Wizard Werks


Country United States
State Benin
City Chicago
Address 1210 W. Lake St.
Phone (312) 291-9449
Website www.wizardwerkschi.com/

Wizard Werks Reviews

  • Jan 19, 2015

Very bad experience, at first the owner pretend to be so nice, our car got a hit and run, he even wanted to call the insurance company for us, all the things changed after the owner know about our insurance will not cover the repair cost, I called 3 times during a week to try to know the estimate cost for repairing our damaged car, no one call back. Then I went their shop to check out what is going on, the owner told me it will cost 10k to fix it, it is too expensive, so I decided to just trade in the car and buy a new one. When my girl friend and I went to the shop again to pick up our car, another staff said that he had just finished the estimate cost, it shows $5300, we thought that was a reasonable price, then the owner came out and said the estimate was not correct, there are some "potential" risk, the total price should be $7000+, after we told him we didn't want to repair it except follow the other staff's estimate cost, he visit his anger upon us, first, he wanted us to pay the storage fee, when gave my card to him, he said "I don't need money from people who earn $1 per hour in their country","you f****** Chinese just leave my shop", after anther 5 minutes complain with countless F word, finally we got our car back and leave the hell place. The owner Karim is a generous racist, thank you, I appreciated that you taught me how to respect people with so many F words, you are such a hypocritical person, I know you are a yelp sponsor, you can delete all the comments you don't want to show to the other people, so I choose to give you a 5 stars review, enjoy it.

How this place has a 5 star rating is beyond me.

This was my experience.

Dropped off my car on a Monday morning for a autobody work. I was told that I would be contacted that afternoon with a quote. Monday afternoon, no updates so I call. It takes me over an hour to get a hold of them. And I get a rough estimate and was told I would be emailed an estimate on Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon: I receive an email with a quote and a message saying I would be called on Wednesday morning to touch base.

Wednesday, no call. I call Wizard Werks at ~12:00n and the OWNER picks up the phone. I tell him I received the quote and that I am waiting on insurance before I can okay any work. I ask if I need to come pick up my vehicle while I wait. The OWNER replies by YELLING at me: "I run a busy shop, not a garage. Your car has been here for four days. Come get your car right now or I'm going to put it on the street tonight and it will get towed. (*** actually it's only been 2 days, and the only reason it's been so long is because THEY are the ones who couldn't get back to me). I interject and try to calm him down explaining my situation. He cuts me off and says "F*** you! Don't raise your voice at me. I don't have to deal with this s#!t, you idiot." and he hangs up on me. I have to call him back to settle the disagreement and ended up having to leave work to go pick up my car on less than 1/2 days notice. When I picked it up the owner still wanted to argue with me, but so I told him "I don't want to fight with you, but you guys aren't working on my car" and I left. Now I have to find a new shop. I'm going to try "Damen Auto Repair & Body Shop" in Wicker Park.

I can't comment on the quality of their work. Maybe they're very skilled workers, and and do a great job fixing cars, but this was a huge inconvenience for me. This is no way to treat a customer by ANY employee, let alone the OWNER of a business. I was sworn at and hung up on. I would absolutely NEVER recommend this place to anyone and I will certainly never return myself. One of the worst experiences I've ever had as a customer.

Consider yourself warned.

IN REPLY TO KARIM'S COMMENT:

1st off: That is how the event transpired to my recollection.

2nd off: Please don't post personal information about me or my car on yelp (make, model, plate state etc.

As soon as I told you that I couldn't okay the work right away you got upset with me. I never expected you to store my car for me. Space is a premium in this city I understand that. My plates may say another state, but I live here and have for quite a bit.

You did say "f*** you" before you hung up on me.

I did raise my voice, because I felt disrespected. You are right. Respect is earned, not given. That is a two way street. I didn't feel respected by you, so I was upset.

Good luck filing a police report with "evidence" from yelp.

Yelp is a platform for customers to review businesses and that is just what I did. For that reason saying: "consider yourself warned" was a warning to other customers about the service I had and how I felt about it, not a threat to you. I was upset with my experience and I wrote that in my review. Why would I threaten YOU by leaving a comment for everyone to see? I didn't even address you. Nothing in my comment was directed to you, or anyone at WW, but rather to potential customers. Why would I threaten you at all? That doesn't even make sense.

My car was there from Monday at about noon until Wednesday afternoon. I returned every phone call I got from you. I spoke to somebody Monday evening and the estimate was not ready. Tuesday I got an email saying I would be called on Wednesday morning and I was not called. I wasn't able to speak to anyone until Wednesday around lunch. Again, I was not upset that I had to pick up my car; I understand why I needed to do so. I was upset because I felt mistreated.

