Latchkey Auto Sales and Service

Very good experience! The garage is clean, organized, and easily accessible. It is not full of junk, dirty, and loud. It was just as tidy as I would keep my own garage at home. I believe small details like this truly re-​flect the underlying work ethic of people. Pride is important.
I had never been here before, just driving by hundreds of times. I had always noticed the sign outside claiming, «drive in now», state inspections, oil change”. Typically a sign like this does not speak true in my experience. I called ahead, John asked if I could get there in the next ten minutes? Wow!
I have a local mechanic already, and I have been very loyal to them for many years. They are great people and a short walk from my home. I am time restricted to get this inspection done with only one day off before it becomes overdue. I called my local people only to find out they were super busy. If I dropped the car there first thing in the morning and left it all day, maybe they might get to it. My bad, should have made an appointment.
Saftey is important and I just turn the key and drive my Toyota Sequoia. At 173,000 miles and fourteen years, it just goes superbly. I knew a couple of things seemed off, but had not confirmed any issues. I did expect to get my sticker without fail. John failed me and my heart sank, here we go…
It did not end there though. He brought me back into the garage bay. Started the vehicle and raised it back up on the lift. He showed me exactly where the exhaust was leaking. He pointed out that clearly a sway bar link had sheared off. The vehicle was lowered and physically manipulated to demonstrate a bad lower ball joint. Concern was raised over the yellowing crazed headlight lenses.
Let’s face it… When I start her up cold, I could hear the exhaust was loud and coming out of the middle somewhere. Driving at highway speeds, something was vibrating and there was a little shudder on the right front side. Probably wearing away my new tires like a pencil eraser. Driving at night with just low beams has been difficult to see very far, if not dangerous.
I am glad he failed me, this stuff needs to get repaird. The Toyota deserves it, she treats us well through these brutal winters. John gave us a hand written estimate. A reasonable, $ 525 to repair everything. I am guessing parts would be about, $ 150. I do not know what the shop rate is? At $ 60 per hour, it would be roughly six hours of labor.
I do all of my own work on my other car, a classic antique. I thought I would try and know a few things off the list before I bring it back to John. I have to do this as cash is tight and I have tools. I polished the headlights and tried to remove the sway bar link. That nut is frozen in place. Still trying to hacksaw it off by hand. I am already six hours into this project with no end in sight.
I feel bad if some people had a bad experience here with John. Cars are tricky disposable items that do not last forever. Things always take longer than expected and mechanics tend to eat the overages. Any dealer you visit these days charge $ 90 diagnostic fees just to tell you what is wrong, without doing any repairs! I am happy to bring my business to a very nice locally owned and operated garage. Forget the bad reviews and give these guys a chance. I did and I have no regrets.

Really disappointed.
To preface, John Bird of Latchkey had done some awesome work on a previous Audi and VW Passat and Corrado that I owned, about 12 years ago. I Moved out of the area about a decade ago, but my family still resides in the Lakes Region area.
During a recent trip to NH to see family, my car had it’s catalytic converter plug up. I initially purchased the parts to do an exhaust job (complete… headers to tailpipe, on a 1988 Crown Victoria), but decided the work was more than I could do without a welder and mandrel bender at my family’s home.
I contacted Mr. Bird, and he agreed to do the work. Work proposed was to bolt on a set of headers, an «H pipe», and weld mufflers on, and custom bend tailpipes to go over the rear axle and out the sides.
I unfortunately did not ask for an estimate or timeframe for such a job, as Crown Victorias are easy to work on, and research showed this was a 4 – 6 hour job, and if parts were brought to the mechanic, $ 400 – 600 in labor.
The job actually took 3 days. I was also charged over $ 880 to install an exhaust on a Ford. As an example, over $ 100 of the job was to install a foot of heater hose from an air tube to the engine, and tighten two hose clamps.
The bad part is… This is a car that uses the old R12 refrigerant for air conditioning. I had, one month prior, spent many hundreds of dollars getting the system leak tested and recharged with the proper, and very expensive R12… As opposed to converting to R134a which is less efficient. The car had a recently inspected and perfectly working A/​C system the day I brought it to him (it was used to defog the windshield en route for delivery).
When I received the car back, the A/​C did not work at all. Due to the design of the engine, it is impossible to install the headers without discharging (and reclaiming the very expensive refrigerant). Either Mr. Bird stole the R12 via reclamation, or just vented it to atmosphere (which is a HUGE EPA violation, as it’s a CFC refrigerant). I now have a car that I’ll have to spend upwards of $ 800 to retrofit to CFC-​free refrigerant, when it was working flawlessly when the car was delivered to him.
There is a large chip in the paint in the leading edge of the hood. The chip extends down the vertical lip on the passenger side, so it would be impossible that it’d be from debris, as it is obscured from view when the hood is closed. This car received a complete paint job in October 2012, and this is now the only blemish.
A hard line (similar to a brake line) was snapped off the driver’s side frame rail, just behind the header. It is an older car, and I understand things break, but he snapped it off and just left it without telling me.
And to top everything else off… The exhaust installed is now rattling against the underside of the car.
I contacted Mr. Bird, the shop owner, for an amicable resolution, and was immediately countered with «you ***holes and your older cars are always trying to get something out of me», as well as numerous other expletives and no chance of any type of help.
I’m no idiot to cars work, and cost of repair. In this case an afternoon, $ 4 – 600 job turned into a 3 day $ 900 job, and he broke over $ 1000 worth of stuff in the process.
Don’t walk… RUN away from John Bird at Latchkey Auto.

Nice enough guy. Went for a ride with me and diagnosed the sound I was concerned about as the left front wheel bearing. BUT seeing my out of state plates perhaps, he gave me a highly inflated repair estimate, noting that he had a ‘special tool’ to use. Had the gall to charge me $ 30 for his 10 minutes on the road with me. While my jaw was still dropped, I had the grace to pay it (call it severance), and put a lot of distance between me and Latchkey! Having the repair done down the road right now, for a reasonable price of $ 100 less.