Amanda & Scott Repairs Gone Wrong - Services Charged for work not performed. Orland Park IL

On Saturday, October 28, 2023 My wife "A" and I took our car to Jiffy Lube in Orland Park, IL around 12:00pm for an oil change and to replace the spark plugs.  We dropped the car off and called several times throughout the day to check the status of our maintenance work.  We did get 2 updates from the shorter, skinnier gentleman with slick-backed hair letting us know they needed to order parts for the spark plugs.  The second call was to let us know we could either pick up our car without the service performed and drop it off again the following day (Sunday, October 29, 2023) or leave it overnight and have the service performed the next day due to the parts not being available.

On Sunday, October 29th we called many times to check the status of our car with no clear answer. Finally, about an hour before closing time, the same gentleman called us to let us know it would be ready by closing time. 

We drove to Jiffy Lube on Sunday around 5:45pm to pick up the vehicle and the mechanic was still working on it. A waited in the waiting room and the car was finally “done” at 6:35pm. The mechanic was the one who composed the bill and payment and then proceeded to tell A that the check engine light came on after the repair because he supposedly needed to change the gaskets because oil was leaking into one of them. He also said they tried to clear the codes that are causing the check engine light to come on, but it popped back up after clearing it. He also told A that any time we bring the car in for service they will “top off” the oil. Once she paid, she drove it home which was about 15 minutes away. The SUV was running 100% worse while driving it home from said maintenance work at Jiffy Lube than what it was when brought in. It was shaking aggressively, the check engine light was flashing, and it was misfiring.  It felt as if it was struggling to run.  We knew immediately that this was not normal, especially after a repair.

A called on Monday morning of October 30th to let the staff know we were not happy with the status of our vehicle after paying $437.24 for an oil change and sparkplug replacement. A told them about the current condition of our SUV, along with the fact that the check engine light was flashing. We were told the mechanic would be in the next morning at 8am and that we should come in then to have him look at it because he had a brake job to do at 12. We agreed. 

On Tuesday, October 31st A and her father-in-law, ST went back up to Jiffy Lube to have them look at the vehicle and fix whatever was not performed properly. The mechanic was an hour late and jumped into looking at the SUV’s issue upon his arrival. After an hour and a half of waiting, St went in to talk to the mechanic and noticed that the mechanic was extremely unsure of what he was doing. He was looking up on the computer how to perform a gasket change and was trying to order parts at Infiniti and made the comment that they don't normally perfom these services on Infinitis as it is usually performed by Inifiniti certified specialists. We felt the mechanic did not have experience or knowledge of the required work and neither one of us had confidence in this mechanic doing any further work on the SUV.  At this point as we knew he messed it up worse with his supposed maintenance work.

A and ST took the vehicle to the Infiniti dealership immediately after leaving Jiffy Lube to find out what was truly going on with our vehicle. We did not get any information from Infiniti until the following day, Wednesday, November 1st. We were told that gasket #5 had oil in it and should have been changed in a spark plug change and it was in fact misfiring. We then had to pay an additional $200 to Infiniti for the computerized diagnostic due to the poor job the Jiffy Lube mechanic performed on my car.

We decided not to let Infiniti do the repairs as we have a mechanic that we trust near our home that was able to perform this work at a more fair price.

A drove the vehicle to Malley’s Complete AutoCare Center in Frankfort (our normal mechanic shop) and had the work completed on 11/10/23.  Upon completion we were told the following by the mechanic (see details in Malley’s invoice)

1.     The gaskets for the spark plugs were never changed and per protocol, gaskets should always be changed with the spark plugs

2.     The oil was tar black, which means the oil was never changed and gave us the filthy oil filter which we still have in possession.

3.     The oil was over filled (topped off) and spilled into the spark plug gaskets causing the misfire making it unsafe to drive the car

We were looking to be compensated only for the cost of the repairs and diagnostics we incurred during this ordeal.  This, despite being without our car for 10 days while at Malley’s and 2 days at Jiffy lube.   The total cost to us due to the damages caused by Jiffy Lube was $1,306.99.  The total cost due to us for the work Jiffy Lube did not perform properly is $437.24.  The diagnostic cost from Infiniti of Orland is $200. (we attached 3 invoices and sent to corporate)

This brought us to the grand total of $1,944.23.  This did not include taxes, nor does it take into consideration that we were without our vehicle for 13 day for a job that should have taken less than a day.

We emailed corporate about this issue to give them a chance tp rectify before proceeding to escalation, and they had the store manager reach out on December 5th who denied everything we know as fact listed above. He stated he watched the cameras and saw the work was performed, and said we did not bring the car back to them to fix the issue (yet A did bring it back that Tuesday to have them try to fix the issue when she was told the mechanic would be in as stated above) so it voided the warranty. If he truly had watched the cameras and read everything he would have saw that we in-fact, are correct. Knowing what he was saying was untrue, we asked to see these videos but conveiniently stated corporate does not allow them to share these videos with customers. 

Corporate denied any refunds to us as well as allowing us to see the proof that they performed the services correctly and honestly as we know different. They denied us because it "took too long to submit" as we were gathering the documented proof that the oil change services were not performed and that the spark plug re[air was sloppy from the mechanic shop that corrected their poor repair. So here we are, letting everyone know how poor this company is and performing without intergrity. 

Do not take you car to Jiffy Lube. We learned our very expensive and unfortunate lesson.