I need car advice badly !

Kennieyk

Kennieyk

Joined
Feb 5, 2003
Messages
959
My dad took his car to Pep Boys for a oil change wiper blades and told them the abs brake light was on .. So they changed oil and brakes ... and did something to the brakes ,,, they called and told him to come get it $187.00 ... We live 20 minutes away ... on the way home he noticed it was not right so he turned around and took it back ... when he got there the tires was smoking ... he left it there the next day they put master cylinder and brake lines on bla bla bla ... another $120.00 ... On the way home the tires locked up again ... This time I had to wait 4 hours for a tow truck ... and pep boys said they didnt know what was wrong and made arrangement to take it to another pep boys ... This pep boys is like 40 minutes away .. they called today and said it was fine come get it ... we barely got it home when the tires locked up and smoke everywhere ... He call them today and they are saying its the ABS systems is bad ,,, That they dont do that kinda work and to get it towed to the chevy dealer ... My dad is 83 years old and i feel hes getting shafted ... they allready charged him 300 plus and still the car is messed up ... Also they lost one of the thing on the tire that covers the lugs and have black grease oncarpet and seats ... What should I do ... someone please let me know something please ... The brakes worked fine befor he took it there ... Now its sitting in front of the house not able to drive ...
Thanks !
 
How did he pay? If worse comes to worse and it's a credit card, dispute all the charges.

I recently had a goodyear store charge me $500 to fix what they said was an ignition problem. Turned out it was head gaskets. Not terribly smart or their (or my) part :jerkit:
 
Kennie - sorry to hear about your dad's car. Where I'm from, they can't perform any additional work other than what was ordered without prior consent. I know that may be a technicality that can't be proven in your case, but check into it. As far as helping get it corrected, I wonder if there are any attorneys around her that could give some tips. Tony G of this forum is one, but his specialty is tax law I believe, but he may have some info. I'll try to rustle him up for you. Besides that, I have had moderate success in instances like that by causing as much of a commotion as far up the ladder as I could go, and when possible to the public - this usually results in some kind of positive action. Good luck!
 
cstorr2004 said:
Kennie - sorry to hear about your dad's car. Where I'm from, they can't perform any additional work other than what was ordered without prior consent. I know that may be a technicality that can't be proven in your case, but check into it. As far as helping get it corrected, I wonder if there are any attorneys around her that could give some tips. Tony G of this forum is one, but his specialty is tax law I believe, but he may have some info. I'll try to rustle him up for you. Besides that, I have had moderate success in instances like that by causing as much of a commotion as far up the ladder as I could go, and when possible to the public - this usually results in some kind of positive action. Good luck!
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Thanks .. keep in mind hes 83 years old .. They could tell him anything and he probly say ok do it :( I hope someone can give me some good info on this .. I'm sure what ever they did was the cause of the current brake problem !
 
Pep Boys is not the place to take your car for repairs....not enough training or
experience for the so called techs that work there.
Check with the dealer to see if Pep Boys did something wrong to the brake system.
If his brakes were smoking after and not before he took the car in it would seem that something was not done correctly.
The ABS light was on and they worked on the car after they worked on the brakes they said they could not repair the ABS.
They should not have touched the brakes if they cannot repair the ABS.
Contact Pep Boys home office if they did something wrong.
 
yeah i guess thats the only option at this point ... Then I guess court ? Idk :(
Hes called them like 3 times and everytime they say we will call you right back ... thats been going on for 2 1/2 hours now .
 
i used to ride downhill and cross country mountain bikes. raced them for a while till i got scragged pretty bad. i wasnt able to do the work myself due to injuries so i took it to a local bike shop... they said no worries we'll get her running in tip-top shape before i knew it... 3 weeks later they gave me a call telling me to come pick it up... to my surprise there was a whole wack of work done to it that wasnt supposed to be done and they tried to charge me for it. i said to hell with you. take it all off RIGHT now. they tried to argue with me and the manager tried to argue with me as well.. when it got to a point where they started shouting at me i simply said fine.. you know what? i'll be back with an agent from the better business bureau, my lawyer, and the cops. next thing i knew everything was off and i had it loaded into my car. got recommended by a friend to try another shop which he had done business with before. they did everything i asked to do and called me AHEAD of time to ask for permission to do more work on it and explained why it needed to be done. i said no worries just bill me and its done. the bike was done in less then a week and to my surprise they even tuned it and re-bled the hydraulics with new fluid. been going back there ever since.

