How would you deal w/ this situation?

[kodama]

I will start this story from the begining...

On saturday, i went to firestone to get an alignment. Everything went fine until i left. First off, the guy didnt even test the car to see if the alignment was straight. The second i got onto the road, i noticed it was bad, drove back, and they told they were closed and i could leave my car there (like id leave my car at firestone overnight). i denied leaving it there and drove it home. The guy called me a "son of a b****" on the phone and told me that it was all my fault. my steering wheel is still pointed 25 degrees towards the passenger side, and the rear driverside toe is inverted 4 degrees (i will post pictures up later). When i went today, they wouldnt even let me talk. They said its my fault, but they would give me my money back (still confused how this is my fault). the guy who did my alignment battled everything i said, and e said that my entire front end was screwed up and thats my fault (nothing on the front of my car is damaged). since i was dragging my tire, i asked them to at least get me some used tires, and they refused blaming on (you guessed it) me again. I said if i didnt get drivable tires, i would report them to the better business bureau, and at that point, he refused to give me my money. After this old lady watching behind us in horror left w/o letting firestone work on her car, they decided to give me my money back.

Now, i am going to report them to the BBB, but all that does is give them a slap on the wrist. Is there anyway to get them in more trouble like that? id like to see the guy who messed up my alignment, swore at me, and told me its my fault get fired or demoted or sumthing that reassures him he cannot treat customers like that.

[LB.Motoring]

small claims, for all you can think of.

thats the only way anything would work....

[exitspeed]

If you got your money back that's about as much as your gonna get. Take it somewhere else and have it done right.

Call your local news station if you have one of those people that do reports on bad business. We have one here in Milwaukee. Threaten them with that. Of they have half a brain they'll fix your car. But they more then likely don't.

['90RPS13]

Well man, I use to work at Merchants. Shit like this goes on ALL the time. Our old boss use to tell us to "turn" the steering wheel on the car before we checked alignment. Therefore, 99% of the time they needed a alignment. We would turn the wheel, printed out the sheet to show customer and then turned it back to normal to look like we made a change. Part of the reason I quit was stupid shit like this. Another reason we would do oil changes on Enterprise cars and 110% of them are newer then '06 so we wouldnt have the filter in stock. We would get told to "recycle" the filter? I only take my car to ONE merchants. 3 Buddies work there and I know the Manager. I would be LEARY as shit to who touches my car after working in the field.

As far as what you can do, well you got your cash back. I guess just take it as a learning lesson and be careful next time? Or like Robby said, Small Claims. *a

[g6civcx]

I would be LEARY as shit to who touches my car after working in the field.


+100000. People are stupid and lazy.

[!Zar!]

Iirc, you can't file legal action against them since you accepted your money back.

I'd just take it to a mom and pop style alignment shop that used the old school method. Those are the people who know what they are doing and need the money as apposed to those fools at chain stores.

[ManoNegra]

Hard to find a trust worthy mechanic/alignment shop. It's even worse if you're a woman.

Not too long ago I went to a shop near my house to get my wheels balanced and car aligned. