I arrived at the Pep Boys at 1901 MacArthur Road in Whitehall, Pennsylvania at about 1040, well before my appointment; I was not late. I went to the service desk and checked in, noting that I had an appointment for 1100.
1100 arrived, and they hadn’t put my truck into the service bay. While I am not a patient person, I was certainly willing to cut them a break on fifteen minutes or so.
At 1130, they had not pulled my truck into the service bay, and there was no empty bay. By this time, I was starting to get annoyed.
At noon, they had still not pulled my truck into the service bay. Now, I was getting seriously annoyed. At 1215, I got up and walked/stalked over to the service desk and the gentleman guy who had checked me in said, “They’re pulling in into the bay now.”
I walked outside. No, they were not pulling my truck into the service bay, and all of the bays were still full, though it did look like they were finishing up on a couple of vehicles. At 1225, 85 minutes after my appointment was scheduled, they pulled a car out and came for my truck.
Now, when I had set the appointment, I specifically asked how long it would take, and was told about 1½ hours. I went back to the waiting area, with its uncomfortable chairs and dearth of reading material about anything other than cars. At some point over an hour later, I went outside and looked, and there was my truck, outside. I thought it was done. WRONG! They had to pull it into another service bay to do the wheel alignment . . . and that bay was still occupied.
In the end, my 1½ hour service appointment, set for 1100, finished at 1430. And I will tell you, right now, that I will never go back to Pep Boys, I will not buy so much as a valve stem cap from them ever again, and I urge everyone who reads this to never, ever, ever! give Pep Boys any of your business, ever again.
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Cross posted on Truth Before Dishonor
Years ago I set an appointment with UniRoyal. They moved my car in right on time. Floored me. Last Fall I set an appointment with Mr. Tire, the new kid in town. Taken in, right on time. I had specifide 30K mile tires because I needed to pass inspection soon, the the UniRoyal 60K mile tires only lasted 70K miles. Then, the “Guy” comes over and says they didn’t have the tire I ordered, but I was getting the next best tire at no extra cost. Then they found out they had thre of those and would jump to the next grade which were 60K mile Yokohamas “at no additional costs.” Floored again. So I got really good tires for the price of the baloney skins I ordered for inspection and figuring the car would go soon. Well, the car went quicker than planned afterthat ONE LAST repair happened. So, at best, I had 2K miles on these. So I ask my son if his van needed new tires. He just happened to need them, and were the same size as my Yokohamas. So we swapped them.
I had a bad experience with Pep Boys 50 or so years ago, regarding having to take the car back several times because the radiator repair was not done properly. I have not been back since.
My son-in-law had a similar problem a few years ago regarding an electrical system situation, with the same result.
One would think that replacing tires and having an alignment would be about as simple a job as can be in order to get it done in a timely manner. Apparently not.
I go on the recommendations of friends, always, and identify the person when I take the car in for whatever, for a little more incentive to maintain their reputation with both me and my friend.
For tires, I’ve had good luck over the years with Goodyear. For repairs, I’ve always managed to find a small business person, on recommendations, to do my work, which has been successful through the years.
Since the last vehicle I bought was a new one, in 2007, even though it is a little more expensive, I’ve taken my Toyota where I purchased the car. Since it is a hybrid, I’ve also felt that the dealer was the place to go, keeping on schedule with the routine maintenance.
Except for having to buy a new set of tires and a battery, I have not had problem one with this vehicle, which now has about 60,000 miles on it.
And yes, I have an Obama in 2008 sticker on the side window, which is due soon to be replaced for the 2012 general election.
Place it right beside the “I’m a Dope” bumper sticker. At least you’ll then have an “out.”
Koolo, how is your relationship with your parents going lately?
Perry, did you have any children who actually survived childhood?
Oh, by the way, this article over on TBD caused Pep Boys to follow my twitter feed. (Because all articles on TBD are tweeted.)
Passive Aggressive Perry, how does your wife deal with you various mental maladies?
No answer is an answer. Thought so! Now it has become a multigenerational problem. That’s very sad! If you put your mind to it, just put it all behind you, koolo and go forward feeling free and refreshed.
TBD = To Be Determined. So be patient, Mr Hitchcock!
Perry, you are a disease, a cancer on society, as evidenced by the comments your diseased mind allowed you to make on this very thread.
Normally I would not have used Pep Boys in the first place, but there aren’t many places locally that I could have it done. I tried the Midas in Lehighton, but they didn’t have my size tire — the truck has P275/65R18s on it — and the other tire shop closes at noon on Saturdays, and they weren’t answering the phone on Saturday morning. Pep Boys was the obvious next choice, and one of the reasons I called ahead to schedule an appointment was to make sure they had my size tires in stock, which they did.
