Reviews

Review Details

• Review fromD. T.

  Date: 19/03/2023

  1 star

  D. T.

  Date: 19/03/2023

  I brought my ***** in for a check engine light. Was told it was the tensioners. They needed to pull the engine, so it would be an expensive job - about $1800. About 4 months later, my engine started spouting oil. I took it in. They said that the tensioners that they got from the dealer was defective and bounced around the engine and cracked the engine cover (a $1600 part). Since it was "not their fault", I had to pay for the same job to be done all over again. They didn't want to cover the engine cover so they welded it. Several months later (about **** km) the engine become very rough and lost power. Since J&J was too busy, I took it to the dealership. Initially they dealership thought is was the tensioners, which they informed me as under a recall and therefore a free fix. However, when they opened it up, they found that the third piston was severely gouged. It was a wonder the car drove at all. Technically it was caused by oil starvation to the part, without saying what was blocking the oil. They quoted $22,000 for a rebuild. The reason it was so high was because the engine was full of bits of metal debris and they said if you don't get it all out, the piston would end up in the same state. I brought this up with J&J and they said the car left the shop in great condition, so it had nothing to do with them. Sadly J&J never bothered to check for recalls. I ended up thousands in the hole. I suspect the botched repair was the source of later issues.

  J&J Autoworks

  Date: 22/03/2023

  All the work done by ***** *** done correctly. We did stay in contact with ***** when he called about his issues and that his car was at the dealership. I ask ***** to have the mechanic from the dealership contact us to discuss the problem. The mechanic did call and confirmed the the engine was starving for oil and this caused friction within the engine creating metal fragment throughout. This being said, the mechanic confirmed that J&J was not at fault and there was nothing that we had previously done wrong to cause this problem. I called ******************* and gave a full explanation of our discussion with the mechanic at ******* He said he understood. I took a step further and found a used engine with very low kms and offered for replace his old engine which has over ******* kms. I told ***** that I could do the job for **** including labor. ***** told me that he would let me know and that was the last I heard from him. Any work that is done at J&J Autoworks has and will be always be in the customers best interest at heart!

  J&J Autoworks

  Date: 22/03/2023

  All the work done by ***** *** done correctly. We did stay in contact with ***** when he called about his issues and that his car was at the dealership. I ask ***** to have the mechanic from the dealership contact us to discuss the problem. The mechanic did call and confirmed the the engine was starving for oil and this caused friction within the engine creating metal fragment throughout. This being said, the mechanic confirmed that J&J was not at fault and there was nothing that we had previously done wrong to cause this problem. It is just west of a high **********.I called ******************* and gave a full explanation of our discussion with the mechanic at ******* He said he understood. I took a step further and found a used engine with very low kms and offered for replace his old engine which has over ******* kms. I told ***** that I could do the job for **** including labor. ***** told me that he would let me know and that was the last I heard from him. Any work that is done at J&J Autoworks has and will be always be in the customers best interest at heart!

  D. T.

  Date: 01/04/2023

  In January 2022, my engine was running rough, and the check engine light was on. I took it to J&J Auto. An initial diagnostic looked like something minor, but on closer inspection J&J said it was the tensioners. This was a costly repair, as it required pulling the engine, which was a lot of labour. It took a long time to get my car in, to wait for parts and to book the time to do the work. During this time, I was without a vehicle for four weeks. I got my car back on February 24, 2022. The bill was $2334.95, not including an earlier bill for diagnostic. June 26, 2022, my engine started gushing oil. I returned to J&J. My car was out of commission for three weeks to when my car was finished on July 14. According to J&J the oil loss was caused by a cracked engine cover. The crack was caused by tensioners hitting the engine cover. J&J said they had received a defective part from the dealership. The dealership provided replacement tensioners at no cost, but would not cover work done by ***. J&J replaced the tensioners. The cracked engine cover was a $1600 part. J&J was not offering to replace the part, so they welded the crack. A machinist friend was surprised they would do this and told me that it is difficult to achieve a reliable weld on oily parts. As the bills were mounting and it looked like my engine was getting a band-aid fix I asked J&J if it might be better to replace it, but J&J said, no, that would be a very expensive option. The cost for this repair was $672,13. The total of the two repairs was $3007.08 In December 2022 the engine was running rough and losing power. This time I took it to the dealership. The dealership provided me with a courtesy vehicle while they worked on my car.After a number of diagnostics, the dealership mechanic said that piston 3 was misfiring. I was allowed into the shop to view the engine, while the mechanic pointed out the issues with me. The diagnosis was as follows: Piston 3 failed due physical damage from oil starvation. The issue was specific to piston 3. The dealership mechanic was unwilling to speculate on what initially caused the oil starvation, but it was propagated by the bits of metal that had come loose. Since the mechanic was unfamiliar with the history of the vehicle he was not a position to identify or rule out a specific cause. Consequently, I would be surprised if he told J&J anything beyond oil starvation which does not identify or absolve any causes. The dealership quoted $22,000 for a rebuild. That number included $1600 parts to replace engine cover. According to the mechanic, the high cost of a rebuild was due to labour to remove metal shavings now found throughout the engine. If these were not completely removed, they would cause oil starvation again. The dealership did not provide a quote for engine replacement, since that was not a service that they offered. The dealership did not charge me for pulling the engine. My total bill from the dealership was $200.J&J offered to replace the engine for $7000 including parts and labour. The offer was at market prices, so there was no reason for me to choose his services over anyone else. I wasnt particularly happy with J&J at this point. The dealership told me that the tensioners were a recall item and they would have replaced them at no cost to me. Up to this point I had received no communications from the manufacturer on this. Had J&J checked, I would have been spared a $3000 repair bill including 7 weeks without a vehicle. The dealership would have done the work for free. They would have guaranteed the work. I would have had a courtesy car and I would not have ended up with a patched engine cover, and potentially damage that caused the failure of my engine before it could reach its next oil change. A retired mechanic told me that his shop always checked for recalls prior to doing a job. He said that my make of engine could be tricky to work on. His opinion was that the tensioner was not a faulty part. It likely had been installed incorrectly, causing it to break, resulting in internal damage. The dealership mechanic told me he had never had to work on a car where the tensioners failed. In the end, I was on the hook for around $10,000 in repairs. A minimum of $3000 of this was completely avoidable had I patronized a shop that bothered to check for recalls. The other $7000, not so sure. I do know I cant afford to take my car to J&J.