Canadian Tire review: auto department

I'm writing this review to warn others not to deal with auto service department here.

I walked into Canadian tire on Monday night for a quote for services (rear brake job) they quoted me $310 and set an appointment for Thursday afternoon, saying my car had to be in by 3p for work to be completed, Great sounds good, booked the appointment and left. Fast forward to thursday 3pm and I'm told they wants o inspect the brakes before commencing work, fair enough. No mention of an associated cost they just requested the inspection and I said sure. I don't go to mechanics very often since I like to do my own work most of the time, but I don't like doing rear drum brakes...It's messy and annoying work so I thought I would outsource.

Well they do the inspection and tell me the price has jumped to $550 all in and at that point I decide it's a better deal to do the work myself instead. They say fine but first they drop a $40.00 fee on me for the inspection that they requested and until this point had never mentioned any associated cost. Both employees I had death with up to this point both admitted to not mentioning an Inspection fee.

I'll pay anything i've agreed to but won't be charged "surprise" fees after the fact.

So when I refuse the manager who is now involved at this point refuses to release my car or give me my keys so I can remove things from car while this gets sorted ( I'd called CT head office by this point). I had live oysters for client sampling in a cooler and a few other high ticket items I wasn't happy having to leave in my car any longer than needed.

So in the end my car is still at CT and I haven't Heard back from head office yet. Very frustrated as you can imagine. It's a principal issue here. You didn't notify me up front and when I refused to pay you held my keys and property hostage. Terrible way to run a business...My dad shopped at CT I've shopped at since I was a kid. Currently won't be going back