Southend Auto used to be well known in my family for the care they took on your vehicle, but a negative experience has soured me on them. Mark, the owner has an undeniable customer focused mindset and still let's personally involved in customer resolutions, which I respect. I still cannot justify going back at this point in time, however.
I made an appointment to get my vehicle diagnosed as I was having some problems, some noises upon acceleration and when turning the wheel. It's been a while since this occured, but I remember I gave a laundry list of strange noises and symptoms I was having with my Forc Focus 2012, manual. As they're pretty much only open during the week, I made an appointment for a few days ahead of time, took a day off work in order to drop off my vehicle and get a ride home. I dropped it off first thing in the morning, hoping I would get it back the same day. I didn't get it until the next day I believe, which is understandable considering how busy they are. What is not understandable is when I retrieved it, they hadn't even gotten it on a lift and given it a diagnostic as I was seeking. I was told someone drove it briefly and didn't notice any of the symptoms I dewcribed, and that was the extent of it. Luckily I wasn't charged anything, of course, but the loss of wages and my car's issues no closer to being resolved stung enough.
I get you're very busy, but don't take my appointment if you aren't going to follow through. I lost money by not working that day just to have my vehicle not even looked at thoroughly.
I'm glad for everyone who has positive experiences here, but it's gonna be a pass from me. Also Sam at the front desk was pretty rude to me, I tried to sympathize and build a little rapport with the dude as he seemed frazzled, frustrated, and overwhelmed with other, unrelated business when I had come in to retrieve my car and I mused about how "today is a crappy day for everyone, huh?" To which he scoffed and replied something along the lines of "Actually my day is great, MY car runs." Ouch, dude. I wish Mark the best and hope my experience was just an outlier.
