Service quality has evaporated. Whole place has tu...
Service quality has evaporated. Whole place has turned over, and not for the best. Where is Chris?
Two days after a wheel bearing replacement ($673) I have warning lights on my dash. After bringing it back in, I overheard the mechanic say he doesn't know what's wrong but he wants to replace the thermostat, spark plugs and several other things. PUGHS replaced two wheel bearings, the thermostat and spark plugs three years earlier under original crew. I had radiator flushed 1.5 years prior. Today I had the impression that I was being taken advantage of in order to make more money off me. The part is under $75 but billed $151. The job involves loosening 11 bolts/nuts and one sensor and billed $479 for labor. An additional $33 for unjustified "fee". And the mechanic was intending to charge me several hundred more to "figure" out the "errors" he came up with.
My wife brought her work van in three times in the past two weeks for a steering issue, with each time the same mechanic coming up with new error messages and each time more parts more labor done/ charges totaling $800+ installed new power steering pump that failed one week later that got replaced, then brought back for same issue. New spark plugs was recommended and done. On a third visit back there was new error codes to justify adding more parts more labor. My wife said if you can't make the repair I'm just gonna take it to someone else and then suddenly later that day they called and said all the error messages are gone and is working fine now. Very suspicious.
PUGHS has become a racket of creating new issues resulting in adding on more parts and labor while misleading clients by justifying with "error codes". We've been coming to Pugh's on and off as needed with both our personal cars and most recently my wife's work vehicle. Service and pricing was always fair prior to new employees, but now it seems very dishonest and overpriced.
After this fiasco I looked into the going average rate in the area for a wheel bearing replacement. All in, $500 on the high side, $375 on the low. I can no longer consider or recommend anyone coming to this garage. Shop around and be suspicious of a place that keeps coming back to you with new error codes days after performing work that was never correctly completed.
Some advice- fire that crooked error code "mechanic" and replace him with someone who knows a thing or two or two about cars.
