Just Brakes

This shop was great! I went to Brakes Plus to get an estimate on my brakes thinking I only needed new pads and it would cost a couple hundred dollars. They quoted me $ 630 and said i needed new front rotors as well. I talked to a co-​worker who told me about Just Brakes and that i should go there to get a second opinion. He was right. Just brakes told me that my rotors could be machined and I didn’t need new ones… huge cost savings. I talked to Sean and Bert who were both friendly and helpful. The mechanic who was there, whose name I didn’t get was busting his butt trying to get my car ready for me at 5p.m. as promised, which he did. Bert had a few customers come in while I was waiting who he helped with the same care that he had helped me. He seemed to genuinely care about the service he was giving and the customers he was helping. I was overall impressed with the customer service and the work of the guys here. I’ll definitely go back.

If you ever come here… you are a fool!!!
Wasted five hours waiting, finally called and David gave me excuse after excuse.
Yeah, I lost my cool and yelled for the manager… I am the manager!, he shouts.
Well isn’t corporate a bunch of idiots then!

I took my car in about a year ago to get new brakes. The service was not great and the waiting area was filthy. So a year later my front brakes were completely worn. New brakes should last more than a year! I called customer service to see what they could do for me. The shop called me back and the new owner Dean took care of the problem right away. He knew of the previous owners reputation and is working hard to change things around. The new owner was very nice and helpful and the new repairs were completed fast. I would recommend people give this shop another chance!

The worst shop ever. After having them fix my brakes I drove down the 4 lane and voila… no friggin’ brakes. AND their fix was botched. It cost me hundreds to fix their mistake… DON’T GO… IT’S not worth the few bucks you’ll save. In fact it may cost you many many times that.

They are criminals. It takes a lot to make me say that, but let’s go through the play by play.
Brought my car in for something else (they were the only ones in this part of Lafayette open Saturday, and that’s the only day I can get my car worked on). They did a brake upsell, yadda yadda. I went with it, I probably *did* need some brake pads, and it wasn’t prohibitively expensive. That wasn’t the problem.
I had another issue (leaking oil pan) in which they mentioned, offhandedly, they’d throw in a oil change. I wasn’t so naïve as to think they’d literally give me an oil change for free: figured they’d do a basic oil change. Talked to the manager on the phone, asked for detailed itemization of costs, came to $ 270 – I asked specifically if that included tax, and he said it did. So OK.
Got there to pick up my car. (Have about three other moderate grievances along the way, but I won’t bother detailing them so as to cut to the chase.) Guy says, ‘OK, that’s $ 340.’ What? Turns out they billed me for the ‘Best’ oil change, synthetic oil and all that – a $ 90 oil change.
Who among us, when told they would ‘throw in’ an oil change, would expect that meant we wanted to pay $ 90 for an oil change?
So of course, I argued, and the dude held firm and came back at me with verbal venom, and after enduring a lecture from the garage jockey about my ‘attitude’… he eventually rung it up as a basic oil change ($ 19.95, as one would expect), and tensions receded.
And then… they actually DID the oil change.
WHAT?
You mean, you were trying to bill me for a $ 90 oil change, pretending you’d already done it, and hadn’t even done it yet?
So then it was done, it honestly wouldn’t shock me if they put sand in my engine – that’s the kind of place that was. After spending $ 270, I had the privilege of driving away thinking they may have intentionally sabotaged my car because I called them on their fraudulent attempt to sneak an appalling upsell by me.
All that said, if you need your car fixed in Lafayette on a Saturday, there might be worse places you could go. The bagel place, for example.

This is by far the WORST shop I’ve ever been to! After botching my brake job so badly that I needed to have it REDONE by someone else, the manager Bob refused to give me a refund. He is the rudest and most careless person.
I cannot believe these fools are still in business!
My rotor was warped after they shaved it, my rotor screws were loose and/​or missing, the brake pads were put on the wrong way, and they used my old brackets to fasten on my NEW brake pads I bought from them!
There is ZERO claim to responsibility and these people DO NOT CARE about your safety! Stay far FAR away!

I cannot believe places still act this way and try to take advantage of consumers. These guys are just bad news. Went in to get my brakes done. $ 800 later I picked up the car and it was just not right. Went back and they said «oh yeah, you need a new master cylinder.» Ok, the car has 178k miles. Replace it. Now we are at $ 1100. Get call later in the day «oh yeah, you need a new power booster.» No I do not. Shysters these guys. I should have just taken the car to the dealership.
Just stay away from these guys. If do go, make sure you get the old parts back. This way you can take the old parts to another place and then prove that they ripped you off.
I would give then negative stars if Unilocal let me.

1 star is probably generous. BAIT AND SWITCH is a well known practice here. I watched a girl come in with a coupon for a $ 17 oil change and without telling her the cost beforehand left with a $ 240 bill.
We came in for a $ 99 brake pad replacement and was told all the calipers needed replaced and that it would be around $ 1200 to do this on a car with only 50,000 miles on it. My husband has done many brake jobs and we knew they were just trying to get us to pay more for something that wasn’t needed.

Went in for an oil change and brake pads. Dropped the car off at 11:45 am, they didn’t even get to my car to give me an estimate until 3pm, 3.5 hours later! So I decided to go ahead and do the work and was told it would take an hour for the brake pads. An hour later, they pull up with my car telling me the cars ready to go. I ask the technician if the brakes sound good, and he looked at me like a deer in headlights because he never fixed the brake pads! They order the part and get started on work and finally the car is done at 630 pm. That’s a full 7 hours later to do a job that a mechanic can easily do in 1 hour tops. Do not recommend! Only go in if the Asian mechanic or the GM is on site.

