You hear about scammers on the web every day, all day long.  There are tons of them in every market.

What you don’t hear about very often are scam artists that exist offline in regular, brick and mortar businesses.

Recently, I got robbed of a few thousand dollars by an auto repair company and want to share my experience to ensure that you don’t fall into the same situation.

I live in Cape Coral, FL and have been here for just over a year.  Believe it or not, we’re still getting used to where we live.  We’re finding restaurants we love, picking family doctors, and even a year later, learning about our home town.

When we needed our car repaired, my Mom (who lives with us) chose Lou’s Total Car Care to fix her car.  It was making some odd noises, so we wanted to fix it before it truly broke.

The experience was  very pleasant and we got about $1,000 of repairs done including every belt in the car, new brakes, and a few other simple things.

When my wife and I bought a used car, we immediately brought it to Lou’s.  We asked them to look over the car, replace all of the fluids, and fix anything that needed it.  It cost us just under $2,000 and we were excited about having this car to give us more freedom to get things done.

Then, it overheated.

We took it into Lou’s and they replaced the over flow tank (where the coolant goes) and the thermostat (which was not even present in the car at all).

Then, it overheated again.

Lou’s replaced the hoses this time.

Then, it overheated again.

We replaced the entire radiator.

Then, it overheated again.

This time, over the period of a month they replaced the water pump and attempted to have the headers on the engine redone.  3 weeks into that process, they told us that a part they needed would cost over $3,000 and it would be smartest for us to replace the engine on the car (we agreed).

The total for all of the coolant system repairs was nearly $4,000.

Then, the car refused to start a few days later.  The alternator had fried (probably the mechanic’s fault, but we had no proof).  We paid another $450 for a new alternator and battery for the car.

You see, we were in stuck in a ridiculous situation.  Every time the car overheated, we were under the impression that this repair wouldn’t cost us anything.  Lou’s Total Car Care guarantees all repairs for a full year from the date of service.  Obviously, we weren’t going to take it to another repair place when the repair should be free.  Problem was that it was something new that broke every single time.

Even better, when you go to a mechanic and ask them to repair something in your vehicle, you don’t expect them to start at the cheapest item and work their way to the most expensive.  You expect them to fix what’s broken.   Lou’s started at the cheapest thing and worked their way to the most expensive.

Then, the real fun started.

My Mom started her car and heard a snap.  When we popped the hood open, we saw a belt flipping around and knew one had broken.  A belt from the air conditioning belt’s pulley fell off and shredded the belt.  We had it towed to Lou’s and expected it all to be covered.  First, they couldn’t find the repair in their system, so they charged me $350 for the repair and told me that if I found the receipt, they’d reimburse me.  I came back the next morning and instead of refunding the entire repair, they claimed they didn’t touch the pulley that the bolt fell off of and offered us a reimbursement of $25 for the cost of the belt (which they never gave us).

I had our new mechanic check the car and tell me specifically that it would be impossible for them to replace that belt without removing the specific bolt that fell off and it was 100% their fault (in other words, they should have refunded the entire repair).

Then, my wife was driving our car and saw smoke begin pouring out of under the hood of our car.  When she pulled over and coasted to the side of the road, she saw a massive puddle of transmission fluid beneath our car.  By this point we knew we’d been massively scammed by Lou’s Total Car Care and brought it to a different mechanic.  What happened was that Lou’s mechanic thought it would be smart to shorten a hose from the transmission to the radiator, which made it so it couldn’t be held in place by a bracket that was there to keep it away from the alternator.  The new alternator punctured the hose and emptied the entire car of transmission fluid.  It cost us a total of $265 with the new mechanic to have this repaired and have them check the car for any other ridiculous things that Lou’s people might have done for our car ($75 of the cost was for the hour they spent checking our car over).

We now have a great mechanic and we’re very happy with them and trust them in the way that you’re supposed to be able to trust someone that you have fix your car.

Lou’s Total Car Care is the worst kind of scammer there is.  It’s the kind that has you on a hook where you have no real choice but to return to them for future repairs.  Did they set us up for failure on purpose?  We’ll never know the truth, but they robbed us of $1,000 directly and cost us another $2,000 in extra unnecessary repairs.

I’ve taken it upon myself to be sure that every review site talks about our situation with Lou’s.  I don’t want anyone else to fall victim to their flat out robbery.