Last night (Monday) on my drive home from work the check engine light lit up on my truck, so I took my truck to Pep Boys this morning at 8am sharp. I had to use a personal day at work to do this. I chose Pep Boys because I figured they could get me in quicker than a Ford dealership and also give me a better price. I describe the problem to the service guy, and he says to have a seat, it will be 2-3 hours while they run tests on it. I was the only person in the service area's 10 bays at this point in the morning. I sit for 3 hours in the waiting area and work on some essays I'm writing for business school. Not a big deal. Then I'm told by the service guy that it's going to cost $695.05 to repair my engine. A number of things were wrong, including a messed up EGR valve, spark plugs and wires, the TBI needed to be cleaned out, etc. I got the price down to $488.32 after cutting out some things I thought I could do myself such as replace the air filter. The guy said it would take another 3 hours to fix. At this point it was lunch and I called my brother and he took me home. The guy from Pep Boys was going to call me when my truck was ready. He calls at 5pm, and my brother takes me up to Pep Boys to get my car. I thought I could pick up my car, and make it to a business dinner I had at 6:30pm at Ruggles. That's when the fun began. I go to pay and look at their new invoice and notice that it's $50 higher than what I had agreed to earlier. I asked the service guy (different guy from this morning) to fix it. He says "ok, I'll fix it". Too bad he didn't know how to use the store's computer. After fumbling around with it for 30 MINUTES, he gets the manager to help him, who also had difficulties. Another 10 minutes pass and they finally get a receipt printed out, or so I thought. "Richard L.", the manager, took my receipt to the only cash register in the store, and began trying to ring it up. By this time it was 6:15pm. I called and cancelled my business dinner, which I felt bad about. "Richard L"spent 20 minutes messing with the receipt to correct the price to it's proper value. This whole time there was a line backing up at the store's only cash register. This wasn't a normal Pep Boys, this was the Pep Boys SuperCenter (lotsa customers), and there were probably 10 people in line, all of which were pissed off. Then it's time to pay, and Richard L presents me with a bill that is wrong ($50 too high), and asks me to sign it. I said "no, put the correct price on there before I will sign it". He then gets angry at me, and says that it will take a long time to print. Then he asks how I will pay. I had already told him that I was going to pay by signing up for the Pep Boys credit card, which would give me 10% off my order. When I told him that (keep in mind there were 12 people in line), he got livid and said that was going to take ANOTHER HOUR to go through the paperwork. So he goes off to the back to do the paperwork, while another cashier uses the one register to get the 12 people out of line. 45 minutes later, he shows back up and tries to ring me up again. He takes ANOTHER 20 MINTUES to get the bill right (again on the store's only register), and another 10 people are stuck in line pissed off. After finally getting the price right, he forgets to include the 10% discount, and I tell him I'm not going to sign the receipt for that price. So he has to enter in each part number as a rebate to credit my account (another 10 minutes), then charge me for the right price again. This just proved too much for Richard L. Richard was not good with math. He charged me $538, which I signed, then he was going to rebate back in a separate transaction the amount that he forgot to deduct (should have been $53.80). Instead Richard inputs the amount which I should have been charged ($488.32) as my REBATE. The clerk saw him do this and told him in Spanish how he had goofed it up, and he just said "I don't care I just want this guy out" in Spanish back. So I ended up paying about $50 after his math error. By this time it was 7:30pm. After my long ordeal I go out to start the car up, and after 2 second, guess what happens. Then "check engine" light came on and stayed on. I go back to the service guy and ask if he can run a quick check on what the problem is, which he agreed to do, until he realized that the only person with the key to the scanner was gone for the day. So, I'm back where I started. I have a truck with the "check engine" light on, and I'll need to take it into Pep Boys in the morning. ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you would've been better off going to the dealership... now you know... pep boys is crap. shoot, SEARS automotive could've probably done a better job. i feel your pain, there's nothing like spending a buttload of money on your car, only to get hassled and then it not be fixed. i have a Honda, the only place that works on it is the Honda dealer. I would rather pay a little more to get it worked on there, but at least I have piece of mind that it is worked on by Honda tech at a Honda dealership. I don't feel that I have ever been unfairly charged or had work done that the car didn't need at the dealership. Besides, the dealership I go to has cubicles with phone access, that allow me to use dial up to access the net... beautiful.
