Very frustrating experience. First off, never heard of a mechanic charging $50 just to look at your car. Very shady, they do this just to secure the work and we should've left as soon as he told us that, big mistake. If you go to Kevin's you should expect the same thing. We called Kevin's Friday morning and they said bring it around 1 P.M. and they will look at it that day. 4:45 comes around and we have not heard from them so we give them a call... No answer, must've closed early. Weekend goes by without hearing from them and we are stranded without a car and have to miss work Monday, thanks Kevin. Call Monday morning and they say they are about to look at it. By noon we still have not heard from them so we call again, "you are next in line and we are going to look at it.". At 3:30 P.M. we call because we have not heard and they say It will be $400 (for a rear brake line the typical cost is around $250ish). Well we don't have a choice and tell him to fix it and he says it will be done tomorrow (Tuesday). Tuesday at 3:30 we called and he told us that they ordered the wrong parts and will "definitely have it ready tomorrow".Kevin finally had it ready Wednesday afternoon. Long story short, save time and money but staying away from Kevin and this sham. I notice Kevin likes to respond to his customer's reviews and make excuses to justify the poor work ethic and shady business, so just be aware.
Hi Michael, I wanted to personally reply to your review and let you know that I apologize that you had a frustrating experience with us, this is certainly not our intent. An hour of diagnostic labor upon an initial visit is standard in the industry to determine what repairs are needed. It's not to secure the work, it's to pay the technician for the time they spend on the vehicle. Most shops charge over $120 to perform this diagnosis or evaluation. I cut our normal rate in half for you because your vehicle's problem was pretty straightforward and it only took my technician about half an hour to look at it and evaluate a course of repair. In your case the hard brake line to the rear brakes was rusted through and leaking. You had been knowingly driving it like this for a week, adding brake fluid as needed. I'm not sure if you realize that you were putting lives at risk by driving your vehicle when it was unsafe; one emergency braking event and you would have lost all braking and caused a potentially fatal crash on the road. When the woman I worked with dropped the vehicle off, we were fairly busy and I very clearly told her that we would try to get it looked at that day but that it might be Monday before we would be able to get to it. I also stated this when she called to set the appointment. She said that was ok. We did not close early on Friday, and our outgoing voicemail message clearly says to leave a message and we will call back. No message was left, so I wasn't aware that you called. I apologize that I did not provide a status update phone call on Friday but that was because I thought we were ok to have the vehicle looked at on Monday. To be clear, it is not our responsibility to get you to work on Monday while your vehicle is down for repairs. The brake line in question was a hard brake line that needed to be fabricated (a common procedure) because a replacement part was not available due to the age of the vehicle. The rear brake hose also needed to be replaced because the fitting where it joins the hard line was rusted beyond repair. I'm not sure where you're getting your "$250ish" figure from, I thought I adequately explained the repairs and costs that were needed to make the vehicle safe again. We ordered the correct brake line and our supplier sent the wrong one. Despite this being out of our control, we corrected the problem as quickly as we could. Unfortunately, due to the nature of automotive repair, and especially on an older vehicle with a lot of rust like yours, repairs cannot always be completed on a strict timeline. We do our best to get vehicles fixed and back on the road as quickly as possible, but unforeseen circumstances sometimes delay the repair process, as happened in your case. I apologize again if I did not adequately communicate this to you. Thank you for your feedback and I hope you find a repair shop that meets your needs.
- Kevin's Automotive Services