A few weeks ago my husband took his car into Meineke for an oil change and two state inspections that are required when you renew your tags. He took it up there and they said it would take one hour.
Over two hours later I get a call from my husband that Meineke said he would have to leave the car there and pick it back up later. The reason why they told him is because when they tried to change the oil they Broke the oil plug and half of it went into the oil pan! The only other thing that Meineke would tell my husband was the plug broken and it will cost us $100 to have them drop the oil pan in order to get the broken piece out, then the cost of the part to replace the plug.
My husband told them he should not have to pay since they messed up and broke the plug off into the pan. They said now they HAVE to drop the pan because it was dangerous to leave the piece in there bouncing around (which i know it is) but that we basically wont get our car back until we pay them.
This company doesn't take any responsibility for making mistakes. Any other company would have to pay for the mistake not make the customer eat the high cost of the labor to fix THE COMPANIES mistake!
We had no choice, we had to leave the car there. Then a day later, when we were suppose to pickup the car, we get a call from Meineke saying now we have to replace the entire oil pan! They said when the tried to put a new plug back into the hole they cracked the oil pan! I called the mechanic I use for both our cars (which is my dad who is a ASE certified mechanic) and he said it was almost impossible for them to crack the oil pan, unless they used a sledge hammer to put the plug in or something that uses a lot of force! He said that plug is only suppose to be screwed in by hand, and what they did to the oil pan was rare...because if they were knowledgeable and knew what they were doing this would have Never happened.
So even though it was their mistake AGAIN they told us we had to pay for the labor and another oil pan and they wanted to charge us $300 for an oil pan and the labor to put one back on. So, we went from spending about $60 for the oil change plus inspections to spending the $60 plus about $436 for the oil pan, parts, and labor!!! I was furious needless to say because if they wouldn't have messed up the plug and then using an improper tool to put it back in we never would have had this problem. The thing that made me so mad is that they acted as if they did nothing wrong and we were going to pay for it no matter what. We told them we were not going to pay $300 for an oil pan that costs about $60 if I go and get it from a Carquest or something. So we got one and gave it to them to put on, and was suppose to use the gasket from the old oil pan.
Finally after four days without our car they call us and its all done. We ended up paying $36 for a new gasket because I'm guessing they screwed up that old one too.
We got outta there with spending $175 total. May seem like a deal to some, but a customer should not have to pay for a companies mistakes, its that simple. The company I work at, if something goes wrong, we do the work for free because it was our companies mistake. NOT this Meineke...they make a customer pay for their mistakes and then tell them they wont get a car back until they are paid up.
It is wrong what this place did. I feel totally screwed out of money that I didnt plan on spending, and no apologies or anything for this crappy auto shop.
BEWARE, I would not send anyone to this shop. I think they are a dishonest business that needs to learn to own up to their mistakes not screw a customer out of money for something they did. This is not the way to do business and keep customers acting the way they did.
Dakine
Fenton, Missouri
U.S.A.