Pep Boys Automotive Supercenters Charged for parts that were not installed and later broke, costing me MORE MONEY, refused refund Insulted me in Spanish Philadelphia Pennsylvania

My car broke down in December 2008 and was towed to Pep Boys on 23rd and Ritner in Philadelphia. The employees were talking poorly about me in Spanish, not knowing that I am fluent, calling me crazy because they said nothing was wrong with my car. They asked me if I was capable of backing my car out of their shop and when I turned my ignition on, whining noises and knocking sounds were coming from under the hood. I asked the mechanic to listen to the sounds because they were not normal. They looked over the car again and then told me that the pullies were loose and needed to be tightened. I left because the shop was closing bt would open at 10am the next day. Not only did they keep my car until 4pm without calling me, I missed work and lost money from that. When I called them, they had a list of repairs that were estimated around $600. I thought that seemed high for "nothing being wrong" so I looked up prices online for the parts they mentioned. They were charging me obnoxious mark ups and I let them know that. The price came down to a little over $300 and I found that reasonable. The replaced my alternator and tensioner for the timing belt. They finished my car and I thought everything was fine. A couple months later my car lost power as I was driving and broke down in the middle of the highway. The situation was almost identical to the initial problem I had in December so I called Pep Boys because the timing belt was broken off of the alternator and that was exactly what they had "fixed" before. Since the parts are covered by a warranty from them, I took my car to the nearest Pep Boys which was located at 42nd and Market in Philly. They told me that a faulty part had been installed by the other Pep Boys and that they would replace the part at no charge, but the labor would be $212. I thought this was not fair because I just paid for that repair and they were responsible for installing a faulty part. When I went in to the store, I saw the part that was broken. The tensioner snapped off in my car and caused other damage. The tensioner was the original part from the factory, not the new one the other pep boys charged me for. I brought this to the attention of the store manager. He said he would give me a new part for free (note- i already paid for the part that was not actually put in my car). I don't understand what their motives were, I guess they were racking up my bill because I complained about the markup they tried to do to me initially. I am disgusted that I had to pay for the labor costs again and even more disgusted that they did not take responsibility for the mistake. I will never return to Pep Boys again and should have known better in the first place.

Valerie
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.