Bad experiences with Jiffy Lube or other car services places?

I would like to know how many of you have had bad experiences with car services companies like Jiffy Lube. Please post the make, model, and year of the car, the car services place, and what they did to it. Here are my bad experiences:

Car: 87' Dodge Daytona Shelby. Place: Jiffy Lube. Experience: Oil filler cap left open after an oil change, two blocks away the car started to get oil even in the winshield. Took the car back for a crappy cleaning, "it was nobody's fault". At home I found out that 3 out of the 4 tires valve caps were missing. One month after the oil incident, the turbo started to fail due to poor oil flow throug the lines.

Car: 84' Ford Tempo. Place: Firestone. Experience: Took the car for a front cv joint boot replacement and the mechanic screwed the whole axle, after 8 hours of waiting they said that the axle was already broken when I brought the car. How do you explain I drove the car to the place with a broken axle?

Car: 93' Ford T-Bird LX Place: Sears Experience: Clean and neat looking floor mats full of greasy stains after an estimate to replace some of the front axle components. Didn't file any complains, just took the car and never came back to that place. Since the car was a little dirty in the outside they though they could help it increase the % of dirt in the inside.

Reply to
Pepito
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..I forgot...

Car: 88' Ford Mustang LX Place: N/A Experience: I do all the work I can possibly do in this car so no bad experiences so far.

Reply to
Pepito

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It is actually a good idea to clean your car well before taking it in for service. The service people will see that you are fussy about your car and will probably take better care of it because they will not want to hear complaints. I usually make it a point of cleaning the car really well and then specifically telling the service manager that I am extremely fussy about the car before ever leaving it. I never take my car in for service anyway, I don't trust anybody... I do all my own work. But I am forced to take my cars in for state inspection. So far the bozos at the dealer stripped wheel studs during inspection... twice! Had to replace them. Gee, you can't even have someone remove and replace a WHEEL, let alone doing any other type of complicated work. It's a damn shame. Last time the guy says to me that the stud was already stripped when he went to take off the lug nut. I know this was a blatent lie because I had removed and replaced the wheels myself the day before with a hand wrench, I know for a fact that ALL the lug nuts on my car were on perfectly, torqued perfectly. This bozo removed the nut and then cross-threaded it back on with his air-wrench.... then has the balls to tell me he found it stripped.

Another good idea is to put a sheet or blanket over your seats and also throw some old floor mats on top of your good mats before taking the car in.

Jiffy Lube? Do you really want some high school drop-out punk wrenching your car? I actually have nightmares about this sort of thing occasionally. Very scary.

Buy a good new car (which does not need much service for the first 100,000 miles), do all the simple service yourself (oil, brakes, fuel filter, etc), and then when the car needs more major type service or repair (usually at

100k miles +), sell the car and buy another one. This way you NEVER need to bring the car to a shop. I have a `96 Chevy that has 86k miles on it... the car has NEVER been to a shop for service or repair since the day it left the showroom brand new. At 100k miles it will need a spark plug change... on this car you need to tilt the engine to get the plugs out, it looks like a real pain to do it... I'll probably just leave it alone until it has about 110k miles on it, and then just sell it. You gotta figure that after 110k miles or so, a lot of things might start breaking anyway. The goal is to NEVER need to go to a shop for repairs. The money you will save by not being ripped off by a shop can go toward the purchase of a nice new car. The time you will save and heartache you will avoid is also worth a great deal, maybe even more than the money saved.
Reply to
Fred

I own one of the cars below, and was involved in all of the other issues.

Car: 1994 Taurus SHO Place: Minute Lube After having the oil changed here for 2 years, experienced starter failure. Tech in shop tells me the starter was soaked in oil. Oil filter located above starter. Tech informs me that anyone who knew what he was doing would use a trough to insure oil was not running on starter when changing oil filter.

Place: Oil Can Henrys Car: 1997 Lincoln After having these guys maintain this car since it was knew, experienced brake system failure. Informed by Ford that motor oil was put in the master cylinder instead of brake fluid. $3000.00 repair bill. Oil Can Henry's was the only people who touched the car, but they denied any responsibility. His insurance company covered it.

Place: Local, Independently owned lube shop Car: 1973 MGB-GT After checking differential fluid level, they failed to re-install the filler plug. Drove car for a week, experienced total differential failure due to loss of lubricant. Went back to shop, found the filler plug with the factory paint stripe that matched the one across the differential. $2500.00 bill from MG dealer to repair. After finally tracking down the owner of the business, she first denied any responsibility. Then she stated they did not have insurance. Finally, when threatened with legal action, came across with the name of her insurance company and resolved the issue.

