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Took my car to have evaluated. I was told that my engine was bad and n... read more Took my car to have evaluated. I was told that my engine was bad and needed to be replaced. He said he would be swapp my engine out with a engine close to the same miles I had on my car. So I agreed to have my engine changed. This would have been a good time to tell me that it's only 30 days on a used engine. but he did not disclose this information to me. He went and got the car emissions done and told me he had been driving my car and it was running fine. Two days later and paying 4081.00 I pick my car up it seemed fine. I wasn't able to test drive the car because of Covid the DMV was closed. so it was close to three months until I was able to get a tag for car. I finally got the tag and drove the car, I noticed a pull from the car when I put the car in drive, it snatched into gear. I took car back and the mechanic RL adjusted something on the engine so that took care of the problelm. Still didn't informe me about 30 days for a used engine. I drove the car for two weeks and the car is surging and smoking from the tail pipe. I call R.L to tell him what's going on. He says bring the car in. I had a video of what was going on with the car. I informed R.L I got advice from another mechanic and was told this is because coolant is getting into the engine which point to a bad head gasket, and the surging could possibly be the air intake control valve and the problem was engine related Which R.L agreed that it probably was the IAC and he would have fixed it "IF" he knew it was bad He then suggested put 20 w 50 in the engine. I called another mechanic and told them what my car was doing and what advice I was giving from RL. And was told to ask for the paper work on the engine. I have not received no information on the engine he installed in my car to this very day. And putting 20 w 50 was not going to solve my issue. So I take the car back because of the surging and mind you it's still smoking. I also was getting water in the trunk so R.L looked into these issued and charged me 80.00.I was told by R.L that my Power steering rack need replacing and he would fix my IAC for aprox 1100.00 dollars. This has been the worst experince with this shop. My car is sitting unable to drive. I gave him ONE star because a rating was required. He deserves 0 stars. We'll end up in court I'm sure.
This shop may do good work for others, but they completely dropped the... read more This shop may do good work for others, but they completely dropped the ball with me. Accurate and honest review; see Google for more info. Reply: McDonough, GA is made up location. They don't have a recording. Gash, trans leaks, plugged filter never mentioned. Total BS. Vehicle not purchased sight unseen on internet. No mention of fan clutch in reply. LOL! The $104 hose is online OEM for $35. SCAM. Full assembly NOT required. I took my 7.3 van to UAC on recommendation from PowerStroke Specialty—they aren’t taking new clients on 7.3s anymore. Fine, so I trusted their recommendation and it left me dealing with a bad shop. To be fair, Ryan did warn me up front, and said his average quote is between $5-8k. I have since discovered some dishonest and false information. *Diagnostics* Their diagnostic is a rip off, as other reviewers have said in the past. The charge is two hours of labor. They claim to spend way more time than that. Maybe they do? He called me and informed me that my van needed $7k worth of repairs. I feel this is dishonest because they didn’t diagnose my issues properly. *Example 1* I took the vehicle to UAC mainly for a cooling issue because the vehicle wasn’t getting up to operating temperature. I purchased a ScanGauge that shows the temperature sensor data before taking the vehicle to UAC and knew that it wasn’t getting over 160 degrees under any conditions. I reported this to them. UAC said that the vehicle was in fact getting up to 210 (it wasn’t, I knew it wasn’t) and “something must be wrong with the gauge”. My ScanGauge reported the temperature readings were too low and I reported that at drop off. The fix? A bad fan clutch—a $75 part. If it hadn’t been as simple as a fan clutch, I wouldn’t have written this. If they hooked up a diagnostic device, they would have seen the temperature readings were too low. *Example 2* See attached photo. When Ryan and I talked, he said the T was leaking in the radiator hose line. I opted not to do this repair because I wanted to do it myself to save money. While they were doing my transmission flush/fluid change, the service manager called and claimed that now the coolant was now “pouring out” of the vehicle from this broken T in the radiator hose and “had to be replaced now”. They claimed the individual part wasn’t available from Motorcraft or other sources without purchasing the assembly. This would be fine, but after further investigation by myself, the T was not leaking a single drop. The hose was actually contacting a pulley in the engine compartment, causing the leak. This was due to the hose being misrouted. The new quote on the hose assembly was “about $200” per verbal from service manager. On a radiator hose. The service manager even attempted to scare me into doing the repair with them claiming it was unsafe to drive and I wouldn’t make it home. Absolutely ridiculous. He didn’t know I do most of my own work. I personally replaced the hose—out the door for less than $25 and 30 minutes of my time. Any trained technician would INSTANTLY recognize the pinky nail sized hole in the hose and the coolant running DOWN the hose/leaking on the pulley. See photos. *Pricing* UACs pricing is outrageous compared to other shops. They charge over $320 for a transmission fluid flush/change on a 4R100 transmission. Other shops charge less than $200. I knew I needed some front end work before I dropped it off. The total labor was quoted at over $4,000, most of which to do basic front end work, which is precisely why I declined everything except a transmission flush. After looking at the quote, I see why. The numbers appear to be quite skewed. Labor cost should be lower to do everything at once on front end work since it’s already torn down. They quoted the labor like they were tearing it down, changing one part, putting it all back together, and then starting over for the next part. Their quote is pretty unfair in my opinion. Make your own judgements, just beware of my experience with them. I suggest to be careful with ALL shops, as most are in fact trying to rip you off. I hope you find a new shop.
