East Setauket Automotive

Waste of time, waste of money, and overall just a bad experience! I don't recommend coming here for any complicated job.



I called East Setauket Automotive for a quote on a clutch replacement on a Tuesday. Mike was super nice and informative about everything telling me that a clutch replacement is a long job and that they would have to take out the transmission and all of that... So overall, there would be a lot of labor on the car and the clutch itself would be expensive. (I already knew this; I talked to many other people about it beforehand.) But Mike seemed reasonable and he was telling me that he would offer me a good deal on the clutch repair. He quoted it to $950 and if I paid in cash, I wouldn't have to pay tax. Fair enough! I made an appointment on Wednesday to drop off my car on Friday morning when they opened. He told me that the job should only take one day, but at the latest, I should have my car back by Saturday. That seemed fair. Two days for a clutch repair sounded a bit slow but reasonable. We also asked for an oil change with the clutch replacement..



I come in on Friday morning and I meet the receptionist Sue. Apparently, on the paperwork, I was quoted for $1000. Now... 50 dollars really isn't that big of a deal, but I absolutely HATE when I'm told one thing on the phone and then another when I come in. So it's really not about the money, it's about the principle of sticking to your word. So I argued with Sue about the quote and only when I said I'd rather take it to another place did she finally write on the quote that it was -maybe- $950. (Tek Automotive Repair in Kings Park quoted me a little more than $1000 for the clutch repair but said they wouldn't be able to start the car until Monday. I chose this place because the price was a bit lower and I figured the job would get done on Saturday.)

And then, Sue tells me that they still needed to order the part and they probably wouldn't start working on it until Saturday.... And they might be able to finish the job on Saturday but probably not so most likely I wouldn't have the car until Monday.



.....So when I talked to Mike, he told me a lower price AND a faster job. Getting the clutch replaced went from finishing on Saturday to Monday. I told them that I needed to get to work and that I would be getting rental cars so spending more time on the car would pose a VERY big inconvenience to me. Honestly? They really just didn't care.



My car wasn't even finished on Monday!!! They had ALL of Friday, ALL of Saturday, ALL of Monday and they still didn't finish the job!!! I work in Nassau county and its an hour away from the repair shop... I have over 400 dollars in rental car fees (Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues: 5 days in car rentals) making the job MORE expensive than if I just went to another repair place and they didn't even give me an oil change! To make matters worse.... You would think that after having FOUR full work days to repair a clutch, they would get the job done right without any issues... But alas!



I receive my car back on Tuesday afternoon... As I was driving it to work Wednesday morning my "check engine light" came on... I stopped by a place by my work place in Syosset to get my oil change and see what was going on.. The mechanic there tells me that I have A LOT of OIL LEAKING out of my engine and it was coming out of the left axel.... Apparently, they either broke or forgot to put my axel seal on while putting the car back together.



SERIOUSLY? They had 4 days to get a clutch replacement done, and they couldn't even do it right! What if I didn't go to get my oil changed and too much oil leaked out and killed my transmission? I had to take the car back and get ANOTHER CAR RENTAL. This is really ridiculous. Everyone that I talked to about this can't believe that a car repair can mess up this badly and not care about how much they've inconvenienced you. I've told all of my stony brook friends about it and they were horrified.