Random question, automotive shop related.

So the wifes car needed tires, needed tires about 15k miles ago.

Ok, found tires.

I called around, found what i think is a good deal on some BFG's.
We drop the car of this morning, i was told the tires would be $580.22 out the door, tax included.

4 or 5 hours later i get a phone call, you know the typical phone call from about any automotive
shop, they have a list of things the car needs. I knew it needed brakes, i had planned on doing them.
I knew it had a broken wheel stud, i personally broke it about 2 years ago.

Guy on the phone, turns out being the assistant manager..He is who i initially set all this
up with this past thursday of last week..
He's going on and on about what our car needs, i ask him what the total would be to have all
of the work done, tires, brakes, wheel stud, wheel alignment, ect.. he says $688.
Im like, sold. Go for it.

About 3 hours later i get this automated text message saying our car is ready, so we get ready to go.
Have our 10 month old loaded up, wife and I, im about 4 blocks down the street from leaving our house
and the assistant manager guy calls.. Says hey your car is ready on and on.. i said alright cool yeah i got
a text message, what is the total? He says...... $1410.97 or something.


So question is..

When you request the total price for the work being done to your vehicle, is the total
only for half of the work, some of the work or all of the work? What is the definition of "total"..
Im not asking.. lol

What a wild few days ive had!!
When you go out to eat and you ask for your total or your bill.. Do they only include your drinks
in the total or do they include your drinks and the food you ate?

Price on the tires actually went from $580.22 installed out the door to $668 and some change
From the time we hung up the phone thursday to this afternoon when i went to pick the car up.
Never... never will i be returning to that place.
If you want the rest of the story.. Just say so.

 

I would say, you quoted me $688 for all the work to be done. Tires were quoted at $580 just a few days prior so I couldn't believe you could do the rest for $100 but that's the reason I told you to go ahead and do it. Now you tell me it's $1400. That's not what you said, that's not right and that's illegal. Either I'm paying you the quoted price or you can take all the new stuff off minus the tires and give me the car back like it was. I am not paying you literally over $500 for work I can do in literally a few hours myself.

Did you say the quote was to you by text? If so you have easy proof.

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Oh man! lol! Spot on, almost exactly.


The guy tells me on the phone, which who is the assistant manager, same guy who i talked to thursday, he says "Theres no need for us to go back and forth about this over the phone, we will talk about this more when you get here sir"
I told him multiple times! I told the guy! I said hey, im not paying anymore then $688 when i get there. Im paying $688 for the work you have done, or you can remove the brake parts and i'll pay $580 for the tires. That is it!!

Guy thought i must of been kidding! I had to embarrass this guy in front of his employees, in front of customers in the lobby and in the waiting area.
He says "you never told me to take the parts off" when i arrived and gave him an ear full for about 10 minutes. I said play the recording!! Everytime you call this place, you get an
automated message that says "this call may be monitored and recorded" blah blah blah. He wouldnt go back and find the call or play the call that was recorded or whatever the deal is.

I told my wife to stay in the truck when we got there..
Maybe the best part about the whole deal from my wifes point of view outside..
Roughly 10 minutes after i had walked inside, a metro police car pulls up.
Apparently something else was going on with another customer who felt the need to file a police report. No idea what that matter was about.
Wife texted me though, something like "ugh the cops are here, why?" lol!

The guy admitted that he had only given me the total owed on our final phone call which was him telling me our car was ready.
he said that loud and clear.. I didnt pay $1400some odd dollars i'll tell ya that.

None of the quotes given were via text.
I simply got some automated text from the buisness letting me know that our car was ready
for pick up. All of the quotes given, were given over the phone via speech.



And this is one of them big ol box chain tire and brake and whatever else shops. Starts with a B ends with Tire.
We were over half way there and i said to my self, wow, should of brought the tow truck.
I have my own flat bed tow truck in my driveway. LOL!

I was absolutely fuming at this!
And this was my first time ever conducting business with this place! Swear!
I let the guy know it too! He had to of known it, no history of me in his computer.

 

Car is home. I walked out with a receipt.. Oh thats a whole nother story with the receipt..
So i walk out with the keys, the receipt and we are on our way.
Wife jumps out, we load our son into her car, she goes to the store, i run over to my Dad's and
end up telling him the whole story.

I asked the guy straight up, i said how many people a week do you pizz off here? LOL!

 

When you asked for the total he should have replied: with your tires and the additional brake work etc your total will be
$xxx.xx amount.

 

And that's where the shop screwed up. The total is the total. Total for all parts and services, even the paper towels and gojo to clean up. You have to pay for the services and parts upon pickup, why else would they quote you a price that was only for part of the work?

