Pereda General Mechanic

In case you’re too lazy to read a whole review, here it is upfront: they put the wrong parts on my car, and those parts were so cheap that they broke in 2 months.
Now for the gory details. I don’t write too many 1 star reviews. I’m generally a 4 to 5 star guy. The way I see it, if your business is basically competent and gets the job done, you get a good review.
Pereda, even by cut-​rate, hole-​in-​the-​wall standards, sucks. I don’t mind that the facilities are filthy, that they don’t have a place for customers to sit. In fact, I’d rather they saved the money on overhead to pass the savings on to me. I do mind that they «pass on the savings» by using parts manufactured by blind monkeys somewhere in the 3^rd world and passed through a quality assurance inspection by a machine programmed with the binary options of «pass» and «totally pass.»
I purchased new struts and shocks for my 2004 Matrix, and had Pereda supply the parts. The price was very reasonable up-​front, something like $ 700. Two months later, I moved across the nation, and the shocks have held up, hurray! Today I went to a mechanic to fix alignment issues, and he has informed me that the seal one of the new shocks has broken and it needs to be replaced. It lasted a total of two months. Not only did it need to be replaced, but the functional shock on the other side also needed to be replaced because they INSTALLED THE WRONG SHOCKS. I have a 2WD Toyota Matrix. They installed shocks for a AWD Toyota Matrix, which are shorter than the 2WD. Great job, Pereda.
I called up Pereda and they said they would be willing to replace it with another Mega if I brought the car and the receipt to the shop. I explained that I now live 2500 miles away from Miami, and the receipt didn’t have any of the details of the parts or the service provided. It just had the total cost of repair. His response: «ok.»
I guess it’s unreasonable to expect a refund or an apology. What is reasonable is to expect the parts placed into a car to be of a certain quality. The mechanic who is now replacing the Mega shock has never heard of Mega or seen a Mega shock. It’s the kind of thing he doesn’t see, because it’s the kind of brand reasonable mechanics don’t use.
Come here if: you are a producer of a reality TV show on terrible mechanics
Don’t come here if: you care about your car, your mood, or your money