I was recently a victim of the Meineke Car Care Center in Weston, Florida. With a great deal of reluctance, because of the detrimental national reputation many people perceive the company to have, I overrode my instincts and took my Silverado truck there thinking they would repair the serious problem it was developing. I left several hours later with not only the problem remaining, but $481 poorer.
The story: Heading down the Florida Turnpike with my wife, daughter and 2 young grandchildren late on a Saturday for a vacation weekend, I developed what I thought was a large bubble on one of my tires. The truck bounced horribly. Surprisingly, I couldn't find anything on a visual inspection. The following morning, Sunday, we were bouncing towards our everglades park destination when I spotted the Meineke shop.
The shop did an assessment and the manager, Pete Wyman, told me I needed front shocks. I thought that was a little strange because the truck only has 71,000 (all highway) miles on it. He also said that a lower rear brake caliper bolt was missing and the upper one was loose. No one said anything about a tire being bad, except that being a Sunday, they couldn't get any.
Now I'm in trouble. It was Sunday, we're 250 miles from home, 3 adults and 2 small children, a brake bolt missing , a tire bouncing so bad it would knock the glasses off your head, and facing the 250 mile return trip north that evening .
The estimate for repairs was: $140 for EACH shock plus an hour of labor time @ $98; 2 bolts with labor @ $23 each; and a ""shop supply "" fee of $30 (he said that was to pay for rags and cleaning fluid). With tax, the total bill came to $481.
Curiously, Wyman said that the bolts couldn't be had until shortly before the 5:00 pm closing time.
I told him to go ahead, and we all wasted the day waiting for the repair. About 4:30 pm Wyman called to say the truck had been repaired and that it had been road tested. I paid the bill and we left the shop with 10 minutes to spare before closing time.
Guess what? The problem had not been fixed. Obviously the ""road test"" was a lie. With no other alternative, I was lucky enough to find a tire dealer nearby that was open until 6:00 pm on Sundays. My last resort was to act on my first suspicion - that a tire had developed a bad bubble.
Sure enough. The tire dealer put a pair of new tires on the rear and the problem was solved.
The conclusion is that either the Meineke mechanics were totally incompetent (after all, they took the tires off the truck to ""discover"" the bolt problem but never found the bubble), or more likely, their reputation for scamming and dishonesty held true, and they held me up for totally unnecessary repairs. While the rear tires were off the truck at the tire dealer's, I saw that the lower caliper bolts ON BOTH WHEELS had been replaced and neither of the top bolts had been tightened, meaning they were never loose. The bolts did not need replacing. As much as I don't like being gouged, I will not accept being a victim of highway robbery.
Meineke Car Care Reviews
I was recently a victim of the Meineke Car Care Center in Weston, Florida. With a great deal of reluctance, because of the detrimental national reputation many people perceive the company to have, I overrode my instincts and took my Silverado truck there thinking they would repair the serious problem it was developing. I left several hours later with not only the problem remaining, but $481 poorer.
The story: Heading down the Florida Turnpike with my wife, daughter and 2 young grandchildren late on a Saturday for a vacation weekend, I developed what I thought was a large bubble on one of my tires. The truck bounced horribly. Surprisingly, I couldn't find anything on a visual inspection. The following morning, Sunday, we were bouncing towards our everglades park destination when I spotted the Meineke shop.
The shop did an assessment and the manager, Pete Wyman, told me I needed front shocks. I thought that was a little strange because the truck only has 71,000 (all highway) miles on it. He also said that a lower rear brake caliper bolt was missing and the upper one was loose. No one said anything about a tire being bad, except that being a Sunday, they couldn't get any.
Now I'm in trouble. It was Sunday, we're 250 miles from home, 3 adults and 2 small children, a brake bolt missing , a tire bouncing so bad it would knock the glasses off your head, and facing the 250 mile return trip north that evening .
The estimate for repairs was: $140 for EACH shock plus an hour of labor time @ $98; 2 bolts with labor @ $23 each; and a ""shop supply "" fee of $30 (he said that was to pay for rags and cleaning fluid). With tax, the total bill came to $481.
Curiously, Wyman said that the bolts couldn't be had until shortly before the 5:00 pm closing time.
I told him to go ahead, and we all wasted the day waiting for the repair. About 4:30 pm Wyman called to say the truck had been repaired and that it had been road tested. I paid the bill and we left the shop with 10 minutes to spare before closing time.
Guess what? The problem had not been fixed. Obviously the ""road test"" was a lie. With no other alternative, I was lucky enough to find a tire dealer nearby that was open until 6:00 pm on Sundays. My last resort was to act on my first suspicion - that a tire had developed a bad bubble.
Sure enough. The tire dealer put a pair of new tires on the rear and the problem was solved.
The conclusion is that either the Meineke mechanics were totally incompetent (after all, they took the tires off the truck to ""discover"" the bolt problem but never found the bubble), or more likely, their reputation for scamming and dishonesty held true, and they held me up for totally unnecessary repairs. While the rear tires were off the truck at the tire dealer's, I saw that the lower caliper bolts ON BOTH WHEELS had been replaced and neither of the top bolts had been tightened, meaning they were never loose. The bolts did not need replacing. As much as I don't like being gouged, I will not accept being a victim of highway robbery.