Engine and Transmission Exchange

Update:
Because I left this review, the owner contacted me «to try to make things right» (in other words, to convince me to remove my bad review). He didn’t just call me once. He called me multiple times over a few days without leaving a message until I finally picked up. Once on the phone he proceeded to argue with me about my treatment and experience with his shop.
The owner didn’t apologize for how rude his employee was to me. He didn’t apologize for not informing me there was a fee just to look at my car. Nor did he try to assure me that he and his employees were not trying to overcharge me and he definitely didn’t say that this would never happen to another customer.
***I’ll further explain the problems I had with this shop at the end of this update in case anyone is wondering about the fee the owner was talking about in his response.***
Basically, the owner just called to harass me for writing a bad review on his shop. If he had offered to refund the fee that I was wrongly charged or even if he had just assured me that he would do his best to make sure this misunderstanding would never happen again, then I would have been able to put an update on here saying something decent about this shop.
He didn’t do that or anything to correct the situation. He called to argue with me about my review. He must have been having a slow day at the shop.
I stand by my original review even more now. Not only did they try to overcharge me for the work they wanted to do (I found another place to it for over $ 100 less), not only did they force me to give them $ 45 to get my keys back so I could take my car to a decent shop, they called me to harass me for leaving an accurate review of my experience with this business.
To anybody who is reading this or considering taking their car to Engine and Transmission Exchange, I ask you, why deal with all the drama, high prices, and hidden fees that this place has to offer when there are plenty of decent and honest places you can take your car to?
**For anyone that is curious here is my experience with a little more detail:
I had my car towed here in the middle of the night. The owner called me the next day to see what I wanted done. I told him I was pretty sure my alternator needed to be replaced. He said he’d have someone look at it. He never said it would cost any amount of money to look at it.
When they called to give me a quote, the quote they gave me for the alternator was extremely high. I called around and found it much cheaper somewhere else (over $ 100 less).
I think, since I had my car towed there, they thought I would just pay whatever price they came up with, because I couldn’t just drive it somewhere else or maybe it was because I’m a girl. Who knows. All I do know is that it wasn’t hard to find a better priced shop.
I called AAA to see if they would tow it somewhere else. They said they would as long as I didn’t owe the shop my car was at any money. They called the shop to confirm I didn’t and they informed me that the shop said I owed them money. I didn’t know why they had said I owed them money when they had done nothing besides give me a quote.
I called the shop to figure out what was going on. This is when I encountered the rudest employee ever. He said I owed them $ 45 for looking at my car. I asked why no one had informed me of this before they had looked at it. I would never had agreed to that. I already knew my alternator was bad and had told them that. If I knew they would charge me to confirm what I already knew, I would have just asked how much an alternator was. I would have found out how high priced this shop is. Then, I would have gone somewhere else instead of wasting a whole day waiting for them to get back to me and telling a bunch of stuff I already knew.
His employee wouldn’t budge on this fee. He claimed the $ 45 was for all the «work» they put into finding what was wrong with my car. Again, I already knew what was wrong and had told the owner what was wrong during our phone conversation earlier that day.
I’ve never had to pay any other shop to give me a quote to make a repair. If I had asked for a bunch of tests to be done on my car, I would understand why they would need to charge me something, but I basically told him what was wrong with my car. They took it upon themselves to do way more tests than necessary.
My main point is that I was never told there was a fee for looking at my car. Not once during my first conversation with the owner was money or cost mentioned. They didn’t install the alternator without telling me the price first (Thank God!) so why would they do anything else without telling me the price first?

Just went in for an emissions test. It was quick and the people were extremely nice! I will definitely come back again.

I am a college student with an ’04 Jetta. I’m originally from Michigan and do not have a lot of car knowledge. I started hearing a really loud noise coming from my passenger side. When I called ETE Vince was very nice and explained that might be a wheel bearing and I can bring in my car when it’s convenient for me. It was my wheel bearing making the noise. My repair was done quickly and I was happy with the price. I would definitely refer my friends to ETE when they have car troubles.

So far so good. Didn’t give me the news I wanted to hear but they are being honest and upfront. Their customer service is top notch. Every time I spoke to them, they were always pleasant. I hope to never have the need for their services but if the need arise I’ll definitely use them. No doubt giving references too.