Sun Valley Towing -Tim Kunselman Tim Counselman Instead of replacing an alternator they "hot wired" the wire harness to the alternator which in turn began to melt onto my fuse box which is below the battery. Phoenix, Arizona

Dear forget it and move on,

Yes I am dealing with a con artist.  However, if his Better Business Bureau accreditation has been revoked then why would he still be displaying a framed copy of his BBB accreditation on the reception wall in his office?  Is this another scam? Probably.

Thanks for your input and support.

I composed my initial letter to Sun Valley Towing, Ripoff.com and the Phoenix Better Bureau in an educated and civilized manner.  I did not, in any way, use expletives, make derogatory, or disparaging remarks regarding your employees (or you), nor deceive the readers of the facts regarding my situation with Sun Valley Towing.

You on the other hand have showed a lack of education which has obviously caused you the heartache of being ignorant and ill-mannered.

Your last statement in your inarticulate rebuttal to me was a slap in the face to every woman you could have had as a client.  What has gender to do with this situation?  NOTHING!  It was your negligence and irresponsible actions that were at fault, not the fact that I am female. 

Amusing Behavior Mr. Counselman.

lady, you are dealing with one of the finest con artists in the greater phoenix area.  your best bet is to just move on.  timmy and his crew have been scamming people for years.  he'd rip his own mother off if he hasn't already. 

it's funny that he mentions the better businees bureau on the vw dealer, seeing as he had his accredation ripped away in a matter of weeks because he dosen't operate fairly.  anyone that has dealt with him will tell you the same old story.

Yes it did take our wrecker a while to find you but in fact he did. Satisfied now?

The ORIGINAL alternator that failed did burn out a STRAP style fuse and yes it did happen when we towed it in for the first time! Since one was not available we used an alternate method, JUST AS SAFE, used on MILLIONS of cars in America TODAY!

BUT once again you fail to answer the 64 thousand dollar question???? HAS THE CAR FAILED YOU SINCE IT WAS REPAIRED AT MY FACILITY? The simple answer is NO or as I would put it HELL NO!

And stating the truth about how a dealership operates in no way slander, Slander is when you are untruthful about a person or place, In this case there is no slander!

The Better Business has 10 complaints on the and 4 of them are Holy sh* Batman REPAIR ISSUES!  Ring a bell maybe? Common sense dictates that if we had done such a horrible job your car and you would not be here bitching but riding in another wrecker because our repair would have failed, BUT that is not the case is it?

And I have one question, If you are such a fan of the VW dealership Why did you agree to allow a non VW shop to work on it? If the VW people had not made a mountain out of NOTHING you would have driven for years and never had a clue that a minor change had been made, Or I should say A SAFE ALTERNATIVE WAS USED!

If you are still confused call an auto parts store and ask the difference between a fuse and a fuseable link, Maybe they can make you understand. Oh and by the way Volkswagen Still uses these same fuseable links on certain models and they have no trouble with them.

In the future you might want to ask a MAN to help get your car fixed, and he might be able to explain it better than I can, Maybe being a stay at home mom isn't such a bad idea, bet you never burned a batch of brownies??/ right?

Dear "fighting back",

Yes my vehicle was towed to your shop by your driver after he spent more than an hour trying to locate my car.  But, on the contrary I did inform your shop that my vehicle had been moved by DPS. However, your receptionist Lisa (who was extremely rude) said (the three times I called to find out where the tow truck was) "The driver could see my car from the highway and will be there in 10 minutes".  This I found peculiar since I was not visible from the highway (which I told Lisa) and it still took the tow truck over an hour to get to my location. 

You maintain you noticed the fuse for the charging circuit was burned when attempting to replace the alternator the first time? This is a false statement on your part because if this were the case then you would have advised me when I brought my vehicle in the second time to your shop. 

As for allegedly not informing you of this fuse burn then you are again telling untruths.  When I contacted your mechanic from VW, both the service advisor and I told him about the burning of the fuse.  I again notified you as well, twice.

I believe you have the word "intimidation" (to frighten somebody into doing or not doing something, e.g. by means of violence or blackmail) mixed up with incensed, or how about dismayed (to cause somebody to feel discouraged or disappointed). I do not nor have I ever been intimidated Mr. "Fighting back".

