B & L Automotive

My husband and I recently took our car (a more than 10-​year-​old domestic) to B&L to have its air conditioning repaired. B&L kept our car (our only car, by the way… try living in Metro Detroit without a car) for almost two full days. The repair cost us nearly $ 600, but the air conditioning barely worked when we ran it over the next several days. At best, it blew out cool air, but it was more often luke warm. My husband called back and and made an appointment for 9:00 AM on a recent Tuesday. He told the mechanic that I (his wife) would be bringing in the car since I had been the one driving it and since I would be able to explain the problem. The mechanic told my husband that he would be there that day «by» 9:00 AM.
On the morning of the appointment, I got there about 20 minutes early. 9:00 AM came and went without any sign of the mechanic or anyone else. Just before 9:30AM a mini-​van pulled in. A few minutes later, a guy got out of the mini-​van and approached me. He told me the mechanic was running late. Believe me! I noticed! I had a 9:00 AM appointment, and it was now 9:30 AM. I asked how much longer it would be before Sam arrived, and this guy told me that he’d be there around 10:00 AM. I just about had a heart attack. First, we had to leave our car there for almost 48 hours and pay hundreds of dollars for air conditioning that didn’t work, and then the mechanic was going to be an hour late for an appointment we should never have had to make? I was furious! I told the guy to call the mechanic to let him know that an irate customer was waiting for him. This guy went back to his car to call Sam. A little while later, he returned to let me know that the mechanic would be there sooner. As he spoke, the mechanic pulled in. If he was that close, why was he more than a half hour late? The mechanic was barely apologetic for being late, and he made excuses. He even went so far as to tell me that he had told my husband to leave the keys to our car in the drop box before B&L opened. Not true. Not true.
I left B&L on foot around 10:05 AM, more than an hour after I was supposed to «drop off» the car. I was stuck in Ferndale all that morning and part of the afternoon waiting for the mechanic to call me to let me know the car was finally repaired. I never received a call, so I finally walked back to B&L to see what was going on. He was not pleased to see me and delivered more excuses. The car was ready, and he did not try to charge me any more for his work. However, he explained that the air conditioning would not work at its optimum potential because the compressor is not working correctly. Well, we brought in our car to have the air conditioning repaired. Perhaps the compressor should have been replaced in the first place? The mechanic never even gave us that option. He «repaired» part of the problem (e.g., supposedly a leak and the condenser) over the course of almost three days, but our air conditioning still doesn’t work properly. We’ll go somewhere else to have that compressor replaced, but we won’t be back to B&L.

Great job! ’03 Jag with 165K miles on it, so you know I’m on the lookout for a good local mechanic.
Car was leaking coolant all over the place and it had to be done.
They fixed it and the mystery knocking I was hearing on startup is also gone.
I much prefer local, and they are right across the street from me. I am thrilled to have someone this close that will work on my car.