Lafayette Automotive

AC was working, but compressor was making noise and the system was leaking freon. Stopped by for a quote to resolve any issues. They advised it would be $ 475 to resolve. Brought it in the following morning at 8am. Before lunch the shop called to advise the condenser also needed replacement, which drove the cost up to ~$ 900. This seemed excessive given replacing the drier is extremely simple and those cost less than $ 20. Reluctantly I took their advice. They tried to ease my concern by advising if we did all this as they suggested, the entire system would be covered by their 1 year warranty. Decided to take their advice and they said the car would be ready in a few hours. A few hours after lunch they called back to advise the total cost was now ~$ 1100 because the compressor cost more than they thought it would be. AC repair is what this business specializes in; how do you provide quotes without knowing what replacement parts cost?
A month later I’m now 500 miles away and the system stopped working completely. I called to explain the problem and they walked me through doing a few tests on the system over the phone. Turns out all the freon had parted ways with the confines of the system. Adding a little freon enabled the pressure switch to function properly and the AC cut on. Now I had to make a 1000 mile trip before they could fix the problem. After checking the car out, they said it needed an evaporator because it was leaking for an additional $ 500. This seemed odd since the system had been leaking originally and they told me the evaporator didn’t need replacing on the first visit. When I inquired about the warranty for the ‘entire system’, its complete coverage had been reduced to include everything but the evaporator. Given the poor quote quality of the first visit, combined with the fact they didn’t find/​fix the original leak, and the logistical nightmare to repeatedly bring the system back for additional stuff they failed to identify… no thank you.
More than cost, my expectation for getting repair work done is getting it done right the first time. Even if I hadn’t lived so far away, it would be a pain to continually come back for this and that. The creeping quoted cost and failure to cover the entire system when they claimed it would be covered only add insult to injury. In their defense, the owner did offer to refund $ 100 for the hassle incurred. As much as I appreciate the gesture, it doesn’t account for the ~$ 600 creep in cost for the first visit or the additional $ 500 they attempted to charge on the second visit. I don’t believe what they did was malicious, just careless. Layayette Automotive suffers from lackadaisical estimates, failure to verify original problems were resolved before sending work out the door, and failure to analyze how a sequence of events they created affect customers.