‘Couldn’t get any crazier’: Drivers say mechanic swapped car between them as loaner

FORT MILL, S.C. — Two women are upset with a Fort Mill mechanic after they say he used one of their vehicles as a loaner car and didn’t complete the work.

Keri Boyce and a driver who didn’t want to be identified — we’ll call her Lisa — say Joe McDaniel approached them at different coffee shops.

Boyce says he came up to her at Starbucks in Baxter Village. Lisa says he walked up to her at Biggby Coffee in Pineville.

“I’m thinking he’s good people,” Lisa said.

Both say he asked them about their cars: Boyce’s Volkswagen Beetle and Lisa’s Nissan Leaf.

“He said, ‘Oh my gosh. I love your Beetle.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, me too.’ So we start talking about the Beetles. And then he goes into, oh, well, he works on cars and he has a shop in Fort Mill,” Boyce said.

She says he offered to fix her car’s dents and broken taillight.

“He had a website. He had a business card,” she said. “It actually seemed pretty professional.”

Lisa says McDaniel told her he could make her electric vehicle charge faster. “He said, ‘Oh, I can do that for you for cheap because I used to work for Tesla,’” Lisa said.

Both drivers say they agreed to let him work on their cars. They say he tried to upsell them on other repairs, and that it was taking longer than expected.

“It drags on and on and on,” Boyce said. “Long story short, he kept my car for two and a half months.”

Boyce says she contacted McDaniel and demanded her car back. She says he left it at a Food Lion with the key in it. “I was just dumbfounded when I picked it up because I just went, ‘What, what is this?’” she said.

She says he didn’t fix the dents, he taped the taillight instead of fixing it, he put putty or caulk on the hood, and, for some reason, painted the rims and spoiler black.

Plus, she says she had a new problem: the dashboard warning lights were going off.

“Now the crazier piece of this story. I started sleuthing online,” Boyce, who used to report for a newspaper, said. “And I found a lady that posted on Nextdoor.”

That lady was Lisa.

Both say they started comparing notes and realized something.

“She was actually driving my car for two months as a loaner vehicle because he was repairing her car,” Boyce said.

She said McDaniel gave her Beetle to Lisa as a loaner car.

“No words. I thought it couldn’t get any crazier,” Boyce said.

Lisa said for a month, she drove Boyce’s Beetle. “I was just angry. I didn’t realize this is her car. I thought this was his car,” she said.

She said McDaniel didn’t do the work on her vehicle either. In fact, she says he swapped out her wheel covers for some reason, without telling her, and that the charge is now worse than before. “I have to go to a dealer and try to ask them what’s wrong,” she said.

Lisa said she paid McDaniel more than $1,200. Boyce says she paid him $900.

They filed police reports, but they say officers told them the case is civil and not criminal.

Both say McDaniel used the business name Auto Pros Garage. Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke checked and found the website was down. State records don’t list any business with that name.

Action 9 tried multiple times and multiple ways to get in touch with McDaniel, but didn’t hear back in time for this report.

Other drivers shared similar stories on social media about Joe McDaniel. Some of them mentioned contacting Action 9. If you’ve had an experience like this, email Action9@wsoctv.com.

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