Complaint Review: Cook's Auto Repair

Excerpt BBB Complaint Filed: 1/16/06
Wednesday, Dec. 28 at approximately 3pm CST my 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee broke down in the middle of a road in Hermitage. I called a tow truck and the non-emergency police number.

Since my car was blocking traffic, an off duty police officer stopped at the scene to assist until the assigned officer came to the scene.

The police officer asked me where I was having my truck towed to and I said Jeep I guess since I didn't know any other mechanics in the area.

He said that he had never used this guy, but he had several police officer friends who had gone to Cook's Auto Repair and spoke very highly.

Since I'm in the middle of planning my wedding and picking up the tab for it, I took his advice and had the tow truck take my car to Cook's. We arrived at Cook's at approximately 5:00pm CST 12/28/05.

At this point, my fianc got out of our other car and talked with Dan "Skip" Cook about my Jeep. Skip said based off the symptoms of the problem, it appeared my car had a rear differential problem.

He said he would look at the car the next day (Thursday) and determine what the estimate would be to fix the car. So Thursday rolls around and there's no call from Skip. Friday passes and still no call.

So around 3pm Friday 12/30/05 My fianc called Skip to see what was going on. Skip said he was going to order parts for the new rear differential and the price would be $858.71. My fianc said, before you work on the car, we will be paying with credit card and just want to make sure that will be ok.

Skip said his credit card machine had been down, but that he would get it fixed or figure something out so we could pay that way and that it was no problem. My fianc confirmed with him again that we would be paying with CC and that it will not be a problem. Skip confirmed this would be acceptable. Skip called My fianc on the following Tuesday (1/3/06) and said the car would be ready on Thursday evening (1/5/06).

Late in the afternoon Thursday, there's no word from Skip so My fianc calls him. Skip tells My fianc that UPS had come late to deliver the parts and the car wouldn't be ready until Friday (1/6/06).

So Friday afternoon comes around and still no call from Skip. So My fianc calls Skip to find out Skip is having problems with some shims that go in the part and he wasn't able to get them to line up. So it would Saturday. So once again, Saturday afternoon passes and Skip calls to say he's still not able to get the shims working properly with the part so it will be Monday. Monday passes and Tuesday afternoon (1/10/06) Skip calls and says he wasn't mailed all the parts he needed for the part to work properly.

So now we are looking at Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon Skip calls My fianc to say he broke a shim and metal shards went in his eye and he had to go to the eye Dr. for 4 hours and our car would now not be ready until Thursday 1/12/06. Thursday evening around 5:30pm Skip calls My fianc and says the car is fixed and we can pick it up.

My fianc says that's great and we would be there around 6:30. Skip tells My fianc that we will have to pay with some other form of payment since he cannot accept credit cards because his credit card machine is broken. My fianc said that's not acceptable since we told him up front this is how we would be paying and we will need to still pay this way. Skip tells us to write him a post-dated check instead.

We tell him that absolutely is not acceptable to us and that he will need to call our credit card in since the machine is down. Skip says that he had to run some errands and that he would be back to the shop by 7pm and we could come by then. We called at 6:45 and left a message and there was no return to our call.

So Friday morning 1/13/06, My fianc and I arrived at Cook's Auto Repair at 9am when their door posting says they open to pick up our Jeep. We wait and wait finally 2 hours later, Skip arrives to open his shop. Neither my fianc or myself had taken off work to pick up the car, so we were of course a little disheartened by his blatant unprofessionalism.

We followed Skip into his shop to pay for the car. Skip says his credit card machine was still broken and that we would have to wait 2 weeks to pick up our car if we wanted to pay by credit card. We stated that was not acceptable and he could just call the card into his merchant. Though there was an office phone right in front of us, Skip wrote down a phone number and went to an upstairs room (where we could not see or hear what he was doing) to call his cc machine merchant. He came back to the cc machine and wrote down another number and went back upstairs a few different times.