I learned my lesson about these places.

Reply to
Bill

Back when I had a 97 Mitsubishi Galant, I had the same thing happen twice at an independently owned Firestone. Instead of draining the oil, they would drain the transmission fluid, and then fill the crankcase with oil. So I've got a car with no tranny fluid and 10 quarts of oil.

Fortunately, they noticed it both times before I did and fixed it -- of course it's kind of hard to miss a car with an automatic transmission without any transmission fluid.

Bad things happen in these shops, but then bad things happen in *all* shops. The trick is to find a shop that notices and fixes the bad things they did before you leave the shop and doesn't try to blame or pass the cost onto you, and that's why I'm still use the Firestone shop.

- Max - ======= "Michael Moore is a dumb [expletive], that's what I think." - Ray Bradbury

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Reply to
Max C. Webster III
1996 Mustang GT

EZ-Lube Los Angeles, CA:

Loose oil drain plug. Luckily I had planned to make two stops that day. One for an oil change and then over to the tranny shop for a fluid change. I had the oil change done and headed to the other shop. They put the car on the lift and immediatly tolld me that I was losing oil from the plug. I was pissed, but I calmly went back to EZ lube and spoke to the manager. I remained calm, but demanded my money back. I got my $56 back and one voucher for another $56.

My story isn't unique, but one screwup is enough for me.

Reply to
CasinoMaker

Car: '03 Mustang GT Place: Ford Dealer Experience: Went in for a routine 6k mile service which included an oil change. Picked up the car all was OK. Drove it for about a week, went to get gas and had the oil checked (out of habit).. Was low 2 quarts! Went back to the dealer, and after an intense shouting match got a free extended warranty on the engine to 100k miles.

Reply to
joe

Car: '03 Mustang GT Place: Ford Dealer Experience: Went in for a routine 6k mile service which included an oil change. Picked up the car all was OK. Drove it for about a week, went to get gas and had the oil checked (out of habit).. Was low 2 quarts! Went back to the dealer, and after an intense shouting match got a free extended warranty on the engine to 100k miles.

Reply to
joe

Car: 92 Geo Storm GSI Place: Techmaster Brandon, fl Experience: Went in to have the brake pads replaced. Got suckered into brake fluid refresh as well as other crap not really needed. Ended up with a $250 bill for what should have been about $70. They put in really crappy pads as well, Cheapest ones Discount Auto has as I found out a few months later as the went belly up. That's when I decided to learn more about doing stuff myself so I would not get shafted again.

Car: 2001 Ford F150 Place: Just Brakes Brandon, Fl Experience: Not me, but my brother in law. Went in to have his pads replaced. Ended up with a $600 + bill for brake fludi flush and caliper rebuilds. Foudn out later most of this work was not done. Just Brakes in Tampa Bay is now under investigation as there are many complaints and a sting operation with a perferctly maintained state vehicle proved work was stated to be needed, charged and not performed.

Are there no honest mechanics left in this part of the world?

Reply to
Paul

You know guys, I have been on here for a while, reading and learning and asking questions. I am a real car guy.............and to hear this sorta stuff is just devastating. Makes me think that the guys workin on our cars don't give a damn. I have a mechanic that is very good but does not have attention to detail. Like for instance, getting into my car with filthy boots or leaving greasy finger prints on the body of my Stang after working on her. He is qualified but it's just that little part that irritates me. Of course I know it's a shop and it can be dirty and blah blha blah.............but come on. I have finally decided that I will be doing my own work on my car.........what ever I can do that is. I used to do it but got lazy I guess.

I had one instance where a Toyota dealership left a tool under my hood...........Everybody defended the mechanic when I posted it on a forum. Saying that I had been too harsh. But my car ws relatively new and it coulda done some serious damage.

Reply to
Steph

It's been 14 years ago, but I took my car in for an oil change. They over tightened the drain plug and broke the nylon washer. It leaked oil all over my friend's driveway. I took it back to them and they fixed it. Had to clean up the mess. At least the oil was clean.

Those oil change places are over priced now. John

Reply to
jriegle

Midas- '68 Ranchero- Had them pull my radiator so I could have it recored while they were putting on a new exhaust. Drove it home, about 5 miles. Got under it to drain the rad and replace the water with coolant. Guess what I find??

