Carters Auto Service, Inc.

After being in business for 27 years, god knows I have made plenty of mistakes. One fact that I am proud of is that I always admit when I am wrong and stand behind the problem and take corrective action in a professional and fair manner. That being said, in this situation you have a customer who has lied and manipulated the situation because, I suspect, they don’t have the money to fix it. They called for an estimate to install a heater door actuator. We gave the estimate and they made an appointment. When I got the car in the shop the part had been removed and was hanging by the wire harness. To verify the problem I reinstalled it, sure enough it was not working as designed, it made a clicking noise and would not change the temperature. We did have a problem getting the new part that day and gave the customer the option to bring the car back another day of leaving it overnight. Upon installing the part it became apparent that the heater box had other internal problems. But I was able to get the system working again and it was blowing hot air and switched to cold when commanded. Code I believed the system would fail again in the future and this was stated to the customer when we called and clearly spelled out on the invoice, and I explained it again when they were paying the bill. They picked up the car and came back to say it wasn’t working. I went out with them and everything was working correctly. They said shut the car off and try it again. I did this several times and it worked every time. It was not sarcasm in my voice, it was frustration trying to understand what I was supposed to do. The heater was working and I told them that it would probably fail again if the broken heater box wasn’t repaired. I got a call a few days later and the customer said the heater wasn’t working. I said let’s make an appointment, no he wanted their money back and wasn’t going to come back to our shop. That’s not how I do business. Then on Saturday when the shop is closed she comes to the door and knocks on it because the door is locked. I happened to be there and answered. She said the heater wasn’t working and I told her again that the heater box was broken and had to be repaired for a correct repair. She said the box wasn't broken and she wanted her money back. One thing I have learned is you can’t make everyone happy. There should be a customer review website so a business could warn other businesses about unreasonable customers.