Meineke Shop #1943 Negligent, imcompetent technicians extremely long wait, services car came later first, takes advantage of patient customers Woodbridge Northern Virginia

Meineke Shop #1943:
Shop Manager: Kevin Kinsey
Technicians: Scotty, Mike

I brought my 2001 Accord to this Meineke shop for an oil change on Sat, Oct 28, 2006 around 10:15 am. I waited more than 1.5 hour. During the wait, around 10:50 am, there was a lady came claiming she did make an appointment at 11 am. She was refused at first by the manager since Meineke does not do appointment for oil change. But technician Mike insisted taking her in (why???). So she got the next spot.

I decided to leave my car there and would come back later. I called the shop at around 3:30pm, my car still did not get into the shop and Kevin promised to get it done before closing. At 4:50 pm (store is closed at 5 pm), I called again. My car was still not serviced. I had to come picking up my car.

I decided to give this shop the second chance on Saturday, Nov 4, 2006. I still had to wait more than 2 hours to get the oil change. Finally, thanks God.

Troubles did not stop there. Guess what? After 2 days, I opened the hood and shockingly found out that the engine oil cap was not closed, the cap was staying peacefully on top of the battery and engine oil splashed all over the places.

I brought the car back for cleaning the next Saturday, Nov 11, 2006. Guess how long I had to wait? 6 hours for a 10 min cleaning job (I partially cleaned the top engine area beforehand). Yes, you heard right 6-hour waiting at the shop. Kevin excuses were he wanted to do it himself but he had to work on another car, answer the phone, help other technician, only 1 base could do cleaning on, etc.

I am too nice, too understanding, way too patient and therefore way too easy to be taken advantage of. Why is this too hard to just stop one of the jobs, those that would take 1 or 2 hours more, to clean up your mess for just 10 minutes?

They even checked out and worked on another car that came after me 2 hours. Why? Was this because they would make money out of it?

Scotty was also negligent enough to leave my car engine on for maybe more than 20 minutes while all technicians were working on other cars. I had to turn it off myself. Thank you Scotty, I do not need you to burn my gas for me.

I would never come to this shop anymore. Beware everyone.

Hoang Alex
Lorton, Virginia
U.S.A.