Complaint Review: Utah Imports Inc.

I have taken multiple cars to Utah Imports for quite some time. I have even recommended them to others. However, that all changed last week.

I recently took my vehicle to Utah Imports at 858 S. State St. I have taken it there for years and had fairly decent service. However this one was different. I took it in on Wednesday, November 30th. I had a few things I wanted them to look at but they offered to do a full look-over for free. Later that day they called and gave me a quote for thousands of dollars in 'needed' service. While I kind of expect that type of thing to occur, I did agree that I desperately needed a timing belt. The cost they were asking for that service was $951.00 for parts and 6.30 hours of labor. I thought that was quite high so I told them I would call them back on Thursday morning to tell them what I wanted done.

In the meantime I called a few other shops. They gave me roughly the same cost for the timing belt. The following morning, on Thursday at 8:36am, Icalled Utah Imports and authorized them to perform the service to the timing belt, as well as a couple of other small items. They told me the car wouldn't be ready until Friday. I was surprised to receive a call at 1:04pm on the same day that the car was ready.

When I went to pick up the car, I was astounded to find that they were charging me 7 hours of labor. I asked them why they were charging me that much labor when it was roughly 4.5 hours from when I called to authorize work and when they called me to tell me it was finished?

The first initial response was that the hours listed is "what it takes to do the job." I mentioned that obviously it does not and explained the time difference.  The next reason I received was that his mechanics had done it so often that they had learned to do it faster, and to charge the higher rate for labor was an incentive for them to do a better job. I then asked what the incentive was for the customer to bring a vehicle to them? He said that other shops might take longer to do the job.

He (Allan Anderson) seemed aghast when I told him that other shops only charged me for the actual hours it took. Even if it was quoted higher in the beginning. I asked if it took longer than the 7 hours if he would've charged me more? He said that they charge whatever it takes to get the job done. He added that he could've 'sat' on the car and called me a few hours later to let me know it was done but they strive to be "honest" with their customers.

At this point he was clearly getting agitated with me and I didn't want a full-blown confrontation, but at nearly $90 an hour in labor the $250-$300 difference is substantial.

Its sad because they are knowledgeable, (even condescending at times) but I'm sorry, to be so blatantly flippant about their unethical billing methods isn't worth the skill level. There are other shops with just as much knowledge out there.