Dear Eza,

We refer to your recent review post dated 12th March 2013 and apologise if you deemed your experience at our workshop as an ‘uneventful day’. Our response to the relevant paragraphs of your post is as follows:-
We would first and foremost like to assure you that all our mechanics are professionals and have many years of experience working on motor vehicles. We take a serious view of all negative feedbacks received by our customers and will respond promptly so as to clarify such feedback.
In reply to paragraph 1 of your post, based on our internal investigation from your feedback, we would like to bring to your kind attention that upon your arrival to our workshop and instruction to do a basic service of your vehicle, our mechanic assigned to your vehicle attempted to remove your vehicle’s oil filter which appeared to be stuck when he tried to unscrew it manually with the clamp tool. He attempted to do this several times in hopes that it will unscrew but to no success. He then used our air pressure gun with the clamp attachment to unscrew it but also without success. He informed our head mechanic, Mr Nigel Chan, to take a look at the fault and access it. Mr Chan inspected the oil filter and attempted to unscrew it himself with the proper technics (i.e. via manual and compressed air-pressure gun) but to no success either. Based on 2 of our experienced and professional mechanics assessment of the fault, it appeared that your oil filter was stuck. This fault was informed to you by our Mr Chan after which you requested that we forcefully remove it. We cautiously declined that request as if we were to have acceded to your request and forcefully removed it; and in the process damaged the grove of the oil slump any further as we already suspected it was damaged, we would have to bear responsibility for the damage or subject ourselves to be accused of causing the damage. In light of such, we try our best to avoid such situations and advise our customers of the safest and best alternatives. In your case, our reasonable assessment of the fault appeared that your groves may have been damaged whilst the aftermarket oil filter which was fitted to your vehicle was screwed too tightly or forcefully screwed in the oil filter grove housing. Therefore, based on our expert assessment of the fault, we advised you of the safest alternative and firmly and confidently stand by our advice provided to you.
In reply to paragraph 2 of your post, upon your arrival at our workshop, we inquired with you as to why you did not want to return to your normal workshop to handle the servicing of your workshop. We only enquired this as it is generally a practice for most motorists, unless new motorists, to allow their frequent and personally trusted workshop(s) to handle all matters of their vehicle unless particular services was not available at their workshop or in the event of emergency. You explained to us that you were unhappy with your usual workshop after the oil filter incident and did not intent to return back to resolve the issue; and hence required the services of our workshop to service your vehicle. The other reason as to why we enquired what we did with you is because the last time we serviced your vehicle was at or about 139600km on 10/6/11. The most recent time you came back to us again, your vehicle was over 209,307km on 11/3/13. As such, we were unfamiliar on what was done to your vehicle and we also noticed you were using an aftermarket oil filter. At our workshop, we only use original and genuine products on vehicles unless otherwise insisted by the customer.
We would further like to clarify that when the boss of your previous workshop called us, we informed him of the fault and he begun to be rude towards us and accuse us of not knowing how to do our job well. We attempted to clarify with him the problem but he simply continued to accuse us and we politely informed him we were busy and would take instructions from you on what you intended to do about the fault. At no time did our mechanic ‘refused to confirm it (the fault)’ and/or was ‘tight lipped’ about explaining the fault to your original workshop boss. We hope you understand that this accusation told to you by your original workshop boss is merely a one-sided story and completely false. It was probably told to you to regain your confidence in them and discredit us. However, we will not take such accusations personally as our paramount priority is our Workmanship Quality and Customers Satisfaction. We will duly compensate those whom may have had bad experience in our workshop in the event the fault lies with us or in exceptional cases through our goodwill.
In reply to paragraph 3 of your post, we repeat our aforesaid paragraph and deny that we communicated it was a ‘misunderstanding’. We would however like to clarify that we did advice you of the fault and the best solution to remedy fault (i.e. consider replacing the oil sump cover as the oil filter adaptor groves is likely to be damaged and even if we were to forcefully unscrew the oil filter and fit a new one in-place of that, the engine oil is likely to leak through the oil filter ‘O’ ring as it cannot be tighten properly and you would experience an oil leak). You then instructed us to order a new oil sump cover in accordance to our advice and that was what we informed your original workshop’s boss when he inquired as to why we were changing the oil sump cover. As mentioned above, what was communicated to you by your original workshop’s boss is merely a one-sided story to earn your confidence in them again, given that you mentioned you were not happy and/or satisfied with them when you visited our workshop.
In reply to paragraph 4 of your post, we verily believe that your oil filter was forcefully removed from the housing through unconventional methods. It is however surprising that there is absolutely no damage to the oil sump and tread, as indicated by you in your post, given that your vehicle has travelled more than 200,000km and has probably been serviced over 20 times. In our decades of experience, we have seen many vehicles around the same mileage as yours with slight or minor damage to the groves as this is generally caused by the unscrewing and tightening of the oil filter with different mechanics applying different amounts of force. Nevertheless, we are happy for you that you managed to save some money and did not have to replace the oil slump cover. However, once again we assure you that our assessment of your vehicle and advice to you based on the fault was done in your best interests and to safeguard us from being blamed for any damage. We further seek your kind understanding of the fact that since we are not and/or have not been your usual workshop for some time now (i.e. 139,600km – 209,307km), we did not want to simply forcefully unscrew the oil filter which was fitted on and/or forcefully screwed into the oil slump by another workshop. As mentioned above, any damage sustained to your vehicle by our act of acceding to your initial request of forcefully unscrewing the oil filter would subject us to be blamed for the fault and we would then have to face the issue of liability of rectifying the fault and/or replacing the part at our own expense. As such, we tend to avoid situations such as this.
With regards to our charges of the change of oil, we would like to highlight that you had initially instructed us to order a new oil sump cover to replace with old with. In order for us to remove the existing oil sump cover, we had to drain out the existing engine oil. Thereafter we removed the oil sump cover, you informed us that you would like the order for the new oil sump cover cancelled and for us to fit back the existing oil sump cover. We attempted to cancel the order but the part had already arrived and as such our cancellation of the order could not be done. Nevertheless, we did not insist on subjecting you to the order due to your sudden change of mind nor did we charge you our labour costs for removing and fitting the existing part. This is solely because we wanted you to save costs given that if it was your original workshop that may have caused the fault (if any), it is only right that they remedy the fault for your free of charges. Although we incurred expense for ordering the oil sump cover for you, we are nonetheless satisfied that your car appears fine to you.
We seek your kind understanding of our aforesaid response. Do have a great day ahead.