Again, I said you guys probably do great work. You have good reviews and you were highly recommended to me. My review was based on an experience that I had.

Nice work, except for the insulting sexist treatment I got when I picked up the car. While waiting for a minor item to be wrapped up, I was disappointed to hear the manager (owner?) inform me that cars are a lot like women: you just have to take care of them and they'll last a long time. Like, he drives his wife to the nail salon.

Wish I were making that up.

Not sure which decade you are operating in, Wizard Werks, but when a first-time customer drops $2500 (and with an older car, probably will be spending thousands more over the next few years), better hold back on the unprofessional, stupid "lady" comments.

Too bad, because I was pretty happy with the service till that point.

Those guys are full of s***. I took my car there. They couldn't find the problem and charged me for the wrong part. All mechanical work is done by a mexican dude. The owner is never there and the only nice guy is the asian guy on the phone. However, he is clueless to car repairs. Try other places first before you go to them.

On Saturday September 8th I visited Wizard Werks, 1210 W. Lake St. Chicago IL to request a quote for a short shifter kit install on my 2005 Porsche 911. The owner Karim informed me that the shop also does body work on high end vehicles. In discussion with Karim he assured me of the quality of work his shop provided and walked me through their repair process. After our discussion, I agreed to allow Wizard Works to also repair the front bumper clips and respray the entire front bumper of my car. Karim also recommended that they wet sand the front hood and side panels to remove what he describes as "fisheyes" as well as wax the entire car. We agreed on a price of $1000. I informed Karim that I was headed out of town on business and that he could have a full week with the car to make sure everything was done right. He agreed that this was plenty of time and once again assured me that this would be a quality job. The guys in the shop were friendly and I felt comfortable leaving my vehicle in their care.

I contacted Karim on Wednesday of the following week to check on the status of the repair. He emailed me pictures and stated that everything was going well and the car would be ready for pickup on Friday. When I returned to town on Saturday morning I contacted Karim and informed him that I was on the way to the shop to pick up the car. Karim stated that he needed 45 minutes to retrieve the vehicle from the detail shop that he had left it at. I was concerned seeing as we discussed that Karim would be the only person driving my vehicle and solely responsible for its care. The fact that it had been left overnight at an off-site location, out of his control was the first sign that something was wrong.

When I arrived to pick up my vehicle on 8-15 it was in terrible condition! The front bumper that was supposed to be painted had several scratches in various locations. There were remains from the waxing solution in the gas tank area, which as you could imagine could be problematic. There were scratches and blemishes all over the vehicle. When I pointed the scratches and paint damage out to Karim he first tried to convince me that they were "swirl marks" before finally conceding that in his words "he got screwed" by the detail shop that he left my car with. He admitted that he had not even taken the time to walk around the car after picking it up and that he would have never delivered a car to a customer in that condition. Although he blamed the third party shop for all of the damage and the paint, I informed Karim that this was his responsibility and that my vehicle should have never been left with a third party who I had not agreed to allow work on my vehicle. I also informed him that he was not the one that got screwed, I was. I was now looking at a car that looked 5 times worse than when I brought it to him and wasting the one day that I had in town arguing with him about how to resolve it.

Out of the blue Karim informs me that he has had trouble starting my vehicle on two separate occasions, the first being at his shop and the second occasion, when he picked my car up from the shop he left it at. I was concerned and confused seeing as I had never had difficulties starting the car nor had Midwest Eurosports, the shop that had done all of the work on my car since I've owned it. Karim blamed the battery, stating that the battery in the car was the wrong one for my car and that he would replace it. He asked that he give me the receipt for the replacement and that I go back to the dealership to demand that they reimburse him for the cost. After I told him that this was unacceptable he replaced the battery at his cost. After he replaced the battery, I received two error codes which his father who was also present observed. One error code notified me that my front left and right lights needed to be checked and the other that my clutch needed to be depressed. Karim's father stated that this was due to the battery change and it should be fine. I left the shop and booked an appointment with a Porsche Authorized Service Center for this Friday 8-28 to uncover whether any additional damage has been done.

Finally, a week after I picked up my car from Wizard Werks the car is a mess. The car had not been driven and has been stored in my garage since I picked it up from the shop. This is evidenced by the 7 miles on the odometer, the distance to my home from the shop. The paint on the front bumper rubbed off easily with the touch of my finger and it continued to rub off on a towel.

On 8-22 I brought the car back to Karim for him to inspect it. After several minutes he agreed that the bumper was done poorly but took issue with one of the scratches on the car, stating adamantly that he wasn't responsible for that. He cursed me out with my wife and one of his friends present.

DO NOT TRUST WIZARD WERKS WITH YOUR VEHICLE!

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