i guess where im going with this is. your dad is 83, so its your job to take care of him. consult with your local bbb and possible get some legal advice if necessary cause those fucks shouldnt get away with ripping off the elderly. if your dad paid with cash he should still have a receipt right? if those idiots at pep boys did the work correctly (paper work) there should be an invoice number and all the work thats been done to the car through there system. this may be obtainable through a court order if you plan to push it that far. have it inspected by either the dealer or a second party repair shop and get their opinions, just to know whats actually wrong and if the work pep boys did was really necessary. some people will be glad to give you a written estimate for free.. the most i ever payed for an estimate on a car was 5 bux.

ripping off the elderly pisses me off the most cause my dad is 60 but doesnt speak english and people seem to take that for granted. we go to service centres to get our shit fixed with piece of mind (hopefully), not get ripped off (although many places do that). if im not working on the car myself i'll always go back to dealership because i know that if they dont do the work right then theres some sort of recourse, either through the head office or the regional one.

worst comes to worst you can take the brakes off the car or whatever defective part they installed and chuck em through the window at pep-boys and yell at every other customer coming in that they do piece of shit work (they might think your crazy but hey atleast its fun).

im sure since pep-boys is a large company perhaps you can try reaching their head office and find some kinda recourse.

not sure if this really helps but hey atleast you know theres been others in the same boat as you have :D


cheers ^^
 
K, sounds like when the did the brake job , they over forced one or both calibers an cocked the pistons , so they would not engage or dis-engage properly and froze in place. I would contact an attorney also check with BBB and your county civil affairs office for past complaints and violations against them.

jules
 
also i forgot to add. where i work you need to be A+ certified in-order to even touch a computer (im a computer technician). perhaps those idiots at pep-boys are hiring dumb ppl without the proper training? (hey im not dissing pep-boys but i know it happens). if they arent qualified to work on your car then there is a legal step that you can take. there was negligence in the hiring of professional staff who arent certified to work on your car, thus resulting in the endangerment of your life and everyone else whose on the road. the fact that the management even let someone touch your car especially something as integral as the brake systems would be gross negligence on there part because they knowingly let someone un-skilled un-qualified, work on your car which has resulted in further damages to your vehicle. also damages can be sought for the time you've had to spend dealing with pep-boys trying to figure what the fuck exactly went on. the tow truck fee which im sure you've had to shoulder is unnecessary cause those fucks shoulda done the job right in the first place or not touch it at all.

like its posted above, if it was working when you took it in and its in a worse condition when you received it then those fucks messed up somewhere.
 
That's the kind of story Small Claims judges love to hear -- it makes them feel they're accomplishing something with their lives. :D
 
The sad part is they sent my father out in a car 3 times that was not safe for him or others on the road ,,as someone said above .. Thank God He was able to make it back to pep boys the first time and I was with him the other 2 times ... Hes also handicap and can barley make it from the car to the house ... He would have surley been mugged / robbed if he had to walk from where it was towed from alone ... My dad called there 3 times today and they said they call him right back ... They never did call ! sad people in this world !
 
The car needs to go immediately to a credentialed mechanic, preferably a dealer. That mechanic should inspect the car and determine what the Pepto Boys did to it. Get a written report. The mechanic should personally sign that report and write all of his credentials under his name.

