Beware: Terrible Experience with Duggy's Garage

I just took my 3rd gen 4Runner I recently bought to Duggy's for a full inspection for $150. Knowing that the car needed a ton of work I picked Duggy's because they're Toyota "experts" and come recommended by Toyota enthusiasts. I've only owned primarily modded Toyotas and Lexus' and know the value in a specialists shop. I chose to address all the issues they found from the inspection through them. The bill originally came out to $2,600. A lot of money but I was more concerned about quality of work rather than price. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

Duggy's had my car for over 2 weeks. The timeline wasn't an issue as it was a spare car. However a few days later I got a call from the shop saying that the original quote they made me sign was misquoted wrong on their side by $600. The only option they gave me was "come pick up your car if you don't want to do the work" although it was an error on their side. I agreed to it anyways because I had faith in their ability to do the job right the first time. As they were putting it back together they found a misfire and the bill shot up again. However, I just took the car to a reputable shop prior to Duggy's to address the same issue. They fixed the misfire and it never showed up again until it was at Duggy's. Frustrated, I decided to just eat the cost anyways.

Not even a day after I picked up the car the all new belts that they replaced were making a lot of noise on startup. I quickly called Duggy's and let him know how frustrated about the misquote, the misfire, and the belts making noise. Duc only offered for me to bring it back for them to fix and give me a rental. So I took off from work yet again and brought it back. The same day they called me back and said it was fixed. Literally as I started the car up still at their shop the belts were still making noise. Due to my work schedule I had no choice but to head back to work and deal with it at another time.

A few days later Duggy's texted me to check on the belts and I let them know that the issue still isn't fixed. They offered me to bring it back yet again. At this point I don't have a whole lot of faith in their ability to fix something as minor as noise from the belts. You can clearly hear the belts screeching every time I start it up. I asked for a partial refund via text and haven't heard anything back from them since.

Devin and Duc initially seem like really nice guys but I don't know if I'd trust this shop to do quality basic maintenance work. They don't seem to have any respect for a customers time or money. I stayed patient and even gave them the opportunity to fix the issues. Pretty disappointed in this shop. I had plans to completely build my 4Runner through their shop but I guess I'll have to take my money elsewhere.

 

$117.19 just to check fluids? $480.95 for plugs and coil?

 

Can't say I'm proud of spending that much. But I work 70+ hours a week running a business and I was looking for peace of mind. Really thought I was "getting what I paid for" by going to them.

 

@duggys

 

I work on cars all the time but when I need something done that I cant do myself I have a mechanic that I can trust. Finding a good one is like gold when you have to go through all the riff raff out there. Word of mouth is the best way to go. I see people taking their cars to the dealership thinking they will get the best service but I cringe when I see that. I worked at several dealerships over the years and they are the worst. I liked Duggys saying they are Toyota experts. Some mechanics may specialize on certain brands but any good mechanic can fix any car. That made me question the expert part.
Good mechanics dont have to advertise. Good mechanics are always busy. Start asking people you meet who works on their cars. There is a Duggys on every corner looking for people to jerk over. I had one mechanic I know who doesnt work on my cars say to me one time that he knows how to read people and what he can charge. Good luck!

 

Here's where that logic failed me for the first time. Duggy's is busy. Duggy's did come recommended. They only have 5 star reviews on google prior to me posting my 1 star review. I asked around prior to going to them. I've used a comparable Toyota shop in Kansas City called Adventure Motors in the past and have had nothing but good things to say about them. Everything checked out.

 

It'd be ironic to see if they'll reply to this since they just stopped texting me back.

 

For reference, this was considered "fixed".

 

Maaaaaannnnn.......

You are being taken for a ride.

Jump off. Find another shop. Hells bells....I doubt Toyota would be much more expensive. Least you'd stand chance for recourse.

 

We definitely made some mistakes on this visit. It's very humbling and embarrassing to be chastised publicly. I take these types of threads very seriously and want to personally apologize to you TJ. I started this shop 3.5 years ago and we have seen an explosive growth on the Toyota Overlanding market in Houston. This does not come with it's own set of challenges, one that we faced here with TJ. I have been on the other side of automotive shops as a customer. The process was always very fuzzy and not transparent, and I set out to resolve a lot of those issues I saw. Toyotas (especially the offroad market) never saw any love and was for a long time considered the underdog compared to Jeeps and full-sized domestic trucks. I hope to provide some detail behind the visit, but can understand the damage has already been done by us.

When a vehicle arrives at our shop, we always do a no-wrench inspection on the vehicle. This involves getting the vehicle up in the air and running a check for anything obvious underneath. On a paid inspection, customers want to know more in-depth about what repairs the vehicle needs. These are old vehicles, so we remove the skid plates, open the engine covers and try to get a feel for general condition of the vehicle running our 43-point inspection process. We take pictures with a comment on what we are seeing and send to our customer in PDF format. This lays out everything on the table on our findings, and we quote the work to be done, to be approved by the customer using our software. In this case, we mis-quoted the work by a large sum (over $600). The rear main seal was leaking, and although it is a cheap part to acquire from Toyota, it involves a lot of labor and correct tooling to complete the job. We have to remove the starter, transmission (&TC if 4WD), driveshafts. Our system grossly underquoted the job. I asked Devin to confirm the labor hours on the job, and to get approval from TJ before we started the job. I wanted to be transparent on everything, and make sure that we are all on the same page.