Had they said, “Look, we’re busy on Saturdays, so yeah, we can do it, but you might have a wait,” I would have had no (legitimate) complaint. But when they lied to me, then yes, I did have a complaint.
Mr Hitchcock wrote:
OK, I’ll admit to not using twitter at all; what does this mean, and does it mean that the corporate leadership will see these articles?
WW wrote:
I don’t see why routine maintenance — changing the oil and filters — should be a terribly complex problem, even in a hybrid, but, naturally, it’s your choice.
I change the oil and filters on our vehicles myself, at the garage at work. The floor in the garage is level, and there’s a creeper there to make it easier to get under the vehicle. I bring in my own ramps. Because the garage is heated with a waste oil burner, I have a place to dispose of the drain oil right at hand; I just dump it into the tank. We have several current and former employees who bring in their drain oil for us to burn.
Since the F-150 is a new vehicle, Ford specified a 5W20 synthetic blend motor oil, and the dealership said that it was fine for me to change my own oil, but that I should retain the receipts to prove that the maintenance was done. That seems kind of anal, but it’s actually a good thing: I have the routine maintenance book in the package that came with the truck, and the receipts for the oil and filters stapled inside, with the mileage and date written down on the receipts, and that way I have a record as well; I know when oil changes are due.
One thing that tricked me is that the vehicle requires oil changes every 7,500 miles. I’m used to changing the oil more frequently than that, and had changed it at 3,244 and 6,215 miles. We were on a trip to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for our younger daughter’s graduation from Basic, when the dash alarm went off: “CHANGE OIL SOON!” This was at 7,300 miles. At 7,500 miles, it switched to “CHANGE OIL NOW.” It turns out that there’s a function that you reset when you change the oil on the truck about which I did not know, which tracks “Oil Life” from 100% to 0%, based on the 7,500 mile interval, and it sends you nasty messages when you don’t reset it. It occurs to me that if you had a warranty item problem — I never have — and the dealership plugged into the vehicle’s computer, they could check whether you have actually been changing the oil. With the nasty notes, the truck itself is urging me to get the maintenance done, just so I don’t void the warranty.
WW wrote:
One of us suspects that you’ll be scraping off the Obama 2012 sticker on November 7th.
We’ll see. Who really knows at this point in time. I’d say we are both optimistic.
True, but I did it for several reasons. First, there is an established maintenance record generated on the vehicle for warranty and resale/trade-in purposes. Second, there is a general systems check. Third, they top off all the fluids. Forth, they rotate the tires. And fifth, they throw in a car wash and interior vacuuming. It’s well worth the $150 to me.
Most of my life I’ve done all of the routine maintenance, including oil and filter changes, relining the brakes, replacing belts, tune ups, carburetor rebuild, the relatively easy stuff. I also had a friend as a consultant, whose hobby was working on cars, so it was all good. Moreover, with this 2007 hybrid, my first new car since my ’65 Beetle, I was ready to change course and allow the Toyota dealer to take over. Their service is as good as the car: Excellent!
I’ve just reached 60k miles, so next week the vehicle goes to the dealer for a complete systems check and maintenance, change all fluids, realignment, the works, which will cost me around $300.
Can’t even have a non-political conversation without this perverse hatred from koolo and Hitchcock respectively:
Both have severe and unresolved issues which probably stem from how they have themselves been treated in their past – sad, and a pity.
To coin a cliché, look who the f*** is talking, Passive-Aggressive Perry.
Take a look at the second comment, idiot, and see who made this thread political.
God, you’re thick …
Hmm, who wrote this perversely snide comment, Passive-Aggressive Perry?
WW wrote:
$150? $150?! Dude, you are being ripped off, massively ripped off! The local Midas Muffler shop has advertised all of that for $24.95 in the past, and even the local Ford dealership advertises that — with the exception of the car wash and vacuuming — for $39.95. Unless you think that $110 is a fair price to wash and vacuum your car, you are getting cheated.
Top off the fluids? Other than windshield washer fluid, your car shouldn’t be using fluids; you should retain the same amount of transmission fluid and coolant, and barely have to add any on a modern automobile with only 60,000 miles on it. Since you have to raise the hood to add washer fluid, it takes a whole minute — if you are slow — to check the oil and coolant level, and another (since you have to have the engine running — to check the transmission fluid.
