Ultimate worst nightmare.

[Zwrangler]

Not really a dealership experience, more of a nightmare repairshop experience. I used to have a beautiful 1992 Ford Falcon EB. Had a custom shimmer cherry black paintjob, big $$$$ stereo system, 15" deep dish rims and the cleanest interior ever seen on a car of its age. Anyway, I took the car to this spray shop to get it resprayed coz it had been scratched on the side in a minor accident i had. I took the car to the spray shop 2 weeks before i was leaving for a 3 month trip overseas and this was the noly time i could take the car, so i paid the spray painter and told hiim to give my friend a call to come and get the car when it was ready. Well, the spray painter stripped my car and had it sitting out ready to be sprayed. A week later he declared bankruptcy and made a run for it, leaving my car to sit there in the sand completely stripped where it was vandalized, had the headunit and sony speakers stolen out of it, had the windows and roof all smashed up, had a few panels stolen including the doors with the interior, had engine parts stolen and had the rims stolen and was left on bricks. Basically the car was written off and I lost the whole car and had to leave it there. I was never able to find the spray painter and I had to just write off the car and just like that it was no more.

[airforceone]

That is AWEFUL. I got my stereo and speakers stolen out of Blazer, and that was bad enough. damn, damn,damn......

[MagicRat]

There should be a section for bad repair shop experiences. They are a bigger problem than dealers.

On more than one occasion, I have had to get my car out of a shop just because I don't trust them.

I left a car of mine for differential work at a transmission shop. I called them week after week to check up on it. I left an axle housing with them and the manager was looking around for parts for it, and yes the car was safe etc.

Well, after about 2 months I got pissed off and went to get it. The manager had been fired, no one knew about any work to be done to the car and my parts had disappeared. My car had been broken into and $600 of gauges had been stolen and my dash cut up.

Often, I have found that repair shops cannot or will not do proper work or fix things properly. I have done lots of my own repairs and often the repair shops do not do as good a job as I do.
I have installed lots of tires. Clean the rim and use bead sealer and they do not leak. Repair shop tires ALWAYS have bead leaks on aluminum rims. Its too difficult to take the extra 10 seconds to do the job right.

I have dozens of other examples, but you get the point.