Wilhelm Automotive — Local services in Surprise

So back in August this year just last month, My wife's 2018 Ford Turbo Focus 50,500miles on it started shaking real bad when the a/c would be turned on. and white smoke would come out of the tail pipe, vehicle would shut off no warning lights a/c would stay on and radio would turn off I called Wilhelm spoke to staff explained this is the problem, I brought the car down dropped it off. Next day get a call stating there is nothing wrong with the car at all. No warning lights, or default codes when diagnostic was ran. I thought WOW OK came down and paid 175.00 plus tax came to approx 190.00 dollars for the Diagnostics to be ran they also said if anything happens just bring it back and we will re-diagnose for no further charge. I will mention to this very friendly staff very professional, was upfront explained the diagnostics. I drove the car 4 miles away where I live and the car started sputtering with a/c on almost to the point of shutting off. I turned the a/c off did not help. Staff member did mention sometimes in the desert heat it can make the car do that from running and heating up. Do I drove it to my local Fry's parked it went and did my shopping maybe gone 30mins. Came back started the car got onto N Cotton & W Greenway to make a LH turn to go home. Got the green make my turn and the car shut off on me just in front of the fire station, I managed to roll to a stop just past the front roll up doors. Mind you this is during rush hour traffic. Anybody who know W Greenway at 5ish on a any day is hectic and packed. I managed to get the car started hoping I would make it home. ONE BIG GIANT NOPE. The car had a emergency light that came on and said car shut off extreme heat "Fire" the car shut of me mid traffic had a line of cars behind me, I managed to push / roll the car into the center median. At this point there is Thick "White / Greyish" Smoke pouring out the tailpipe. Shut everything off sat in a hot car for a bit till my wife came offloaded my groceries drove home got a water came back and waited till almost 9pm. I left a message for Wilhelm Staff on their phone. Next day get a call with obviously not great news. Staff tells the engine is mis-firing and there are error code lights this time. They did explain why they didn't catch it the ay before stating what they were looking for from what I explained they did not find any problems. However I find this a bit conflicting I drove the car their day before they find nothing, I pick the car up and 30mins later I'm broken down in rush hour traffic. So I let that go and got down to pricing for what it will take to replace and fix. Come down to it , find out a "Engine Replacement" is needed approximately I believe they quoted 3800K for a used Focus engine for the Turbo model , that might decrease the miles also on the car. and Labor / Parts came out to another 4000K I believe in all the total cost was 7800.00 Plus. We only owe approximately 10K on the car. The staff again was very professional and very nice stating I could take as much time as I needed to decide what to do. I believe a day passed after stressing about how do we come up with that much money to fix the car. The next day I get a call from WiIhelm staff stating they went the extra distance and called Peoria Ford for us as they deal with Peoria Ford on regular basis. Found out that our extended warranty for "Power Train" was extended by FORD for this particular nature of a problem. Not sure if Wilhelm did this to save us money or they truly felt bad for the situation we had to go through. I ended up having to spend another 130.00 dollars to have the car towed to Peoria Ford. We do appreciate the extra effort by Wilhelm it was just a not so great experience breaking down and spending a lot of money we really didn't have. However Ford is fixing our car 100% covered by Power Train Warranty. This was a very weird and unique experience we do appreciate Wilhelm and their efforts to get us taken care of at Peoria...

