Kevin M

Review of Southern Maine Motors Chrysler...

Summary: The Service Department left me with a bro...

Summary: The Service Department left me with a broken right front coil spring and a bad brake line. I was VERY lucky that this was found by another mechanic as I could not feel it driving. If the spring had punctured my tire on the highway, or the brake line failed it could have been a disaster. Details below:

I brought my 2008 Jeep Wrangler in for recall work, a U-Joint, and to inspect a check engine light / AC issue. the repair work to fix both the check engine light AND the AC issue ended up being a single corroded ground wire. Replacing the wire totaled almost $400 in labor and I was told the wiring was "difficult" adding to the cost.

2 weeks later I happened to be at my mechanic for winter undercoating and he showed me I had a broken right front coil spring (next to the U-Joint that was replaced) that could puncture my tire at any time. He also showed me that my brake line was seriously rusted/expanded and could burst. He said I should NOT be driving the vehicle.

I rechecked my invoice from Southern Maine Chrysler Dodge Jeep and the broken coil spring WAS documented in their "Multi-point inspection," BUT no one ever told me of this problem and let me drive the car home. There were multiple people in the customer service chain and no one mentioned any safety issues from the mechanic, the person calling me saying the "vehicle was ready" to the person that checked me out.

I'm very concerned with both the quality of the work done on my Jeep, the information related at the time of pick up, as well as the cost that I paid for the "grounding wire" work. There should be procedures in place to prevent clear safety issues from leaving the service department.

After informing the Owner and Service Manager I got a call from the Service Manager who defended the situation saying the broken spring was written on the invoice and was not sure why I wasn't told. He did apologize and offer to put in a new after-market spring (that I would order.) I declined this as all 4 springs should be replaced (as any good mechanic would have recommended)