Never going back to them

We've been going to Monte Vista Workshop for many years, thinking they were always trustworthy and did good work, however, I am very unhappy with my recent experience.

Firstly, years ago, I pointed out that the radiator fluid was horribly rusty, and I asked Piet to clean it. He said it's fine, the car still runs and you don't need to clean it. Fast forward several years and my car had a water leak, which I took to Piet to fix. It took a few days for him to find the leak and he had to replace one of the welsh plugs, because EVERYTHING WAS RUSTY. Off I went thinking my car was fixed, but now the gear shifting was very bad with a lot of shudder, which I couldn't understand, as it was fine before.

Two weeks later I was stuck on the side of the road with another BAD water leak and an overheating engine.

Firstly, when I called, the office lady told me to come in on Thursday afternoon. When I went, Piet was surprised to see me and said he couldn't help me because he was too busy... then the office lady said "I told you not to come on Thursday". Either she's dof or crazy. I then took the car in on Monday, and Piet told me he could see the car was going to leak again because the other welsh plug was also rusty, but he "didn't want to look for the ****** behind the mountain". SO HE LET ME BREAK DOWN ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD INSTEAD?! It would have been quick and easy to change the other welsh plug the first time, so why didn't he?! He then had the audacity to charge me again for a job he should have fixed properly the first time.

In addition, he suggested he replace the clutch because, according to him, usually it is worn and since he's working on the car, he might as well do it. Trusting him, I said, if he thinks it should be replaced, I agree to it. Then they started doing mad things with the billing. They wanted me to pay the supplier for parts directly. I agreed to do it, if they supp**** the invoice, which they would not do. As I was not the customer of the parts supplier, they in turn would not give me the invoice either. Eventually Piet agreed to get the parts, and I would just pay him. Fine.

He then told me I must come and pay for the repairs at 9am the next day. I said it is difficult for me to get there that early as I have to walk 30min to get there, and I'll be there as soon as I can. He called me at 9:30am telling me I had to come immediately because he needed to leave and no one would be there the rest of the day. So I had to drive my other old vehicle that I have in storage to get there immediately to accommodate Piet. He was agitated and claimed to be in a huge hurry and rushed me to pay a large bill for all this work that, in hind sight, I think was not necessary in the grand scheme of things. He said thank you and now he can leave, and he ran off.

Now I had two cars in the parking lot. So I had to drive one home and walk back to get the other one. When I got back to the workshop about half an hour later, there's Piet, carrying on business as usual. He wasn't in a hurry, he didn't need to go anywhere, he was just acting, for what reason, I don't know.

To top it off, the gear shift was worse, even though he supposedly put in a new clutch. I asked for the old clutch and he said he sent it away. I told him to go get it because I'm coming back for it, which I did. I got A clutch, I don't know if it was actually MY clutch. To put it in perspective, my car has less than 60,000km on it, so did I actually need to replace the clutch?

What kind of service is this? I'm very unhappy with their conduct and their service, and my car was still not right.

I went to another mechanic to fix all of this, it ended up costing me a lot. Save yourself the trouble. This place doesn't do good work, you end up with your car back in the workshop and paying more. I have to wonder if they do it on purpose. I'm not going back to Monte Vista Workshop, obviously.