A locking clamp on the lower hose. Midas used it to keep the coolant from draining out of the block. They never removed it and I ended up driving my car that far with ZERO coolant flow. The real Kicker is that The reason they were putting on a new exhaust was because I had just dropped in the brand new 302 the day before. Talk about PISSED!! Both me and my engine builder called the manager. Let's just say they now owe me a free exhaust system on the '69 when it's done.

Reply to
66 6F HCS

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As long as the coolant temperature stayed within spec, there should have been no problems. Going 5 miles is probably just enough to warm up the engine, but not overheat it. You DID have a good temperature gauge hooked up, right? On a new engine, I certainly hope so. The gauge would have alerted you an overheating problem. I'm sure the engine is fine, assuming it did not go over 250 degrees or so.

Regardless, I am amazed at how incredibly careless all these shops are. There really is NO excuse. They are either totally incompetant, or they do such a rush job that they get sloppy and forget things, etc... either way, it's bad. Human beings make mistakes, yes.... but from the stories I have read here, it is obvious that there is just way too much general incompetance out there. It only takes an extra 15 seconds to just give the whole engine compartment a "once over" to make sure no tools were left behind and or parts left unfastened, whatever. But yet all these bozos do not have the sense to even do that. How the heck do you send a customer away with a clamp on the coolant hose, or with oil leaking from the filter or drain plug whatever... there is NO excuse!

Not to insult anyone who might work at a Jiffy Lube, but let's face it... any excellent mechanics out there either work for prestigious shops or own their own shops. Anyone changing oil or rotating tires at Jiffy Lube is there because they cannot do any better... and if they cannot do any better than that, they are really NOT mechanics, but just kids instructed to remove filters or tires whatever. Most of these kids do not even have a feel for a wrench... these are the type guys that you will find using a pliers to loosen a bolt, etc... such people should be kept FAR away from your car at all times. Like the guy who does the inspections at the local dealer here... they have one guy that does inspections only... that is because he can probably not do anything else... this is the kid who stripped my wheel studs TWICE (two years apart, was the same guy). Now if this kid cannot learn how to replace lug nuts without cross-threading them, especially in two year's time, in my opinion he should NOT be working at an auto dealership as a mechanic!!! But yet there are apparently millions of those type guys out there, just waiting to wreck YOUR car! It's terrible, it really is.

Reply to
Fred

Interesting thread!

Car: 1985 GT

Place: Jiffy Lube, Phoenix, AZ

Year: 1996

I was (and still am) the orginal owner. At the time the car had about

20,000 orginal miles (27,000 today). They stripped the drain plug (I thought it was odd they had abreaker bar under the car). They told me it was bound to happen with a car with 120k on it. They looked pretty silly when I explained its 20k! They said I should go uy a new plug. Short discussion and they replaced it. No more Jiffy Lube.

Back in NY my friend was a mechanic at the Ford dealer down the street from this Jiffy Lube. They would see alot of cars come in with engine. Almost all said yes, they just just had a Jiffy Lube. He would change the filetr from a $1.00 value JL filter and instal a Ford filter and a quart of oil. Problem solved (most of the time).

Car: 1989 McLaren Mustang

Place: Earnhardt Ford Tempe, AZ

Year: 2003

Got too hot last summer to change the oil myself. Brought it in 3 times (every 45 days since I drive about 600 miles/week). When it cooled off and I went to change the oil, both plugs were stripped. I bought two Fram drain kits. There are keeping the car clean and dry.

Hank Phoenix

Reply to
Hank

RapidLube in Ontario, Canada. Overfilled the car (Mustang LX 5.0) oil and stripped the threads on the drain plug hole.

-Rich

Reply to
Richard

Well, my point is what could have happened, not what did happen. If I had driven it back to my engine builders shop like I was supposed to. I would have been on the Interstate for about 40 minutes. THAT's the problem. I probably would have blown that brand new motor.

Reply to
66 6F HCS

Hey Scott,

I am with you. Whether you drove 2 feet or 200 miles, it's still not acceptable. You got lucky and in my opinion so did they cause if that was my brand new engine, it wouldn't a been pretty.

Reply to
Steph

Reply to
James

Wife's Minivan When they took the oil filter off, the old gasket stayed on the engine. Then they put the new oil filter on top of the old gasket. Result - two gaskets, one on top of the other. The oil pressure sprayed the oil out between the two gaskets.

Reply to
John

Oh! Crap. That sounds like something I would do to myself!

Reply to
WindsorFox[SS]

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