Finally he came downstairs and told us that he spoke with someone at his local bank and that we could do a wire transfer from our CC to his bank. I said that doesn't sound right (but I assumed that maybe someone at his bank was making an exception since his machine was down). So we follow him to the bank.

We walk in and speak with someone there who confirms this is not possible to do. By this time, it's noon and we've wasted an entire day on what should have taken about 10 minutes. So we attempt to follow Skip back to the shop to find another way to resolve the issue. Skip decides to stop at Sonic to get breakfast. When Skip leaves Sonic he fishtails his truck and peels out of the parking lot swerving all over the road.

At this point My fianc and I are completely frustrated with his lack of professionalism as well as his blatant lack of concern for our time. We finally get back to his shop and we ask him to call the merchant he has his credit card service through. He screams at us that he's not going to spend anymore time on this and that we are to get out of his shop and not come back until we have $858.71 check or cash for him.

My fianc questions Skip why he's going back on his word to us and why he has a sign posted on his front door that he ONLY accepts credit cards and cash for payment (of which we have a photo of).

Skip again screams at us to get out of his shop and come back with cash. Since we are on a really tight budget with the wedding and obviously wasn't planning to have my car breakdown, we had to really scramble to get that much money in cash. We went to the bank and did get a cashier's check for the payment.

Skip wrote on the invoice that the car had to come back in 500 miles for another service. We obviously do not trust this business and cannot afford to be without a car for 16 days again.

In addition, when I picked up the car, there was grease all over the exterior rear bumper and panels. The inside of the driver's door was very greasy. The floor board of the driver's side of the car had potato chip crumbs all over it as well.

UPDATE: 2/7/06
Immediately after picking up the car on 1/13/06, I noticed the back end of the car was making noises like the shocks were broken. Skip had said there would be some noise coming from the backend since the parts were new and breaking in still. So once again I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

By the following Tuesday (1/17/06) it had gotten really bad. So I took my Jeep to the dealer and filled them in on the whole story. Over the next couple of days they disassembled the part to find out that Skip had completely screwed up the installation and the entire rear differential would need to be replaced once again.

The following was done incorrectly:
No shim in pinion gear,
Improper set up on the ring & pinion,
Bearing caps were on put on backwards,
Metal shavings throughout the casing,
Metal shavings surrounding the bearings.

Devastated that we had just spent so much money to have the car not fixed, we were faced with the dilemma to have Jeep fix it for about $1800 or to get Skip to make it right.

My fianc called Skip Friday, 1/20/06 and requested the following:

Have the vehicle towed to his garage from the Jeep dealer for repair,

Repair the rear-end with the brand new parts that were paid for,
Return the vehicle to us in proper, working condition and complete the repairs in a reasonable time frame; 10 days or less.

Skip reluctantly agreed. He said that his tow truck would pick up the Jeep on Monday (1/23/06) and it would be ready on Wed. (1/25). Wednesday, my fianc called Skip to get a status.

Skip stated that there was a miscommunication with the tow truck and that the tow truck never picked up the Jeep, but that he was on his way to get it and the Jeep would be ready Friday. So Friday around 2pm CST my fianc called Cook's Auto to see if the Jeep was ready.

When he called, he got a message on Skip's business phone saying they were closed with no further information.

On this same day, I put a letter in the mail to Skip stating the items he verbally agreed to do to make my car right again.

I sent the letter certified mail with delivery confirmation, of which I received back signed by Dan (Skip) Cook.

We tried call again Monday and Tuesday only to get the same message. Finally, Tuesday afternoon I decided to drive out there.

When I arrived, I noticed that all of the cars that had previously been parked in front of the shop were all gone.

In addition, the garage doors were closed and the property was desolate. Lastly, the front door, which originally had a sign posting the name of the business, hours of operation and policies of the business was no longer on the door.

The business appears to be no longer operating. After countless voicemails that have not been returned it appears that Skip has stolen my car.

Amanda
Hermitage, Tennessee
U.S.A.