For the past 25 years, Raffi Abikian has become an iconic figure in Côte Saint-Luc. His Shell Service Station on Westminster Avenue has a loyal clientele.
In the recent past our community the then full Cavendish Mall had Pneus Experts and Canadian Tire, which serviced cars while there was also Bernie’s on Côte Saint-Luc Road. The first two shut down and last fall Bernie’s relocated to Lachine.
When Shell opened a self-serve gas station, complete with a car wash and a Boni-Soir the future of Raffi’s was questioned. He does not own the land. His service bays are always busy. The man is a genius. He remembers the history of every car in his computer. We are not talking laptop here. “The computer in my head,” he laughs.
I am writing this story because Raffi wants to assure all of his customers that he is not going anywhere. People are wondering because there are no more gas pumps. These were removed. The next step is for Raffi to buy the land and focus exclusively on fixing vehicles. He has already started negotiations with Shell. Once a deal is complete, he intends to completely renovate and expand.
Raffi already owns a repair and body shop in NDG. Had Shell forced him out completely, he would have been left with no alternative but to house all of his business there.
Originally Raffi owned a station further down Westminster, closer to Montreal West,
“We started from scratch when we opened our first garage and built our client list,” says Raffi. “Then, we had the opportunity to get this location, so we took it.”
Raffi’s son Ari, a very polite young man, is part of his talented and devoted team of mechanics.
Côte Saint-Luc needs at least one service station and who could ask for anyone better than Raffi? He will only have to make one adjustment and not answer the phone with the word “Shell!”
My experience with Raffi was anything but good.
I brought my car in on Oct. 8 to have the bumper replaced and the moment I started the car when I was leaving after the repair, it sounded unusually loud. I should’ve gone back right away but I continued on because I had lots to do and I told myself that maybe I’d just forgotten what it sounded like, not having driven it for a few days while it was in the shop. I had the car washed, brought it home and didn’t drive it for a week. I started up the car a week later and realized that it was definitely loud – not normal. I went back to Raffi‘s. He came outside and told me to start the car. When I started the car to let him hear for himself, he pointed to a part of the car near the front and said “It’s the catalytic converter. Come inside. I’ll jack it up and show you.” When it was up he pointed to a hole in what he called the ‘catalytic converter’. It was perfectly fine when I brought it in and there suddenly being a hole when I left led me to believe that someone there tampered with it. As well, I had told them when I brought in the car that I wanted to sell it and asked if they were interested in buying it. So It’s also possible that they did something in order to offer a lowball price. When I told him that it didn’t seem plausible that it happened that way, that it would suddenly have a hole in it, and I didn’t understand why there wasn’t even a gradual increase in noise, just a new noise only when it came out of their garage, Raffi asked in a sarcastic tone “OK, so how do you think it happened?” I replied “Could somebody here have tampered with it in order to have me come back and do an expensive repair?”. I never got to finish my sentence though because he started yelling very loudly and aggressively about how insulted he was and that I should just get out and he just kept shouting on and on, “How dare you…” etc…. At this point, someone else who works there said “I was there when you left and I didn’t hear anything.” First of all he wasn’t standing near the car when I drove off and in any case he was clearly lying because 10 minutes later, he comes up with “I heard that noise when you came in – it was already like that!” Those contradictory statements alone show that he, for one, was lying. Everyone that knows cars who I’ve told about this agrees that things don’t add up.
UPDATE: I brought my car to the dealership and they told me that my catalytic converter is fine, that it’s the flex pipe that had a hole in it. This is a much less expensive fix. They even took a photo for me which I have. I asked their mechanics how likely it is for this to happen suddenly and they said it would NOT happen suddenly. The upshot is that Raffi’s employee lied to me, first about not hearing the noise when I left, and then supposedly hearing the noise when I first came in(implying that it was an existing problem – guess he couldn’t make up his mind!), Raffi lied to me when he told me I needed a much more expensive part and repair job which were absolutely unnecessary, he then had the nerve to berate me and the worst part is that two experts told me that this wouldn’t have happened suddenly, at least not unless it was ‘man-made’. Now on top of the stress and expense of a cross-country move, I have additional stress and expense from having brought my car to the wrong people. I filed a complaint with the Office de la Protection du Consommateur and I’m looking into what other recourse I have.