I get the idea that you didn't end up paying the 1400 that was at some point told you. With a cop there for another po'd customer, the shop manager should have been scared hitless.

I'm sure the POS that this chain has correctly adds numbers together and the azz. manager simply didn't use the software well enough. I mean, that SW is made to be idiot proof. Apparently they need an update, or more training

 

The original idiot was the trainer?????

 

YUP

 

I recently had the local (small) chain store tire shop fix a slow leak on my truck tire...I had the wheel off to do brakes so I just took them the loose wheel. They replaced the valve stem and that was it...I was pretty sure that was not it because I had checked it with leak finder right before I took it in, and the valve stem was fine...plus the leak got worse when the tire was parked in just the wrong spot, typical of a nail or something in it.
Couple weeks later I took the truck back in because it was still leaking...he looks it up and says they would have to charge me because I had just brought them a loose wheel last time...apparently I didn't pay the extra for wheel removal! I had also gotten a quote on new tires for our van while I was there the first time...about the time he starts whining about having to take my wheel off to look at it again, I whipped out my earlier quote and said throw these in the back of the truck while I'm here too (having the tires installed later...wanted to get them while they were on sale though) all of a sudden rolling a jack over to the truck and going zip zip zip with the air gun 8 times was no big deal anymore!

 

This would be a big reason as to why i frequent orielly auto parts and do the stuff on my own.


I got an email yesterday from them, automated thing, wanting my feedback on my experience.

You sure?!

 

Yea I don't play games with most shops. I try to do all my own work. Buy Advance mostly. Amazon or eBay are my top places. I purchase from.

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We have NAPA, AutoZone, O'Reilly's here, and Advance just recently closed. There just isn't enough business in this little town for 4 of 'em! I said when O'Reilly came in (they were the last ones) that Advance was probably a goner. NAPA was here forever, AZ has been here quite a while too, O'Reilly was the new kid (and also right beside AZ)...so I figured since Advance was usually not busy, that they were already being "watched" by some corporate bean counter and O'Reilly would end up out-lasting them...yup, just what happened. I heard later that if it weren't for a couple decent commercial accounts that Advance would have been gone earlier.
Anyways, I am a fan of AutoZone due to their warranty, and reward points...just give 'em your phone # and they can look you up at any store in the country...Advance could do it too...but they said it was a real hassle to do...not sure on O'Reilly's warranty.
NAPA's warranty stinks...and they have a guy that works the counter there that is just irritating! I dunno how many times I had to educate him that "yes, you do carry that" after being told "nope, sorry"!

 

I use to buy everything from AZ cause their prices were best. But the gap in price closed and Advance got more competitive. Advance online coupons are amazing too, can get up to 40% off and always can get 20% off, I never buy without the 30% online coupons, I order online and pickup in person, because I am tired of "we don't have those or what are you talking about". I worked at a parts store when I was younger, I realize who they hire and what some don't know, plus what they have and don't have usually. We have an Orileys but they always seem to be more expensive. We have a Napa too but their expensive. Also in the area we have Carquest which is also owned by Advance.

Advance can look up by name phone number, email address if you order online. You either have experiences with that from 10 years or so ago or someone who didn't want to do it or know how?

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580.22 + 688 is 1268.22 according to my calculator.

So, the $140 or so difference is for parts that may or may not have been needed to complete the job. It happens.
Repair work has gotten so costly I don't know of a single place any more that would go ahead and go over the estimated budget they were allowed without getting an OK of some sort. There probably are, but with the size of repair shops these days they just don't want customers having meltdowns over higher than expected bills.

Unless you have proof in writing so to speak verbal agreements don't mean much. Why so many businesses have resorted to recording phone calls.
There are customers who are scammers too.

 

About 4 years ago.
Yeah from the same store is easy...but if the part was bought at a different store, they have to get on the corporate site and look it up...and they acted like it was a huge hassle for them...that's OK, AZ is closer to me anyways.

 

I just use my Ford dealer. I needed tires for my F150 and did my homework on the puter. As good a price if not better than the tire stores and I didn't have some nimrod working on my truck. Made the appointment and my neighbor mechanic picked it up in the morning and dropped off that evening. Truck was even washed!

 

Yeah the Ford dealer takes a lot of business from the tire shop here...I priced our van tires there, but the tire shop beat 'em...plus the tire shop is right across from my work so it makes it easy to get the free lifetime balance/rotation done...and the Ford dealer charges for balance during the free lifetime rotation...so those couple items tipped the scale to the tire shop for me.
Oh, and our Ford dealer still has nimrods mounting the tires...same bunch that does the quickie lube I think...