In the process of performing the valve cover gasket repair job, my technician replaced both valve cover gaskets along with the spark plug tube seals. In this, we check the condition of the spark plugs along the way to make sure oil has not caused any issues with corrosion from heat cycles. All checked out on this job, and he proceeded to put everything back together. Upon initial startup, we found that there was a intermittent mis-fire on our QA checks. It would happen every so often, but enough to notice. We cannot send out a vehicle like this. Upon further investigation, we found the spark ignition wire had corroded the ignition coil contact on the middle cylinder bank. If you are familiar with the 5VZ, there are 3 coil packs with plug wires that run to the opposite bank. The misfire only affected one cylinder. Again, for sake of transparency, we contacted TJ to approve the work to get it done.

For the elephant in the room, the squealing belts. I can understand how frustrating a set of screaming belts can be in the morning. It's just a reminder of the unhappy experience you've had at my shop every time it happens. We initially diagnosed the drive belts with cracks in them. After approval, we replaced them and tensioned to the recommended 1/4" tension. In some vehicles, the OEM belts can stretch and cause a squeak. Since this system does not run an hydraulic auto-tensioner, some may stretch and squeak. After alerting us there was an issue, we offered a loaner to try and alleviate the issue with what we thought was the correct step, to re-tension the belts. My tech found that the belts stretched, and adjusted tension on all 3 drive belts. What we missed on this step, was to take this a step further and to remove the belts one by one to see if we can find the exact cause of the issue. There is definitely something else causing the squeal, and we failed to find it. This accomplishes a couple items. 1) We can find out which belt is in fact squealing 2) We can diagnose if it's an issue that we can't see, like a timing belt idler squealing that we can't see. Tensioning the belts twice should have resolved the issue, but in this cause it didn't.

At the end of the day, we did fail you TJ. You trusted us to perform work on your 4Runner while you're busy at your own small business. I want to make this right, but I think I may have missed that opportunity. This is the first negative review I have had from a customer. With the explosion in the Toyota 4WD market, we have been along for the ride. Community is huge to our success, but if we lose trust in the community we have nothing left. My name is on every vehicle that goes out of the shop, and I am disappointed in myself that we let this one go. Again, from one enthusiast to another, I apologize. Let me know how we can make this right and regain your trust.

-Duc Nguyen

 

Seems reasonable, unlike other companies that get called out here.
Hopefully this spurs an amicable solution.

 

I am very interested in how exactly this gets made right. I recently asked for a quote on a full suspension upgrade based on the previous good reviews. Now I’ll be comparing the quote to other reputable shops in Houston.

 

They royally boned you ... I hope they provided the lube .. the repair costs are outrages . Personally I would of just picked it up the first time when they told you it would be additional amount . Sounds like this shop is just scamming people with the old oh we found this now . Any reputable shop would do a inspection of the truck and give u a upfront repair cost in writing and you decide from there .

 

All.....be respectful.

This is between TJ and Duggy's.

Our additional thoughts mean diddly squat or less.

 

the man apologized and offered to make it right...whats there to hate? we are all perfect human beings and never ever made a mistake in our lives.

 

ive had changed belts out on my 2004 v6 5vz engine at least 3 times with NEW belts and have never had a racket like that going on, and im a novice maintainence mechanic not a pro- shop Toyota shop, OP should at least be reimbursed for the Labor on that job. and give him back the $156 post purchase inspection cost WTF is that

 

In my experience no matter how good you are or how great your service is we all have a bad day. Sometimes it’s an item that gets overlooked, sometimes it’s just tolerance stacking, but it happens.

I always maintain (assuming a good reputation exists) that it’s how a person or company recognizes, acknowledges and remediates the problem to be the real measure.

Based on the owners post, I’d let Duggy’s have another crack at it presuming....

That either the fix paid for was done improperly and any correction is free.

or

If the problem is deemed to be something else, all costs to date to ‘fix’ the misdiagnosis are refunded....new product installed and all labour.

I will add that calling a customer to get permission to proceed with previously unquoted repairs isn’t ‘transparency’....negative option billing is illegal.

 

This one seems pretty simple. Shop needs to go pick up the truck from the owner and drop him off something to drive. Deliver it back to him once it's fixed and verify with him when you do that he is satisfied with the repair. Follow up a week later to make sure all is still good. Any reasonable cost involved in the fix is on the shop. Shit happens, but when it does the customer shouldn't have to bring the truck back twice to make it right.

 

The shop is here talking with OP, it's between them, not us. I think it's a good deal the shop even replied.....