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Review 3/28/2010
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I took my car in for a smog check, and while initially things looked promising about 20 minutes into the check I noticed that the tech was spending a lot of time looking at the timing of the vehicle. I walked over and asked him what was up, and he showed me that the timing was off. He did so by disconnecting one of the two hoses on the vacuum advance unit attached to the distributor and then plugging the hole in the unit and showed me that the timing was 10 degrees off when he did that. Though I was suspect initially I accepted it assuming that the real mechanic knew what he was doing. He then proceeded to finish the test resulting in a failure of the test due to timing issue he tried to point out.
When I got my car home I proceeded to check the timing myself carefully reading the instructions written on the underside of the hood. It then occurred to me that my original suspicion was correct, he did not properly check the timing! He was supposed to check the timing by disconnecting both vacuum hoses and plugging the hoses not the VAU! Plugging the VAU with one vacuum hose attached causes it to do exactly what it was designed to do advance the timing! I then drove back to fast lane where I proceeded to attempt to tell the technician of his mistake, but he would have none of it convinced that he did it correctly and that I was incorrect he even insisted that I show him how to check the timing which I did! And showed him that it was spot on, I even went as far to show him that what he had showed me earlier was incorrect. He refused to believe me and insisted that I had adjusted the timing and questioned why if I knew how to do the timing did I not tell him when I had the car earlier. He also then insisted that there were other things wrong with the car that would cause it to fail smog despite the fact that the printed report he gave me listed pass next to every item except for the timing check that he did incorrectly. He refused to do anything about it and to retest the car for free because of his mistake. Needless to say I refused to pay him any more money and will now be taking my car elsewhere.
I would stay away from these guys for any purpose, if they are not even competent enough to check the timing on a vehicle I certainly wouldn't want them performing any actual repair work!
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