Call and make an appointment to see the owner of the Pepto store. You will need someone else to go with you. This person will not say anything. Before that appointment, get the paperwork for a small-claims suit and fill it all out. Put it in a folder on top. Make a copy of the Pepto invoices and the real mechanic's report stapled together and put that under the court paperwork. On your way there, stop at an attorney's office and pick up a business card. That's all you need. Staple it to the inside of the front cover of the file folder. When you go, if he doesn't give you his card, then carefully ask him to spell his full name out as you write it down on the note pad you brought. Put your folder on the table, open it so that he can see the business card and the court paperwork, and begin rummaging through the other papers for the copy of the invoices and report which you will give him. Don't say a word about the court paperwork... just be sure that he has a chance to see it. You can close the folder at this point just as you normally would; it's done it's job. Have a nice, calm discussion with him. If he refuses to make right, don't get mad, don't shout. Just say, thank you for your time; I hoped you would do the right thing and resolve this, but I am prepared to go to small-claims court. And get up and leave. I doubt you'll need to go that far, but if you do leave, he will probably telephone you within a few hours to reconsider. I call this "The File Folder Ploy" and it works great.
 
Stories like this help me justify the money I've spent on tools.

What's the year/make/model of the vehicle?
 
Yep what Gollnick said. You need a a professional report from the car's dealership of what the idiots did wrong, and then go lever them. If that doesn't work, straight to court.
 
i would say they just "threw" parts at it hoping to get the right combo to fix it, but that would be difficult to prove, do ya have the old parts?? if not i would say "no case" as they are gonna say "we replaced broken stuff" and if ya dont have the old parts ya have no way to prove they didnt do exactly that.


also most garages make ya sign a release prior to any work,

dont mean to be a pessimist, i also hate garages that prey on folks that dont know any better, but its just hard to prove they dont know WTF they are doing/intentionally ripped ya off ............

i worked in that area for a while when i was younger, worked at 4 diff places, 3 of them would never rip ya off, 1 would and did though which is why i quit.
 
A quick search of "Pep Boys" on the Better Business Bureau site yielded the following results:

Program Participation
This company participates in BBB Online. This means the company has agreed to use special procedures including mediation and arbitration if necessary to resolve complaints.

Customer Experience
Based on BBB files, this company has a satisfactory record with the Bureau. Any complaints processed by the Bureau in its three-year reporting period have been resolved. The number and type of complaints are not unusual for a company in this industry.

To have a "Satisfactory Record" with the Bureau, a company must be in business for at least 12 months, properly and promptly address matters referred to it by the Bureau, and be free from an unusual volume or pattern of complaints and law enforcement action involving its marketplace conduct. In addition, the Bureau must have a clear understanding of the company's business and no concerns about its industry.

Customer Complaint Data
Number of complaints processed by the BBB over the last 36 months: 419
Number of complaints processed by the BBB in the last 12 months: 257

Complaints Concerned:

Selling Practices (9 complaints)
7 Resolved
2 Company made every reasonable effort to resolve

Advertising Issues (12 complaints)
11 Resolved
1 Company made every reasonable effort to resolve

Service Issues (279 complaints)
248 Resolved
31 Company made every reasonable effort to resolve

Credit or Billing Disputes (18 complaints)
18 Resolved

Delivery Issues (1 complaints)
1 Resolved

Refund Practices (17 complaints)
15 Resolved
2 Company made every reasonable effort to resolve

Product Quality (9 complaints)
8 Resolved
1 Company made every reasonable effort to resolve

Guarantee or Warranty Issues (5 complaints)
5 Resolved

Repair Issues (68 complaints)
53 Resolved
15 Company made every reasonable effort to resolve

The company's size, volume of business and number of transactions may have a bearing on the number of complaints received by the BBB. The complaints filed against a company may not be as important as the type of complaints, and how the company has handled them. The BBB generally does not pass judgement on the validity of complaints filed.
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They have lots of complaints against them, but they seem interested in maintaining a good BBB record by trying to resolve them. This probably means that if you make enough noise, you will get action.
 
It is clear from the plaintiff's opening statement that every time he took the car to the defendant to be repaired the brakes got worse. Next the judge looks to the defendant to explain why that happened and why the plaintiff should pay him for making his brakes worse. That's not going to be easy to do. :D
 
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