I believe you have also slandered the employees at Larry Miller VW service with your response to my complaint by stating that they used deceit in order scare me into more work on my Jetty. 

The fact is.......your work was.......absolutely "shoddy"! 

She's an idiot......She should have got soaked for a new harness and installation 3k! I hate people who try to get out of paying a repair BILL! The car sill starts, Charges and runs right? Pay YOUR BILL!

The vehicle did get towed to our shop by our driver after the driver spent more than an hour trying to locate the customer who moved without telling us. We did install an alternator but also noticed the fuse for the charging circuit was burned. A call was made to get another fuse but had become late in the day and one was not available. The VW parts guy "BIll" and my mechanic discussed using a fuseable link wire of the same amperage which we did to get her back on the road. This as we all know is the same as a fuse.  Now she goes to VW for an unrelated problem and now we have installed the alt wrong? How   the car is running and charging right? They saw the fuseable link and took the opportunity to scare her into thinking it was a shoddy repair. As we know it was not. When the original fuse burned out when the alternator locked up it also melted the eyelet of the harness, so we replaced the eyelet with an after market one, not try to soak her for a wiring harness that was simply not needed.

She brought the vehicle back to us with the above complaint and we did inspect our work and found nothing wrong at all, it was not till later she mentioned the wiring issue. As soon as it was possible we did replace it with a factory strap fuse. This is now what VW calls a patch job? Maybe we should have soaked her for a un needed harness and the labor to install it. Has she had any problems with it? NO! only that the dealership pointed out there OPINION! She did not once say in this posting that the car died, would not start, etc  So where did we go wrong? According to VW my 25 years and my lead mechanics 15 years of experience doesn't amount to a hill of beans, Well  now you know the whole story. And as far as raising my voice, this lady is the type to get intimidated if you look at her wrong.

Although he did not really state it very eloquently.

As he stated, an alternator replacement is not a difficult job. Granted because this is a German vehicle, and the original quote is from the dealer, you can expect to be quoted 2 to 3 times or more what the job is really worth.

The thing is, there really is nothing that needs to be rigged..bill is correct. He didn't explain it perfectly but one connection is the main battery wire, and the secondary plug usually is just tied to the ignition power in the car so the regulator can sense when it needs to put out more or less voltage. It is "plug and play" so to speak.

Now if something had to be "rigged", it is quite possible you did not need an alternator to begin with. Which means it was misdiagnosed and you were totally hammer bagged. Either that, or the towing place used the wrong alternator which caused something to melt..and to "fix", or "make it work" it they just jumped around whatever melted.

Without using a meter on the vehicle no one can really diagnose this with any degree of accuracy on a forum, and the picture is fuzzy but in my opinion you need a third opinion, but this time by someone who actually knows what they are doing and are not just out to make a quick easy buck and risk your car burning to the ground.

The towing place that did this is shirking their responsibility and not standing behind their work. If they refuse to make this right and you have the perseverance, a small claims suit may be in order.

i must say this is a pretty f*ked up story--sometimes cheaper is not always better and sometimes more expensive is not always better---in any case it is kind of f**ked how they kept blowing you off----but the one question i may have with all this is it does not take much to install an alternator--usually you disconnect thhe battery, a plug which is the voltage regulator, and then disconnect the battery cable at the alternator and of course where the alternator is mounted to--so the question--why would they "n****r rig" this job??---based on your post--where your car just stopped i have seen this before-usually when the battery terminal is left loose from the battery

But it seems they jumped a main fuse with a piece of wire.

If this is the case, there is a chance of a meltdown. In other words, the fuse is there to PREVENT anything from burning up if there is a situation or an electrical short, or an excessive amount of current is being drawn. The current has no brain of it's own and does not decide if it is safe to pass through a circuit, the circuit demands determine this, not the current available which would be the maximum the electrical system can supply.

 If it is bypassing a fuse which is there for safety to prevent burning, and someone has put a conductor such as a piece of wire in it's place, your vehicle is at great risk, as well as your personal safety and perhaps others..

Even though the dealership is not responsible for what Sun Valley rigged up, they should not have legally allowed your vehicle to be driven out of their shop if a main fuse was bypassed in this fashion.