SEARS

I drive for a living & had over 200,000 mi. on the Pilot when I went to Sears for this service. The shocks were OEM. I had called my regular mechanic to get a quote & timetable from him, then went to Sears for an evaluation & quote from them. Sears gave me a quote of a little more than $200 less than my regular mechanic. (It seems they have very cheap, fixed labor rates on shocks & struts work!) The most important thing for me, however, was Sears being open until 8 p.m. & able/willing to do the work when I got home about 4 p.m. I would have had to leave my car w/ my regular mechanic & rent a vehicle for my business for that day my car was in the shop. (That added about $75 more to the $200 difference in quotes.) Whichever shop I used would have to order OEM shocks from the dealer, anyway. Sears did & got them for me in 2 days (same time frame it would have taken for my regular mechanic.) I set an appointment for struts & shocks replacement. However, there was a problem when the car was first evaluated by Sears. The sales person (a young man) came back from the shop & said my front brake pads needed replacing & the bushings on my lower control arms were bad & needed replacing. I did some research on the lower control arms & found that the bushings were fluid filled & weren't sold separately. I would have to buy the complete lower control arm assemblies at nearly $400 apiece! I had told the salesman that I would ask to see the brake pads & control arm bushings when they put the car up on the rack to replace the struts & make a decision then. When I brought the car in for repairs I told the shop foreman what I was told about the brakes & bushings & asked to look at those parts w/ him. We did & found the brake pads to be just fine & the control arm bushings to be in wonderful condition. The shop foreman was noticeably disturbed at what I'd been told. Sears offered me a great price on labor & made repairs in a time frame I could handle w/out costing me money for a rental. And, the repairs were done an hour earlier than they told me when I left the car w/ them. My only caution is to make sure to have the shop foreman verify recommended repairs w/ you visually, especially if you have any automotive knowledge.

When they refaced the cabinets, the did not do a great job. The material is coming loose from the cabinet. They covered the light and the telephone line without even asking. The kitchen wasn't as professionally done as I would like it to be done.