Lou’s Total Car Care – The Ultimate Scam
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.
It seems like a setup to me.
The thing that gets me is, they replaced the overflow tank, then radiator, then hoses. I would be like, ‘what kind of mechanics are you?’ Replacing all that stuff every time without actually diagnosing your car properly. A good mechanic would spend the time finding the problem.
Firstly, the overflow tank doesnt need to be replaced unless its leaking, the same with the rad and hoses.
Thermostat is one thing i would replace, and after that the water pump then I would consider the head gasket.
I would send some tough men to pay them a visit and have a little bit of a chat, with a baseball bat!!!
there is karma at work for ya.
I just sent this link to the local news station…
I used to be of the type that would show up with the bat myself, but thankfully, I’ve grown up.
Karma is when an SEO expert goes to every site that ranks for the name of your company and links to a very detailed review like this on every single one.
Karma is already in place.
Brilliant Ross! Own your reputation in reverse!
To be honest, a baseball bat will hurt them once.
A bad Review will hurt them for life. haha.
Actually, I’d planned on doing a lot more, but realized that I’d be giving a blueprint on how to screw someone if I did.
I decided it would be wiser to keep it simple.
I was going to send it to the the news sites for you, then I read you have. Did you send it to one, or all?
I wish Karma had been with you then. The unfortunate thing, and a side attack if you will, is not even the cash they robbed and unfit work they did was enough. But the time-frustration-inconvenience, well I could go on, that you and your family were put through, these can’t be refunded. Especially when it then started on your mom.
‘I’ even knew more than these guys, so it was a pure and simple SCAM. I will surely forward. And I also have some media contacts in my address book that will get it, just because they’re there.
~Cheryl
I only sent it to Fox 4 in Cape Coral and haven’t heard back.
You’re totally right about the time wasted. The first time it overheated, I was half way to Orlando and it really sucked to be in that position…
Lets see… a youtube video, a few EZA/articlesbase articles, 2 free wordpress and blogger blogs, perhaps a few press releases, 3 .info blog websites, some backlinking… all targeting relevant keywords.
Yeah, with $50 thrown to Filipino outsourced workers and a couple hours of your time, you can put a serious dent in their business.
Hopefully you do something like that for the benefit of the community.
Rich
P.S. I’m thinking about moving to North Fort Myers from Austin… is that a decent enough area?
Actually Rich, I had far more evil plans in mind.
However, I have a responsibility to use my “powers” for good and can’t risk revealing the process to others.
U da man. “WHO’S NEXT?” ha.
Chris Lockwood told me you run IM meetups there. That’s cool… we have a huge IM meetup once a month here in Austin.
Well, if I move out there, I look forward to meeting you.
Rich
@bigrichb
Our meetup group is great. Erik Stafford, Alan Bechtold, and I have a great group of people.
Chris normally drives over 2 hours just to attend them
New development – spent another $150 on a blown radiator hose. Turns out they reused as many parts as possible during the process of replacing every single piece of my car that coolant touches…
The main radiator hose broke in our driveway, so we took it to the new mechanic and he fixed it for us.
Every additional thing that goes wrong with this car makes me wonder how much money Lou’s Total Car Care has cost other people.
Another update: I finally got a call from Lou’s.
I guess they aren’t too happy about my statements here.
Our conversation consisted of threats, cursing, and a lot of denial on their part.
The bottom line is that they did a very lazy job on the repairs for our car.
They cost us (roughly) double what they should have.
Part of the conversation included the standard “I’m from the streets” threats and what they failed to realize is that so am I and that won’t work.
The manager tried to justify the fact that I had to pay $1,000 to another mechanic for 2 hoses that they cut short and should have simply replaced…
They also claimed that they are going to try to mess with my sites. That “I’m not the only computer genius out there”. Ok. I’ll take it as it comes.
Where I stand right now, they could offer me $5,000 (what I estimate as the unnecessary amount of money I paid for repairs) and I still wouldn’t take this post down.
They suck and people have a right to know the truth.
Their response to your post says even more about them (in a very bad way) than the incompetent work they did on the car.
I’ll bet some people are reading this thread right now and spreading the bad news about that place after seeing how they react to honest criticism. I can’t imagine there’s so much happening in the Fort Myers area that a local TV station wouldn’t be all over this story, especially if they have a consumer reporter.
I know this is an old post, but I am shocked none the less. The last Company I worked for used Lou’s for their primary mechanic shop. I am shocked because they have always done good work on the company Van’s and also on my personal vehicle. There prices have always been a little high in my opinion, but that is neither here nor there. Lou has alway’s come across as a stand up guy to me and I am saddened that his reputation has been tarnished by your bad experience. Please don’t misunderstand me, I am not trying to discredit your experience and lack of customer service shown to you by Lou’s total car care. It is a shame that this situation has happened and a resolution has not already been reached.
It was a terrible experience Jason. I’ve never interacted with Lou. The Del Prado location of Lou’s isn’t managed by him directly. All I know is that I’ve made my desired impact and others will know about Lou’s predatory business practices.
Last I knew, Lou goes between the FM, Cape and Tampa locations weekly. If you are happy with your current mechanic that’s great and if you are not, I would suggest Wayne’s in North Fort Myers. My wife and her family have used them for 25 years at least. Fair prices and have always been upfront and truthful with whatever repairs they have made and/or recommended.
I have worked for Lou in the past . If you take a close look at some of the invoices of work that has been done at Lou’s you will find that the labor charged to do the work is more than labor guides call for . Lou has advertised the lowest rates in town but he makes up for it by doubling the hours that a job calls for .Lou is a crook and a thief .when he worked for tires plus he stole from them example when he first started his business in fort myers he took tires and equipment that belong to tires plus and threatened employees that he would bring harm to anyones family that turned him in.Also try and do a background check including new york. also on some of his employees especially the ones that work in tampa you will be surprised .i have already warned my friends in tampa