Added to my list of businesses never to patronize again: Meineke Car Care Center.
I brought my car in to be repaired today, due to the fact that something had gotten lodged in the left front disk brake a few weeks ago. (It nearly started on fire, and I was in Milwaukee. I ended up having to burden my friends with my car problems in order to get to Madison and back. Thanks, Danulai!) In the process of removing the smoking chunk of debris, I accidentally stripped one of the lug studs. This left me with only three lug nuts holding the wheel on. As you may imagine this (in addition to the smoking wheel) doesn’t make for the most terror-free driving experience.
So, today, I finally brought my car to the Meineke down the street from my apartment. I knew that it would be more expensive than taking it to a small non-chain store shop, but it was close enough to my place that I could drive there and walk home while it was being worked on. Plus, I don’t know of any small, non-chain shops on my side of town. Around here, it’s corporate chain stores or nothing.
Predictably, they found $700 worth of recommended repairs, far more than the actual value of the car. I had them evaluate the brakes, do an oil change, and replace the lug stud and lug nuts. That was it. They didn’t even touch the brakes.
Yet, somehow, they managed to fuck them up so completely that I was afraid to drive it a half mile back to my apartment.
As I left the Meineke parking lot, I was surprised and terrified to learn that my formerly squishy brakes were now my very-nearly nonexistent brakes. I went across the street to Taco Bell for some drive-through and pumped on the brakes while in line. It was possible, but unlikely, that the grease monkey hadn’t pumped up the pressure before returning it to me. Predictably, this didn’t work. I drove it back across the street and walked back to complain and make them fix it.
A mechanic took the key, and I munched my burritos and read The Onion while they pulled it in to take another look at it. Fifteen minutes later, a man with “James” embroidered on a blue work shirt slouched into the waiting room.
“Black Tempo?” he said, dangling the key in front of him.
“That’s me.” I reached out and took the key from him.
“We couldn’t find anything wrong with it. That’s the way it was when you brought it in.”
“Oh, no it wasn’t,” I replied angrily. “My brakes weren’t great when I brought it in, but they worked a lot better than that.”
We continued in this vein for a few minutes–I, insisting that my brakes had been serviceable as recently as the moment I left it in their care; and he, falling back on that old chestnut, “It was like that when you brought it in.”
Eventually, he just shrugged and made it clear that he had nothing to say other than his new mantra. I gave up and left, and called my dad from my car. He’s on his way with $75 in parts to do about half the recommended repairs. The rest can wait. Probably until Armageddon. If it’s not immediately life threatening, I’m not fixing it.
I can understand if someone accidentally screws something up in the process of working on something; I do it on a regular basis. But the incompetence required to trash something as critical as my brakes, have no idea how, then refuse to admit a problem is staggering.
I have no intention of ever going back to Meineke. Keep this in mind next time your car needs work done. I know I will.