Chantilly Auto Repair

Mr. Douglas, I must admit, I’m a bit taken back by the aggressive and slanderous review that you left us this morning. Your name didn’t ring a bell, so I checked our database and sure enough found your vehicle. The strange thing is that the date of the service where you spent $30.00 was March 2021, almost two and a half years ago. We replaced a light bulb and performed a digital inspection. Mr. Douglas, it’s been years since you were here and you only came one time so I couldn’t pick you out of a police lineup, but I do remember your Lexus. I remember it because of the condition it was in. First your Lexus (2004 GX470) with 222,000 miles was brought to us for a knocking noise coming from the right rear of the vehicle. We found the noise was coming from the rear suspension bottoming out due to completely failed rear shocks. We also found that your front axle seal was leaking differential fluid. Nothing else was recommended to you. You can’t have failed suspension parts when doing an alignment because it will never be right. An estimate was given, and you declined the work. One of the many things that differentiates us from our competition is the level of transparency we give to each vehicle that comes through our doors. This level of transparency comes with photographic documentation. You don’t have to take my word on it, but the pictures documenting the condition of your nearly twenty-year-old vehicle with over 200,000 mile do not lie. I have been at Foreign Auto Services for as long as I can remember. I started by sweeping the shop floor and filing invoices. Later after college I worked as a technician and service advisor. I am now the owner along with my brother. We have both worked very hard to build on our father’s legacy of trust and quality service and I stand by our assessment 100%. My name is Carlos and if you dig through the more than 400 5-star reviews you will see my name scattered throughout the many amazing customer reviews. I am sorry that you did not like our assessment of your vehicle and I really hope that in your eyes slandering a small family owned business of 45 years was worth it. Regards, Carlos Owner Foreign Auto Services.

I will address your 3 points, but first I want to address your “SCAM” comment. This was not your fist visit to our facility; in fact, this was not even the only vehicle you brought to us. You have been coming since November of 2021 with not one mention of a scam before this visit. I want it to also be very clear that you have only ever visited us for a highly discounted service via Groupon and done nothing else here in regards to service or maintenance outside the scope of the coupon you purchased. Groupon is a great medium for customers to get to know us and for FAS to connect with folks we might not have ever met otherwise. We perform every one of these Groupons at a loss as we are looking to form relationships. We realize that there will be customers, like yourself, that will never reciprocate in our relationship and that is okay, because there are so many other great customers we get to meet and interact with. However, you seem hell bent on destroying a reputation we have spent 45 years building because we made one error and you didn’t like the other facts presented to you. Groupon has a very negative reputation in our industry as there is a perception that the only folks that will visit a shop with coupon are “bottom feeders”. Individuals that will only do what the that coupon prescribes and nothing more. Furthermore, those same individuals will have poorly maintained vehicles that make performing said service more costly for the facility and time consuming. And then if anything is even perceived to have gone wrong (e.g. they hear something they don’t like about that state of condition of their vehicle), then the business is to blame and all measures are deployed to damage the reputation of a business that was/is giving them a service at cost. While we have encountered the above mentioned Groupon customer they are are far and few between. The overwhelming majority are just looking to try out a shop at a low risk/cost scenario to build a rapport and find a shop they can trust. That being said, the few bad apples we get are making us reconsider our partnership with Groupon. Sir, I would lump you in with the bad apples in this scenario. In 5 visits you have not reciprocated in this relationship and only taken advantage of the discounted service, while there is nothing wrong with that and we expect some of these the negative review for an accurate diagnosis really makes you the worst of the worst. I wish I could share the link of your vehicle’s inspection with photos, but unfortunately there is personal information on there we won’t risk sharing. Point 1: You are correct in that an oil change was recommended when not needed. This happens even though we have many procedures in place to prevent it. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have already had a discussion with the team here to ensure those procedures are better adhered to. Point 2: Just because another inspector passes a vehicle that our inspector fails does not mean those items you failed for pass. It is difficult to make out in the photos, but oil contamination on belts does fail VA Safety. It is more clear that your rear shocks are leaking in the photo. This will also cause your vehicle to fail safety inspection. This was all explained to you. Point 3: We did not charge you for anything. You purchased a Groupon for AC service. We redeemed it and performed the inspection that is part of the service. We found an issue that prevented us completing the service that needed to be rectified before continuing. You were advised of this and accused us of damaging your vehicle. This last point you made is so absurd I won’t even address it. In closing, the relationship you and FAS share is not mutually beneficial and never has been. Therefore, it may sound coarse, but I’m actually not sorry to see you go. Best of luck to you and thank you for the feedback. The team has been re-trained. Luis Owner

Hello Baba, I searched our database for your name and several variations with no luck. I also went through our alignment database and was unable to find a vehicle in the last few weeks with the alignment specs you mention. I then went much further back to May 18th and found your vehicle and subsequently your information. This is the second review you posted, though that one was under the name we have in our database, for the same matter that we had responded and for which you subsequently removed. I’m not sure if this a tactic that you are using to try and hurt our business, but you seem very spiteful and out to do damage not present facts. As was explained to you at the time of service your vehicle has no adjustment for front caster or front camber. However, you do have rear adjustments for camber and toe which were adjusted and looking at your specs it looks like everything looks pretty good to include front toe. While your front camber is a bit out of spec (0.08º is the max) it’s not so bad as to cause any kind of drivability issue or lead to abnormal/excessive tire wear. To be clear these are fractions of a degree. Now, why are there different before and after readings if there is no adjustment? If I were to make and educated guess I would look at how bad your front and rear toe along with your equally bad rear camber and surmise that it is a wonky front camber reading when we first compensated the targets. However, after adjustment of the toe (which will change camber slightly depending on suspension geometry) and first getting the back pretty darn good we got a better reading on the targets. And this could account for the small change. To surmise, your alignment was adjusted as per factory specs at all adjustable points. Your focus on what could be a ghost reading for an angle there is no adjustment for and blaming us for not adjusting it or causing it to change (BTW I would rather have a 0.3º vs -0.55º in regards to tire wear) is pretty disingenuous. Not to mention the charge back you performed on your credit card. So, you got the best alignment your car is going to get and didn’t pay for it, but still felt it proper to leave a one star review in as many places as you could. I hope your pettiness get’s better. Best of luck!! Luis Owner

Mr. Xu, Thank you for the opportunity to respond to you on this platform as my response to you on Groupon is not seen by you, but my response here is. First, to address the camber and caster adjustment on your vehicle - your Volkswagen does not come equipped with either camber or caster adjustment. The only adjustment that can be made for your application is the toe. This was explained to you at the time of service. You mentioned a change in the before and after for those measurements. The change is in the hundredths of a degree not tenths and the reason for this is air flow in our shop that can cause slight movement on the cameras attached to the alignment boom. I have responded with the same information to the credit card company on your chargeback dispute. Again, and I can’t be any clearer, there are no adjustments for caster and camber on your vehicle. If there was, we would adjust it to the manufacturer’s specification. I am more than happy to have you bring in your vehicle so I can show you in person. Please let me know when a good time for you would be. My telephone number is 703-591-5225. Kind regards, Carlos Owner