Ridiculous. I brought my car in at 9 am and was told an estimate of 200 $. Seven hours and 600 $ later they were finished. I was over 3 hours late to work because of them. Even though they knew what time I worked I received no discount nor apology. I also got to sit and watch the man in charge use the same lines on every customer. Do no waste your time. Ever.

I was impressed by the fact that they showed me exactly what was going on with my car (I need my brakes done — shocker!) It sort of felt like they were walking me through a treatment plan for my car, which at least felt like they weren’t trying to take advantage of me for being a girl.
Not impressed by the customer service I observed while waiting in their reception area. Clients were told that a certain service could be performed and then when they showed up, there was no technician certified to do it. Also, there was a little bit of sh*t talking going on after people left without completing all services recommended.
Brian, the general manager, was friendly enough but wasn’t very well informed — sort of passed the buck when questions started getting asked. Another gripe is that they give you an estimate of services recommended and don’t break it down individually. It’s not super helpful to know that every single thing they would want to do to your car will cost over $ 900 when not every single thing is super necessary or a priority. It would be helpful to see the price of each service.
I’m sure I’ll go here again for oil changes and such and would recommend it for anyone who doesn’t have their own mechanic in their lives.

Hmmm where shall I begin?
My car broke down a block away from Just Brakes, and well, I knew they were «full mechanics», meaning of course they could help me seeing it was on the weekend and most mechanics are closed. Great, they came over pulled my car in and checked it out, called me to say they got some good news and some bad (of course, here is the sales trick). Bad news first, my distributor is out, burned out. So I told them that I had that replaced 22k miles ago, it shouldn’t of burned out. Well of course not, there must be something causing that to burn out right? Oh no you have defective distributor but they can get you a new one and have your car repaired by the end of the day. Great, I guess maybe it was defective? Then the guy calls me back to state, bad news again, we ordered the wrong one and won’t be able to get you the correct one for 2 – 3 days. GREAT, it’s the weekend! I said, let me order one online and get it delivered overnight! I had the correct one delivered to Just Brakes and they installed it that day, The next day my car wouldn’t start and I am stranded AGAIN (tow #2) and thank goodness I am a distance runner. Just Brakes installs a 2^nd replacement distributor that I got from the online company since they blamed this one was defective (hmmm defective distributor 2^nd time?). Next day after the 2^nd distributor is installed I got stranded again, this time at my office (tow #3). This time I have it towed to Coopers in Lafayette who put the first one in 2 years ago.
After careful «proper» diagnostics Cooper’s owner Dennis discovered the problem that was causing the distributors to burn out, replace that and replace the 2 year old one for FREE.
I am now out over $ 350 in parts and labor (including 2 new high performance burned out distributors) and all Just Brakes has to say is sorry and offered me free oil changes. No one from Just Brakes is touching my car EVER AGAIN, No ONE!
Also, I want to mention a very important aspect of their business. BEWARE that they offer low brake service only to rope you in and then tell you will be needing all kinds of other repairs, like mine needing $ 1k in struts. They also use cheap aftermarket parts, I am now seeing my brakes (rotors) failing after being installed last Spring.
Just Brakes should never claim that they are full mechanics garage if they don’t have the proper diagnostic tools to repair or skilled mechanics. Go to a regular reputable mechanic’s garage and expect to pay probably the same or even less and get quality parts installed.
I filed a Better Business Bureau complaint and they found them to be in error:
read the complaints before going to Just Brakes for substandard repairs at a high price.
UPDATE: November, 2013 — Just had my front brakes Re-​done, new rotors and pads after finding out Just Brakes put one new rotor and machined the other!!!
DON’T GO HERE EVER, unless you want to pay for additional service at a REAL Mechanic’s garage!

Guys–
This place ripped us off. I don’t like putting bad stuff on the web about anything or anybody, but these guys put aftermarket parts on my car that actually damaged my car’s rotors. Then they suggested that we needed to change the shocks on the vehicle asap. This was later proved to be only worn rotors by the dealership. It is not worth the absolutely NOT $ 99.88 (more like $ 650 – 700) to have to end up at a dealership who at least knows your vehicle. Just go there first or find a mechanic that you trust.

I think I would have been a little bit more generous on the rating if the customer service was better. I got a groupon to get my brakes done and they tried to tell me how I should spend over $ 300 on all this other stuff. To start, the guy I talked to gave off this «I dont give a crap about anything» attitude which should have been my red flag. He wasn’t mean though and I was getting a service at a discount so I dropped my car off. The next day he called explaining a bunch of things and how much extra it would be. He made it sound like my car would just stop working if I didnt have it done. The thing is I had JUST had my car inspected for it’s 100,000 mile checkup and they told me the exact opposite of what this guy did. So I called my dad and a mechanic that’s a friend of a friend and they both basically said they’re trying to scam me and that I should get a second opinion first before spending the money. So I called back and said I want strictly what was covered under the groupon, and the guy STILL tried to upsell me. I said «no thank you please just do the brakes» and from that point forward the guy was so rude with short snide remarks. AND after they were done and I went in to pick the car up they LOST MY KEYS. I was so mad AND they charged me tax, which I feel should have been covered under the groupon, and he was an a-​hole about that too. I wasn’t even mean or obnoxious, but I think they deserve a bad rating. I have another groupon for my front brakes, but I will never be going here again. I’d rather take my car somewhere with nicer people, even if they are trying to squeeze money out of me. Like I said, I wouldnt have been nearly as pissed off if they hadn’t acted so rude towards me.

Just Brakes advertises $ 99.88 for brake repair but it ended costing me $ 425.00 after a $ 25.00 coupon.
The staff is friendly and actually took me off guard. They asked for my first name and after 4 hours waiting I felt like they really knew me.
It pays to shop around but this place isn’t bad.