Cold Smoke Automotive

Review: I took my 1990 300zx to this shop because it was having electrical problems. This shop was the only shop in the area willing to work on my car. After the first couple weeks I began calling to see when my car would be done and was informed that they would start it in a week. After almost 2 years of hassling with this shop they finally called and said my car was ready. When I went to the shop I found out that my car had been left out in the sun for the entire two years. my stereo amp and crossovers were stolen, the tires have flat spots on them, the car grinds when shifting the clear-coat cracked and the car runs worse than when I brought it there. Local police have told me there is nothing they can do because it occurred before the shop moved locations so they are unsure if it is a city or county complaint. The shop charged me 500$ for this "service."Desired Settlement: I would like the stolen and damaged items replaced and the damage done to the car repaired at a reputable shop

Business

Response:

To Whom It May Concern,

In response to Mr. [redacted]'s claim; We received his 1990

Nissan 300ZX vehicle on September 2, 2011. When the vehicle was brought to the

shop we were told it was running poorly, and we assured him that we could at

least diagnose the problem and go from there. What we immediately discovered

was that an ignition coil had failed and needed to be replaced. After replacing

the ignition coil once, it failed again. Mr. [redacted] was informed of this as well

as being made aware of the fact that more investigation would need to be done in

order to figure out what was causing the ignition coil to burn out.

Mr. [redacted] claims that he began his two years of 'hassling'

with our shop, but he has failed to point out his own involvement with his

neglected vehicle. The first issue of

communication with Mr. [redacted] should be addressed as he is very difficult to get

a hold of. If I left a message with him on his cell phone, it would take up to

three weeks to hear back from him. This has been confirmed by the Livingston

Police Dept. It was hard, even at that

point, to believe that Mr. [redacted] actually wanted his car back, or had the money

to pay for the repairs. He did, after

all, notify us that he didn't even have a title for the vehicle, and complained

whenever an estimated price was given to him for the repair.

After the newly installed ignition coil failed, we did more

research into his vehicle and found that a poorly done twin-turbo conversion

had been installed on his naturally-aspirated engine. When I discussed this with him, and he was already

aware of this, it was explained to him that there is an electrical issue that

had arisen from this conversion which was causing the ignition coil to short

out. He started complaining when I told him it could cost him hours of labor

time to track down that which was causing the short. I told him he should be prepared to pay

anywhere from $500 to $700 for us to find this short along with the cost of one

ignition coil ($126.82), as we were going to warranty the first one that burnt

out.

After 9 months of listening to Mr. [redacted]'s whining about paying

for what needed to be done to at least solve the problem that the vehicle had

when it came to our shop, I told him that he could just come and get his

vehicle and he could take it somewhere else.

He complained more, telling me that, "You guys said you could fix

it. If I have to come and get my car, I'm going to bad-mouth you to everyone I

know in the area", etc. So, one day

when we had some spare time, we traced down the short, took it for a test drive

and called to leave a message with Mr. [redacted] notifying him that the vehicle was

ready to be picked up. Two weeks later, he showed up. It was when he had almost driven the vehicle

out of town that he noticed all sorts of

"new" issues with the car. Mr. [redacted] is confused about what

the police told him, because what they actually told him was that the statute

of limitations is up on his complaint. We gave back to Mr. [redacted], the vehicle

that he dropped off, after it had been repaired. Our opinion is that the car is a piece of

junk that will never run right, and not the car that Mr. [redacted] imagines rolling

off the assembly line 23 years ago. It's

hard to believe that this boy sincerely believes that we would have kept this

vehicle inside for two years, nor did he ask me once where it was parked or

even have the courtesy to ask if we charged a storage fee, which we did not

charge him a dime for, nor did he have to pay for his entire bill of $579.61,

because if you didn't know already, he complained about the bill.

Sincerely,

Service Manager

Cold Smoke Automotive LLC

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 9582353, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

The shop claims to have no knowledge of a turbo conversion but that was told to them when I initially brought the car in. I also told them that the coilpack was burning out and they still installed a new one which also burned up. This was at a cost of $126.82 plus labor. As [redacted] said in his reply it only took "one day of looking at it" so why did it take so long to finish. The argument over the cost was that this shop was trying to charge $700 to diagnose the problem, not including repair costs. This was a simple electrical problem. There have been numerous calls to this shop and he forgets to mention that the shop lost my number on two separate occasions. The items missing from the car are the dvd player, amp and speakers. This can clearly be seen by the damage done to the dash and the fact that a cheap cd player was wedged in my dash.

As you can see in [redacted] reply he is very disrespectful and misleading. It is appalling that he would try to charge for storage when it only took him a day to fix the issue.

Regards,