ComplaintsforKerner's Auto Service, LLC

• Initial Complaint

  01/06/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  On December 25, 2022 my wife slid into a curb at low speed and broke a tie rod. No other shops in the area were open, so I gave the tow truck driver the address to ********************* Service. I spoke with an employee named **** (he did not mention any charges, nor did I authorize any charges). My vehicle has a blue book value of an estimated $10,000, but **** told me that he'd looked at my vehicle and that it would cost about $8,000 to fix it. I decided to get a second opinion at a trusted shop. **** was furious that I opened an insurance claim and that he would not be getting any of the money from my insurance. When the tow truck arrived, **** refused to release my vehicle because he wanted to be paid. He claimed that he had already began fixing my vehicle and that he'd now have to undo the repairs so I must pay for this labor (again, I never authorized any of this). I had to work with my insurance to schedule yet another tow. They admitted that he had no right to payment and furthermore had absolutely no right to hold my vehicle. I contacted the ********************** and they assured me that **** had no legal right to hold my vehicle and if he again refused to release it to the next tow truck, then they would meet me there to retrieve my vehicle (they admitted to knowing about **** and Kerners as a known scam). Eventually, my vehicle was towed to a trustworthy shop and it costed me $400 (and one day) to fix the broken tie rod. I had only filed an insurance claim because I trusted **** that there was thousands of dollars in damage (I have a $1000 deductible). Not only were my premiums affected by this, but I spent over a week dealing with this, I had to rent a car, and I live 90 minutes from the incident so I had to travel many hours and drive hundreds of miles to deal with this. **** scammed my insurance provider (Progressive) out of hundreds of dollars, while he performed absolutely no authorized work. This incident occurred on Christmas Day and **** is a Grinch.

  

  Business response

  01/12/2023

  *****, 

  Thank you for reaching out regarding your most recent visit to ********************* Service. I am disappointed to hear that you did not receive the excellent treatment that our customers normally do. I have attempted to reach you by phone at the number listed with the BBB complaint, however the phone number is not a good number. In addition, the address listed is actually the address for the *********** ****************** In regards to your complaint, you state that this incident occurred on Christmas Day. Unfortunately, we were not open on Christmas Day. While we did have several vehicles in for service around that time with similar complaints of sliding into a curb or hitting something, each vehicle was repaired slightly different based on the circumstance. As with any repair of this nature, we always complete a full detailed inspection of the entire vehicle. Furthermore, it is common to provide a estimate of what may been needed based on a collision or damage. Unfortunately, it is not as cut and dry as we would like and until we actually start to disassemble and reassemble parts we can't be certain of what may be needed. As stated, all of the vehicles that were in for repair during that timeframe were repaired differently while only replacing parts that were absolutely necessary. I can promise you that our goal at ********************* Service is always to provide an honest and fairly priced repair. We have been in business for over 50 years and have operated on this belief since day 1. The thousands of 5 star reviews online will speak to this fact over and over again. Nonetheless, this incident was about you and you were not pleased. We are will to do whatever you feel is necessary to make it right and I would personally like to discuss the matter with your further to determine what we can do, to make it right with you. Since I am unable to reach you, I ask that you please reach out to me at your earliest convenience so that we can discuss the matter further. I look forward to hearing from you and again apologize that your experience at ********************* Service was not a favorable one. 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