Complaint Review: Tuffy Muffler Rick King Portage MI

I thought the days of taking advantage of women at a mechanic were long past.  Tuffy in PortageMI proved that not to be the case.  When returning from a fun family function our van broke a serpentine belt on Friday evening outside of Portage on the way back to our home in Traverse City.  The van was towed to Tuffy where I was assured that it would be looked at first thing in the morning.  We went to a hotel and made the best of it.  After waiting until late into the afternoon on Friday Tuffy called to inform me that the cost to repair the van would be $1800.00.  This seemed very high and I asked what the bare minimum to get back on the road would be.  Emily the lady at the desk at Tuffy stated it could go down to $1300.00 telling me that they could skip replacing the radiator.  I called the male half and informed him of the cost and he told me to not let them touch anything further.  He then called them and told them to hold off on fixing anything until they heard from him.  After consulting with our trusted mechanic (who knows the van very well) we found out that Jake’s suspicions were valid and Tuffy was trying to take advantage of a women and replace and repair things that had nothing to do with getting the van road worthy.  Jake called and spoke with Emily and was able to get the quote down to $699.00.  They were trying to replace many items (radiator, hoses etc) that had less than 79,000 miles on them.  We are blessed in that we can afford to repair anything that goes wrong with any of our vehicles.  If this would have happened to a person that did not have the availability of information, and money, they would have paid for this totally unnecessary and flagrant rip off bill.  This whole organization should be ashamed of them selves!  Beware of this place!