I'd rather just set my car on fire than take it to PepBoys. You'll be lucky if they don't say that it's a different problem causing the check engine light to come on, so they'd have to charge you again for this instance.
Damn, what a nightmare. Other than computer repair people and used car salesmen, car repair people are among the people I least like to have to deal with. Good thing you were firm and did not cave in when they repeatedly presented you with a bill that was too high. The people you had to deal with sound so dumb, it's unbelievable. I don't think I would have had the patience you had with them.
Jackie, I thought I had made it pretty clear that my brother is SamFisher. My 'partner' is glynch and our adopted child is Batman Jones.
Bigtexxxx, several words of advice: A. Check engine lights are not always the horror that most people think they are. My 99 Maxima's check engine nanny will turn on if I don't tighten the gas cap until it clicks quite a bit. Of course check it out, but if the vehicle runs fine without any smoke or other noises or problems, repairs can wait unless you have an emissions inspection the next day. B. get a Helm's manual (65 bucks for most normal vehicles), a decent set of tools, some Mechanix gloves and if you have the space, do it yourself. When I bought my 86 Porsche back in 96, it was totally ragged out by the teenager whose parents stupidly bought it for him and I had to totally rebuild the engine, which on a 928 is an extremely expensive and painful endeavor. In addition, I had to put new brakes on it, put on a new driveshaft, replace the springs, chase electrical problems down and replace the timing belt, which on a 928 is the most aggravating form of torture known to man. I've gone from just hoping that I followed the diagrams in the book correctly so the car simply runs to being the resident mechanical guru of my Porsche club, with the largest collection of technical manuals on the 928 in N. Georgia. There is no greater satisfaction in both your fatter wallet and the simple manly aspect of doing it yourself. Now all of my friends get me to help me with their cars and trucks and I get a great deal of free beer. In any case, both my kids love to go out in the garage and help their father, so it is one of the best ways for me to get things done, bond with the kids, and for them to learn something they can use later in life. C. Don't go to Pep Boys. The best way is find a mechanic that is recommended to you by friends and who you personally know. Dealerships are similarly crooked, but at least for the most part, they aren't brutally incompetent like those Pep Boys a-holes.
That sucks, bigtexxx. I thought it was pretty much common knowledge that Pep Boys is one of the worst shops out there. It's amazing how they stay in business. I drive a Chevy Blazer and I usually take it to the Knapp Chevy service drive. A little more expensive, but they do good work. BTW, I used to work at Enterprise Rent A Car and the check engine lights would always come on in our cars. We just disconnected the battery for about 20 minutes and it would never come back on again.
that doesnt always do the trick tho... and SJC, I take offense to that crack about car repair guys...I did it for 10 years and prided myself on being honest and doing a good job the first time... also... bama is totally correct about the check engine light... unless your car is obviously running bad, you can putoff getting the check engine problem looked at.. it is almost never something that will damage your vehicle... and Pep Boys suck...I can almost guarantee that when they run the tests tomorrow...they will find something else to be the problem...therefore, not under warranty. find a independent mechanic or shop that has done good work for friends or family...and go there... there are some dealers that are decent, but it is an absolute crapshoot to find them.
Be a man and learn about your car, at least on a minimal level. Your manual should tell you that the check engine light doesn't mean much. Just reconnect your battery wires, then it should go away. Unless you can hear your car dying, the worst case the light represents is that your car is polluting too much.
As stated, most of the time this is caused by some emissions part which is covered under a separate warrenty. Check your manual, but most are 7 years/70,000 miles - in which your dealer replaces for free.
I always work on my own cars. But I realize that some people just don't have the knack for it, and that's understandable. My brother couldn't fix his own car if his life depended on it. bigTexx, if you live on the south side of town (Clear Lake area), I have a friend who is a fantastic mechanic, who will charge you a very, very fair price. Email me.
