Waipahu, HI
I should have left this review a long time ago, but now I have more examples of why this "auto shop" should never be visited. My wife has been bringing her Subaru Forester here for a while because it's easy to make appointments and it's close to where we live. We liked how they take pictures of potential problems that need fixing to show you so that you feel you're not being scammed. When our AC went out, we brought the car here. They changed a small part and said we should be good to go. Less than a week later, the AC was hot again. We took it back. They changed another part. 2 days later it was hot again. I called them myself this time, and they said "oh yeah, this is how we do things to try to figure out what's wrong". So they kept expecting me to bring the car back until their trial and error approach would work? I don't think so. I took the car to Mike's Auto Air Conditioning. It took him 5 minutes to diagnose that the evaporator needed replacing. Would have saved over $1000 by taking it to him first instead of having Lex fumble around with it. Oh, but it gets worse. I didn't leave a negative review before since Lex is a "Tire Shop" at its core. So I chalked it up to a lesson learned. However, it appears they can't even do that right. Previously, we brought the car in multiple times to get an alignment because the steering wheel always pulled right. It would come back from the shop STILL pulling right, just slightly less. I thought "it can't be that hard to do an alignment, so maybe something else is wrong with the car". After driving it like this for a year or two, one of our tires had excessive wear on the outer rim. I knew I had to take it in, but we needed a safety check first. My wife made the mistake of coming back here to do the safety check. They denied the safety check because of that tire, said 2 of the other tires "were on their way out", and tried to sell her $900 worth of tires that day! I was livid! The other 3 tires are just fine, and $900 for a set of 4 is ridiculous. So I took the car to Discount Wheel and Tire today in Waipahu. Great experience. Had the one tire changed and confirmed the other 3 were fine. They found that the alignment was all jacked up and fixed it for me. Driving away from the shop, the car finally does not pull right. So ALL THIS TIME the problem was that Lex can't even do a proper alignment. I'm not convinced anyone at this auto shop knows what they're doing. DO NOT come here for AC problems. DO NOT come here for tire or wheel problems. And DO NOT come here for a safety check. Just don't come here in general. Taking pictures of potential problems means nothing when they can't even fix the problems. Like I said, Mike's AC and Discount Wheel and Tire are top notch. Go there if you want a fair price and actually get your problems fixed.
Aloha Nick K., thank you very much for your feedback. May we ask for some more details so we can look into for you? Please email the last invoice for this vehicle or please send us the license plate. Please email to [email protected] We will have our VP of Mechanical review the AC invoices and the documentation on why those items were recommended. Please note, as you mentioned in many cases, we send videos that show why the items are recommended. This is for transparency and to show we don’t recommend anything that is not recommended based on industry standards or the shops / tech experience. Unfortunately, with high pressure systems like AC and engine cooling systems (radiator and hoses and such), a shop can inspect a system and at that time only see the weakest part of the system that is leaking at that time, which they would recommend e to replace. After the shop fixes what was leaking, then the next weakest component will be what most likely fails next, which could be anywhere from a couple days (which is rare) to over a year later (Which is common). If a component isn’t leaking, there is no way to predict how long it’ll last. It could be recommended as preventative, but for AC repairs most folks would view that as overselling, which we are careful NOT to do. If you would, please also send what the other AC shop diagnosed. For the tires, is your Subaru an AWD? Do you mind sending us picture if the other 3 tires so we can inspect? Lastly, when the 1 tire was replaced and the wheel alignment was done, where the other tires rotated around so a matching pair was on the front that had even wear? Please send this info to [email protected] . Please accept our apologies for the understandably frustrating experiences. We would really like to look into for you. To add to our apologies, we would like to send a $25 Aloha Gas Card as well as reimburse you for your safety check done else where (please send a copy of that invoice that we can refer to). Thank you very much in advance for your time to share your feedback. Sincerely, Scott D. Williams 35+ years Lex Brodie’s team member (and former #1 tire changer when Lex was still here!) as well as the #1 Alignment tech for many years before I moved up in the company… I was also state licensed mechanic and ASE licensed for front end and brakes for 15+ years. I have been for years, and I’m still an active State Safety Inspector.
- Waipahu, HI