said that this no longer included air con regassing as the machine had broken while they were doing our car.

At this stage I was so confused I had no idea what I was or wasn’t paying for. I asked that the wipers be left out as we could no longer afford them. I asked that the quote be emailed to me so I could see what the quote contained. The final quote came to 4569.76. This was more expensive than original quote and was just for brakes and bearings. I rang George and told him after all the mistakes I had hoped he would have been able to do better. He said that he had taken as much off as he could, and had charged less on the bearings. I said that I was very unhappy and was going to take the car elsewhere to get the work done. He said that the work was already done, that I had accepted the quote when it was around four thousand but fine he would take out the discs and I could come collect the car, then he hung up on me!! I never got to say the last time the quote was around four thousand there was a hell of a lot more getting done. I spoke to my husband and we decided that the work was done and we couldn’t do without the car any longer. So I rang back. We came and collected the car.

Our air con had been working (hence I wanted it assessed rather than immediately assuming it needed to be regassed). However once we left it was not working at all. We are guessing that it was bled and then machine broke? I really have no idea, all I know is that it used to blow cold ish air. Now it doesn’t. I honestly am not 100% sure what we paid for in the end. I know it was a bearing and brakes but I couldn’t tell you whether it was one bearing and one brake, or all the bearings. Each quote had different information. I am not unreasonable, I understand people have to learn. But this went beyond what you would ever reasonably accept. If a new person is making this many mistakes they obviously need to be closely monitored. George was competent and knowledgeable, but not at any stage apologetic or sympathetic. I felt treated as an inconvenience, and was incredibly upset to have someone hang up on me.

I am so upset to have paid over four thousand rand to Autoworks after the service I recieved.