aksnowbrder

Alright well I haven't, in case this goes to court or something, done as well as I should have about keeping track of this and documenting everything, but I figure the least I can do is post up here so other people know and decide where to take their business with some information.

About 4 months ago one of my HID bulbs went out- I had had a 4300k HID kid retrofitted by the previous owner with the bi-xenon bulbs so both high and low beams would come out of the same projector. They worked perfectly for about 2 years and then one of them started to have problems, flickered for a while and finally went out. I do car audio and wiring for a living, so it would be no big deal for me to have replaced it on my own but it's hard for me to find the time with my schedule so I figured I'd head over to East coast, right down the road from me. I've taken my business there before and never had a problem so I didn't think twice about it. 4 months later, I'm thinking twice.

They tell me that the ballast for my HID kit had fallen out and was no longer in the bay, so I say cool I figured it needed replacing anyway, go ahead and order a new kit for me and put it in. They say they have to order it and I need to prepay the labor- ends up being around 350 parts and labor, no biggie. Neither of my fog lights were working at the time so the guy there (Mark) tells me he's gonna have them swap in the old HID's from my headlights to the fog lights and make them work, and that they had temporarily made my headlights work until the new kit comes in.

My kit comes in, I can't remember if they had called me or I just stopped to check and see if it was there, and I pick it up. I hadn't had the time to take the car in for another 2 months or so and then one of the headlights goes out again. So I take the car in and drop it off, say I need it back by the next day at 4 before work. All goes smoothly, I pick the car up with a working HID kit (they didn't put my old ones in the fog lights like he told me, but whatever, I hadn't paid them to do that so I wasn't gonna bitch). The next day I realize two things- The passenger high beam isn't working, and the high beams cut off altogether if i pulled the switch all the way. They only work if I flicked the switch and held it there.

Strapped for time, I figure I have working headlights so its not a huge priority and I'll take it when I have time. Then a few days later, the driver headlight goes out again. I pop the hood and see what they had done- ran bare wires basically directly through my timing belt and alternator pulley, of course they got tore up and chewed over time and caused the light to go out.

So about 3 weeks ago I took it back to them and said heres everything that you guys did wrong I need you guys to fix it by tomorrow at 3 because I have work. They say ok, we'll take care of you. I come by the shop at 3, the car HADN'T EVEN BEEN TOUCHED. A guy walks out with me and fiddles with the wiring for a bit, said "what the hell did you you to this, this is a backwoods install" and I said "I never touched the wiring but I know what it looked like before and it was nothing like that, so that's all from you guys". He goes on and on about how its a shotty job and proceeds to GET IN A VERBAL FIGHT in front of me with the guy who apparently did the labor because that guy apparently didn't want to come fix his mistake.

I didn't have time for this because I still had to get to work, so I told the guy, look just fix it and I'll be back tomorrow at 10 am to pick it up. I show up the next day and the car was in the shop STILL not ready for now the third day. I walk in and the guy tells me that it was the wrong HID kit, and that they used the pre-existing wiring to wire it up so the reason it got chewed up was cause of the previous install. Two problems: I know exactly what the previous install looked like, and two, it never had an issue with the wiring til they touched it.

I present these issues to the guy and he says "we don't even have those wire colors here so I know it's not our wire". The wire colors were BLUE, YELLOW, RED, and BLACK. Any shop that does any wiring of any car for any reason, EVER, has those colors. They're the most common colors in the 12v industry. But once again I'm almost late for work at this point so I just say, give me the keys and make it right. They made the headlights both work, my high beam indicator is always on and as far as I know, so are the high beams because the HIDS throw light all over the road, and they tell me they have ordered a new HID kit for me. Fast forward about 2 weeks, still hadn't heard ONE thing from them. Gave them a call, only then do they tell me the kit is on back order, and that's where we stand now.

Take your business there if you want, but I definitely won't be again.

HatefulMechanic

Did you honestly expect something different than a company using a Z in their name?

TongWoo

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to HatefulMechanic again"

EGAS

Another bad service that will go unreported. I think the best story was the owner of the supra who paid for electric blue and picked it up black. All while being convinced he asked for it to be black never once in writing.

DOOM

I've always been happy with ddm tuning and their hid kits.

I'm not gonna pay a outrageous amount locally, 50 bucks for a hi/lo kit