1 /5 Matthew Myers: Been a loyal customer & brought a couple different cars to them, but noticed the past couple of times they would misdiagnose an issue then want to charge me again to fix what they should have fixed the first time.
Most recent visit I was hearing a clunking noise from my suspension and rattling noise. I thought it might be bad sway bar bushings. They “diagnosed” and said yeah most likely bad sway bar bushings, then told me the rattling noise was from the catalytic converter brackets coming off because of rust and needed to be welded. Proceed to charge me $700 just to weld the brackets back on. Turns out none of that was actually the cause of the noise & a reputable muffler shop told me they way over charged for a weld, and that it didn’t even look like anything was welded. Despite this I took it back in because I was still hearing the clunking noise & felt like they needed to fix it since they miss the mark. Then the guys tell me oh it’s actually the lower control arms, & now they want to charge me an additional $2100 for parts & labor on the control arms?!!! I said hell no! First you misdiagnosed the issue now you want to charge me even more? Screw that! I took it to this place called AutoTek, they do their diagnostic and turns out some bushings needed to be greased and some parts weren’t torqued to spec. They greased & torqued to spec and wouldn’t you know it, no more clunky noise. They said there was nothing wrong with the control arms. So had I had trusted Austin Auto & had the control arms replaced they would have screwed me out even more money! I sent them an email about all of this because I wanted something in writing, but never heard back. Unless you know exactly what’s wrong with your car I wouldn’t trust their diagnostic process. I thought they were honest auto shop, but I don’t anymore. Definitely won’t be back ever again.
