Very disappointing service from Midas Indooroopilly. Initially went in for a service and diagnostic of a particular problem that was occurring at a specific speed with the car. We described the problem in the contact form and to the receptionist at the time and were told it would be looked at. A number of things were brought up with the car (as expected, it’s a fairly old car) so we went in to discuss what was necessary given our budget and what would address the problem. We were told that the mechanics were unaware that there was any issue as it had not been communicated to them by the reception, therefore not checked. Extremely frustrating considering we had specifically asked for it to be looked at but thought the lack of communication was just a one off. Anyway, after much discussion we narrowed the service list down to issues they believed (couldn’t guarantee, which I totally get) would solve the problem we had now had to describe. These things were done and the work appeared good.
After driving the car post service and work being done, we realised the problem had not gone away and therefore took it back to specifically address the problem. We were told that they believed the problem was likely one of two things, so we decided to go ahead and get those things done. The car was left overnight and we were told we would be called the next day when the work was finished. The day passed with no phone call, so we decided to call back early evening to find out if the car was ready, we were told the car had been ready since the morning but that the problem was still there and they couldn’t figure out what it was, but we were told the car was driving better, given the new changes and that we could pick it up. We thus assumed that the problem had at least been reduced and at least the car had new parts that were driving better. On route (10 minutes later), we called to tell them we were on the way and were told the problem had been found, a completely different issue that had neither come up in the previous service or the two day diagnostic until the very last minute. Despite this, we picked the car up and were told the actual issue was just something that needed to be accepted and was not a safety issue, which we were happy to accept. We drove the car away to find that the problem was now occurring at all speeds, not just the specific speed it originally occurred at. We called the garage the next day to discuss what had happened and why we were told the car was driving better even though it was clearly a lot worse. We were told by the head mechanic that they had discovered when test driving it that the new works had only exasperated the old problem, none of which was communicated to us over the phone prior to picking it up, or when we picked the car up and paid for the work. We asked what our next steps were to addressing the problem and were told that they didn’t know and could not help us further.
We completely understand that fixing a problem can be a guessing game but it feels as though work has been carried out without proper assessment or honest guidance, as the issue was something that was eventually discovered after a full assessment. Irrespective of this, our issue doesn’t lie with the fact that the problem didn’t get fixed but with being led to believe that despite the existing problem, the car was driving much better, which was clearly not true.
Overall, it is just a shame as we believed we were being given good, honest work and advice but have been left feeling extremely naïve and disappointed. We are young people with extremely limited funds and have spent a large portion of our budget on getting the car working properly, to have only been left with a car that drives more poorly than when we first brought it in. Anyway, many lessons have been learnt on this journey, one of which is to never take our car back to Midas Indooroopilly.