I recently had a car accident and was referred by my insurance agency to a "guaranteed" repair shop. So far so good.

I dropped the car off, signed the various papers and was told I would be contacted shortly about the time it was going to take. I asked that they check over the car to see if everything was working correctly since it was making a lot of noise and the check engine light was on. Just to be safe.

Since it was a front end collision on a cheap Echo, I knew that it would not be too quick but after three weeks, they still had not gotten it finished.

But that's not the worst part. Once it was finished, I came back to the shop to be told there was another part still needed but the car could be taken.

The chief mechanic then told me that there was a problem with the engine due to wear and tear and that I should consider replacing the engine as it was about to die.

Of course, this was after doing $4000 in work on the body. When I asked him why this was not told to me before the work, I wasn't given a good answer. The only consistent thing he kept saying was that he was not responsible for damage not happening from the accident which had nothing to do with my original request to check out the engine and let me know if there were any problems.

I would never have had the car fixed if I had know that it was dead in the first place. Now I have $4000 on my insurance which means higher rates, a new car that I could have used the $4000 to pay down and gotten a much better financing rate and an irate wife who still tells me that something must have been my fault.

This company is not one to deal with and as far as I can tell, purely circumstantial, they basically tried to rip off the insurance agency.

That part is still being resolved and when it is, I will rate the insurance company here also.