I’m not an auto mechanic by any means, but one of my friends is, and he has an on-the-side auto repair business. The more complicated work I give to him: he can use the money, so why should I give it to people I don’t know at a professional shop, and he charges me less than a professional shop would, so we both win. I can see using a professional shop if you just don’t feel like doing it yourself, but $150 seems way out of line to me.
WW asked:
This is one of those (rare) times in which I am going to agree with Wagonwheel. His comment, “And yes, I have an Obama in 2008 sticker on the side window, which is due soon to be replaced for the 2012 general election,” which generated the other responses, insulted no one, and didn’t deserve the responses it received. It’s also true that WW fought back just as hard. Neither of that was necessary.
Editor: So noted, sir.
It means someone from corporate noticed a tweet talking about them and chose to follow that twitter feed. There’s a thing you can do on twitter that goes along the lines of “who is talking about me” that will basically show you who is talking about you on twitter. I suspect this person’s job description includes paying attention to “word of mouth advertising”, thus he or she will want to get future notification automatically from people talking about them instead of doing the search to find it.
No, Mr Editor, my responses to Perry were not generated by his silly bumper sticker but rather by his more proximate and indeed foul comment immediately before my first rough comment to Perry.
Perry is playing his standard issue Detroit Pistons “bad boys” game (back during the days of Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Dennis Rodman, et al) where they would basically sucker punch people (throwing elbows and all manner of dirty play) and then make huge theatrics when people responded in kind. It is Perry’s passive-aggressive nature to do this sort of thing all day long.
You will note that, even during Perry’s complaints about our responses in kind, he can’t help but throw down ugly personal attacks against us, attacks that have no place in civil society but are perfectly acceptable in Perry’s world — so long as they are one-way and one-way only.
BTW, Passive-Aggressive Perry made yet another personal information comment — this time against Eric — in the Mitt Romney thread.
I would agree with that, as I am as guilty as anyone for responding in kind. This blog would improve in quality/civility if the initiation part were stopped, as with koolo and Mr Hitchcock, principally. Let us see if that happens. I hope so.
I checked my records, and find that the “$150″ was more like $90 for the routine maintenance sessions. That is still more than Jiffy Lube charged me for my previous vehicle, about $50. You’ve made some good points, but are you aware of what auto mechanics are paid per hour these days? I have watched; it takes upwards of a half hour to complete their maintenance on my vehicle. And don’t forget the tire rotations and the car wash which I get. At this point, it is worth it to me.
It is a gorgeous day here today, but I’m missing my wife who is in Durham looking after her mother who is now in hospice in Durham, NC. In the past couple of months, she or we have been there three of the last five week ends, plus a two week stay in April, a sixteen hour round trip for us, but well worth it under the circumstances.
Mr Hitchcock wrote:
Then perhaps we shall see a response from Pep Boys, more probably on the TBD article than this one, though probably not until Tuesday at the earliest. At the very least, the branch in question might hear about it.
You have a point, Mr Editor. Tell you what: Henceforth I will stop responponding to insults using insults, confining myself to facts and opinions.
I just saw a piece about Meghan McCain, in response to the personal attacks which she has endured, entitled: “Meghan McCain: Internet Bullying ‘Keeps Me Up At Night’”
I well understand what she is lamenting. Her experiences represent a point that we all should keep in mind when generating a blog comment which counters a comment by one whose politics are different.
Oh puh-lease! Obviously the passive side has asserted itself at this point, and we should all sigh a collective “Awwww!”
Spare. Us. All. You’ll be right in here tomorrow with the “extremist,” “unpatriotic,” “un-American” etc. Maybe you can write a letter to Scott Walker apologizing for referring to him as a “terrorist,” eh?
BTW, PAP, I suggest you look up a guy named Brett Kimberlin.
Heh, Koolo, that name alone drew over 1,000 hits to my blog this past week.
It was all over the blogosphere. But not surprising PAP doesn’t know of him.
And I further suggest Passive-Aggressive Perry take a look at what these folks had to endure from creeps on the Left.
Now we see where PAP gets his [lesser aggressive] “revelation” tactics from.
Perry, Cindy McCain would not get those insults if she wasn’t constantly using her fame (courtesy of her father) to trash the Republican Party all the time.
Reposted from the linked TBD cross-post comment section:
Correction: That should be Meghan McCain, not Cindy McCain.
She has not been “trashing” the Republican Party, Eric. She is responding to Republican extremists who are trashing her, the behavior of which seems to be OK with you, correct?
No, Meghan McCain has been trashing the Republican Party’s base.
Only radical Leftists and morons call the Republican Party’s base “extremists”. Which one are you, Perry? A radical Leftist or a moron? I suggest you are both.