I'm sure they're going to have a great rebuttal on this one! I have a 2006 Audi, it was making a loud sound, I told him hey check out the drive shaft the center bearing could be bad. They had the car for a few days and then I get the phone call, Well sir my mechanic says there's a special tool to repair your car, and my mechanic doesn't have their tool. Being a mechanic myself, I said the only tool that would really be required is a piece of aluminum with two u bolts to hold the drive shaft together in one piece so it doesn't fold in half when you drop it down. I said I have the tool myself if you'd like to borrow it. I also stated that the worst case scenario would be two people would have to hold the drive shaft as you're taking it out, or you could use a transmission jack stand! Before that phone call the price started changing also and going up. I have aldata and I knew what the hourly rate was for that particular job, and of course because I have that information, they weren't able to soak me for extra money to do the job! Of course once they found out they had a lower the price to what it should actually be. So anyways they didn't wind up repairing my car. I explained to the manager that I believe I know absolutely why, I guess unfortunately for me, I moved out here from the Midwest, and even though my car was garage kept, there's rust on my car. The mechanics out here in a way are so spoiled that they will not work on cars that have rust! Even though Dave told me otherwise, there was no excuse for not doing the work. There was no special tool needed to replace that drive shaft! They did seem kind of nice because they were going to refund me the money for a tow, and I said Great but could you send it to another shop, that was 2 miles further from my house. So they towed it there and that's another story. Anyways I was told it could take up to 10 days to receive a refund for the tow, but then I just got off the phone with Dave and he says because they towed it to another shop, they wouldn't now refund my money. I told him then why did you tell me that anyways? He was told by the higher-ups that because it was towed to a shop I wasn't entitled to a refund. I'm sure the response will focus in on the towing on this, but the real issue is that I was told they only have three mechanics there, and they gave me this lame excuse that they needed a special tool to drop the drive shaft, which again is a mechanic, there is absolutely positively no special tool required. 3 to 4 days wasted there because of incompetent mechanics, and I will say incompetent because again there is no special tool, worst case scenario is that one guy has to grab the front of the drive shaft and another guy has to grab the rear of the drive shaft in order to lower it down so it doesn't fold in half. Yes this is long-winded, but this is an honest review of what happened. When you're a mechanic, repair shops can't take advantage of you. You are their worst nightmare because you are educated. I can tell you to educate yourself before you bring your car in to have work done. The choice is yours. I would not recommend this place simply because the very lame excuse of not having a special tool and having my car sit there for a few days. And obviously none of their three mechanics had the mechanical knowledge to know that you had to bring that drive shaft down evenly, that's all just evenly, and that a transmission jack stand or two people could do the job just fine. Kind of scary. Update, when the car finally got dropped off at my house, it was actually the rear wheel hub assembly that was making the noise and needed to be replaced. But Wilhelm just went with the idea of the drive shaft, obviously they didn't do a thorough diagnostic, big difference between replacing a drive shaft, and replacing a rear wheel hub bearing that even the tow truck driver said hey that thing needs to be replaced! Another reason why I would not recommend this...

Don't believe the reviews on here I would say majority of them are fake and made by employees working here. I came just for an oil Change w/tire rotation and was quoted $1800 after inspection. Obviously as a college student I went somewhere else where I could get an honest quote so I went to brake masters because they aren't commission based and after they inspected my car they told me all I needed was front and back brakes and new transmission fluid all of that with new windshield wipers and brake fluid was $450. Huge difference. They also completely flattened the threads on the screw that went to my oil pan when I never had problems with it before and they made an excuse that the last place must have done that and not told anyone, like really? Be responsible for your own work! So they told me I would need a whole new oil pan. I went to brake masters they said that I wouldn't need that because they can make new threads for a bigger screw so not to worry I wouldn't need a new one. Also at brake masters when they inspected my car they noticed my lug nuts were on backwards and told me straight up they aren't gonna ask where I went but not to ever go back because I could have lost my tire at any time on the road and it's not like your tire popping you would have died or been seriously injured and it's scary because that's something extremely basic that no mechanic should do. As if that's it, as I was waiting at wilhem automotive for my oil change to be finished I watched an old man be charged $150 for a synthetic oil change even though he had a $39.95 coupon which they said to him forget the coupon, the man was shocked like excuse me? They finally went back and forth on prices between 'BROCK' and the woman working to finally make the price go down to $80 something dollars. ALSO, after this I saw a man who came here come in and say he keeps hearing banging in his car after getting it serviced and when they inspected it they found a loose lug nut they didn't even put back on his car. This place is ridiculous they should be happy I didn't take pictures of my lug nuts backwards and sue them for potentially killing me and my 5 & 10 year old siblings who ride with me in my car everyday or report them for investigation because that is just unbelievable I have never experienced anything like...