*****ery from Colin's

My wife, who drives a 2005 Mazda 3, had been going to Colin Auto Repairs for a while so despite the fact they moved further away from us, to a much larger premises, she took her car there a while ago for a service. She was then phoned and told her car needed new front shock absorbers and she gave them the go-ahead to do the replacement. When we went to fetch the car, it was barely driveable, veering all over the road, so the next day we took it back. We were then told it had been sent for wheel alignment and was fine (surely wheel alignment after replacing shocks is standard practice and should have been done the first time?). Well, fine it was not! Every time my wife went over a small bump or through a dip in the road (never mind a pothole!), there was an ear shattering t******* noise coming from the front right-hand side of the car. This was not there before the shocks were replaced, so we took it back to Colin's AGAIN. After already having forked out R15291.55 for the service/shock replacement, we were told the problem was a broken engine mounting and faulty control arms. We were quoted R2054 (ex VAT) for the supply and fitting of the engine mounting and R2750 (ex VAT) for the supply and fitting of new control arms. We decided to get a second opinion and took the car to the Westgate branch of CarTime. They were absolutely brilliant! They removed the right-hand shock and discovered it had been incorrectly installed, with the feeder rod out of place and unable to sit in the groove in the shock housing. They worked their magic and eventually got the shock properly seated, charging us the measly sum of R486.50 for their efforts. Since then the car has been fine and the noise is gone. The question is: Why were we quoted for a new engine mounting and control arms (both of which CarTime confirmed were perfectly fine) by Colin's if those were unnecessary? Colin's won't be seeing us again!