Pep Boys - Incompetent dolts and thieves

I too have had what seems to be a common experience with Pep Boys service, the following is what I just sent to Pep Boys via the customer comment section of their web page. To be fair I am
waiting to see what their response (if any) will be and this too will be posted here. Basically they really pissed me off with their attitude and incompetence and I'm waiting to see if this is just the local policy or worse yet "corporate policy". And as a special side note to the "insider", I have read a lot of your responses to other people's complaints, and it is plain that you are an a*s kissing stooge that hopes his deranged perspective is looked apon favorably by his superiors.... Here is text of my
comments sent via the Pep Boys web site:

I am sending you this AFTER cooling down for a day. I am 53 year old professional male and it takes quite a bit to get my blood boiling like it did after going thru a nighmare experience yesterday at your Southgate Michigan store. On monday night I brought my 1994 Lincoln Town car to your store for service, the serpetine belt had broken and I was quoted $80 for the repair. I also inquired about an oil change and "Mike" the service rep said $16.99 and then asked what type of oil I would like, I
said "valvoline", then he rang up the bill and it came to $111 something, and I asked how $80 and $16.99 added up to $111, first he said "sales tax", then after I pointed out that 6% sales tax didn't account for the difference he stated that "valvoline oil cost a little more", so I asked how much
more, he said it was $1.39 a quart and the stuff in the $16.99 "package" was $.89 a quart, so I said that should only be $2.50 more for 5 quarts. Well "Mike" was insistant that I was being charged correctly but would change it to "$97.00". After sitting in the waiting area for a while, Mike said, he had some bad news, that the tensioner was bent and needed to be replaced also, and he re rang the bill to include the tensioner, now the bill read $217 something and I said wow, and asked to look
at the bill, now my $16.99 oil change was $29.95 and when I pointed this out to "Mike", he insisted that I was being charged correctly and that it "just printed out that way on the bill", by this time I was getting a little upset with this game and proceded to add up all the items listed and I was being
overcharged for the oil change, but couldn't convince this dolt that I was, so finally I said just give me the "regular 16.99 oil change" and then the bill dropped to $201. It was obvious that I was being charged for 10 quarts of oil to anyone with half a brain, but not "Mike".

Well after sitting a little while longer, "Mike" said that they wouldn't be able to replace the belt and tensioner till the next day because they didn't have the tool to pull the fan off with, and that only the master mechanic had this tool and he wouldn't be in til tommorrow. This didn't sit too well either seeing as how the only reason I chose Pep Boys was ther fact that they were open late and "Mike" said he could get the job done that evening, I even left work an hour early to get there with enough time for them to fix the car. To his credit, he did arrange for a ride home for me (about 5 or 6 miles). He said the car
would be ready at 1pm the next day.

Well the next day (tuesday 4/25/2000), I called around 12:30
to check on the car and they told me it was in the service bay, but they had delays due to getting the wrong part and that it would be more like 2pm for the car to be ready, this didn't please me because I don't get paid for missing work ($44/hr) and already half a day was shot down the drain, but I didn't complain yet. Then "Mike" calls back a little while later telling me they have more bad news the timing chain cover has a crack or hole in it and that they would have a hard time putting
the tensioner on and that I should just take the car to a dealer, that and he said he wouldn't do the oil change due to the car having been driven hot, which I told him the temp guage did get to the top when I drove it there, but the engine oil light didn't come on and the engine was quiet when I drove
in, but I know that the oil should be changed immediately after the car gets heated like that. He kept babbling about not wanting to be responsible for changing the oil, which made no sense to me, so I told him to just put the tensioner and belt on, because by now I was getting upset with having more
problems than I had anticipated.

I called the Lincoln Mercury dealership across the street and
inquired about getting the repair done there immediately after talking to "Mike", the dealership told me they would charge $146 to replace the tensioner and serpentine belt, which was considerably cheaper than Pep Boys, plus they would be able to deal with the crack or hole in the timing case.

So I called Pep Boys back about 5 to 10 minutes after I had last spoken to "Mike" and was told that he went to lunch, the fellow that I was talking to was "Scott Dentico" the "service manager" and I told him that I was going to take Mike's advice and have the car towed to the Car dealer across the street, and he was familar with what was going on with my car and that they hadn't done anything to it except remove the fan and cowling.

So I called AAA to tow the car from Pep Boys to Stu Evans
Lincoln Mercury and met them at the Pep Boys store. At first "Scott" wanted to charge me $33 for basically doing nothing to my car and after I complained, he tore up the bill. Well after that, I went outside with the tow truck driver(flat bed actually) and he was hooking up the car and about to
wench it onto the truck when "Mike" came running out and told the tow truck guy to pop the hood, and guess what, there was a tensioner and belt installed on my car, EVEN though the "service
manager" wa aware that I was coming to pick up the car and didn't want them to do anything to it. And "Mike" had told me that they HAD NOT done anything to it except remove the fan and cowling when I had spoke to him last on the phone. He then said I was going to "have to settle up" on this because they had already installed the tensioner and belt, I told him that as far as I was concerned, I told them I was coming to get the car and that they weren't to do anything else to it because I was
taking it to the dealership, and how in the hell did they install this in 10 minutes? I told him, to take the stuff off then but he said "sure, I'll do that but your still gonna pay me $100 for labor", at which time I really got mad and said why should I have to pay for your mistakes, and he came back and
said I told him to put them on, and I told him that I called back 5 to 10 minutes later and talked to "Scott" the manager and he said okay no problem, with me just having the car taken over to the dealership to have the work done, this went on and on and Scott was of no help either and when I referered to "Mike" as being a "jackass" he told me that they weren't going to take any verbal abuse in a kind of threatening way (he is a big fella) so I just was totally fuming about this and told them to just give me my bill, and good ole "Mike" charged me even more than the night before, after a futile argument about that, I just paid the bill and left because the poor tow truck driver had
been sitting waiting for about 40 minutes while I argued with these two charming individuals from Pep Boys.

I was charged $190.96 for this fiasco, the dealer price is $146. I lost $352 in wages, (I am an hourly computer consultant), and a day and a half delay on getting my car back. Suffered
thru having to deal with a stubborn and incompetent service representative (MIKE) who either can't operate a computerized cash register or is dishonest, I have the last two invoices he made out (prices don't match on items), and was forced to pay for parts and labor that I was assured wasn't going to be performed. I think Pep Boys should at least refund the $190.96 I was charged for the belt and tensioner that the dealership is going to have to remove in order to repair the timing case. I
also think you should hire people that are at least competent to operate the computer terminals and that have the decency to admit they made a mistake and not try to intimidate the customers and cause such grief.

Walter M. Short

I originally filed this complaint at Pep Boys almost a year ago, still no response from these assholes, not that I expected any from an obviously shitty company.