Spartan Tire Rip-Off
In April of 1998, I took my car, an 84 Buick Century, to Spartan Tire in Howell, Mich to have a front end shimmy looked at. They said they could drop me off at my work. We drove my car and the mechanic drove it to the shop. A few hours later they said the car was ready and I asked them to deliver it to me. 30 minutes later I get a call saying that the car started blowing smoke on the way to me and they were going to tow it to the shop. I went to pick it up and they said it had a transmission fluid leak. They said they didn't do transmission work so I drove it to another garage. The entire way there was smoke billowing out from under the car. An inspection of the of the transmission showed a 6 inch crack in the housing. This was spewing fluid all over the place. The mechanic who knew nothing of the other garage asked me if I drove it rough. When I went back to Spartan Tire I asked them what they had did to it. they denied they had done nothing and according to them, the transmission was that way before they ever saw it. I said that there was no smoke when their driver drove me to work and they continued to deny it.
Eventually I had to take them to Small Claims Court and sued them for $1500. The Garage Manager admitted during his testimony that his driver had bottomed out the car on a bad bump and then the smoke started. The crooked Judge ruled in their favor. He also said to us," I've had 20 years of good service with Spartan Tire and never had a complaint." I'm sure his service will really improve now.