Bret's Autoworks

I had a front end alignment among other issues, I feel like the car is still drifting to the right.

Did a great job getting me back on the roaf

The windshield wiper transmission broke on my Mazda 3 a couple of weeks ago.  At that time, it seemed like it was raining everyday making the car unusable because I couldn’t take the risk of getting caught in the rain.  In a rush to get the issue fixed quickly, I took it to Bret’s because they could take the vehicle sooner than my local Mazda dealer.  As a rule, I only take my vehicles to their respective dealers, but I broke that rule thinking that Bret’s could surely fix a simple windshield wiper transmission.  That was a poor decision on my part.  

Before picking up the vehicle for THE FIRST TIME, they called me and told me that they needed the vehicle longer because they had broken the windshield and would replace it at their expense.  Note that this was the only positive part of the experience in that I got a free new windshield.  However, this should have been a warning sign of the ineptness of their technicians.  When I finally picked up the vehicle, the wipers had three issues: the wipers didn’t completely wipe across the driver’s side of the windshield, both wipers would wipe down too far and bang at the bottom of the windshield and the driver’s side wiper hinge squeaked terribly.  Supposedly Bret’s thought this was considered FIXED.  I’m a test engineer by trade, and it is usually common practice to fully test a device once it has been repaired to make sure EVERYTHING is operating properly.  I brought the vehicle back to Bret’s, told them of the issues to try to get it corrected.  The second time I picked up the vehicle, they had only fixed the issue with the wiper not completely wiping across the driver’s side of the windshield. When I took the vehicle back the third time, I not only told them what was wrong, but I demonstrated the issue with the squeak and the wipers banging against the bottom of the windshield.  They decided to order a second wiper transmission and replace the part again.  However, when I picked it up, while the wipers no longer squeaked and no longer banged against the bottom of the windshield, the driver’s side wiper now wipes off the windshield past the edge of the car.  The experience at Bret’s is a clear indicator that their technicians don’t thoroughly test their work and have no brains what so ever.  I plan to not take any of my vehicles back to Bret’s and to advise my friends to do the same.

I use Bret’s for all my repairs. They are reasonable and fair. I was concerned on this visit because diagnosing a brake noise, repairing it and rotating the tires literally took All day. I think they were having staffing issues that day. Hopefully that’s not a long term problem.