Shearer Equipment

Always have excellent service!

We brought the mower in on Fri. 7/5/13. They said they'd call with a quote. After a week, I called them - on the morning of Fri. 7/12. They said they were just getting to it, due to high repair volume, and would call back later in the day with the estimate. They did so. I approved the repair. They said it would take another week. We tried to call them to check on it on Sat. 7/20, about 1:40 p.m. - the home page of the Shearer web site lists the North Royalton store hours as "M &TH 8-6 Tu, W, & Fri 8-5 SAT 8-2." No answer. A couple more attempts. No answer. We were swamped Mon. 7/22 and Tues. 7/23 so I didn't get a chance to try again those days. Weds. 7/24 I called, was told that they were still waiting for the parts, but that the parts should finally be in and the mower repaired the next day. I asked when the parts were ordered. I was solemnly assured that they'd been ordered the day we got the quote (7/12), and that Honda usually takes no more than 5 days to get parts to them, but that sometimes it takes a bit longer. Yesterday, 7/25, they called to tell me that the mower was ready. I went there this morning, 7/26, to pick it up. I paid. I asked if they could show me documentation indicating when the parts were ordered. The guy I was dealing with first said they wouldn't have those records, but when I expressed skepticism, he went back to check. He came back to tell me that they'd been ordered Mon. 7/15 - because by the time they looked the thing over on Fri. 7/12 it was too late to order for shipment that day anyway. Not quite the story that he - I'm pretty sure it was the same guy - had given me on the phone two days earlier, but, not a big difference. Then, however, he also told me that the parts had come in on 7/20. I asked when, then, I'd been told on the phone that they hadn't yet arrived on 7/24. Seconds after telling me with lots of confidence that they'd come on 7/20, he backtracked and said that, well, maybe only some of them came on 7/20, and that he'd have to do a computer record search to find out for sure when they'd all come in, a separate search for each part, and it would take a while. At that point I decided I could tell what was going on, had him help me load the mower in the car, and left. I think my BS detector is pretty good, and it was going off. First, there was the fact that it just so happened that the times I called them to check on things, they were just about to get to the mower. Convenient. Second, there was the shifting story about the parts order and - more importantly - arrival dates. I also noticed that of the total $270 cost (which was in keeping with the quote), only a minor fraction was for parts. $190 was for labor. Either their labor charges are ridiculously high or they took ridiculously many hours to do the work. We used to take our mower to Outdoor Power World. Sadly, they've closed. When I would take it there in April - at peak pre-season tune-up time - it never took three weeks (nor did it ever take a full week just to get the quote). Nor, even when there was work to be done beyond changing the plugs and so on, was the labor cost ever that high. I don't know where I'm going to take the mower next time - I went with Shearer this time because they're listed as a licensed Honda mower service place. But it isn't going to be Shearer. I would discourage anyone who doesn't have infinite time to kill from going there.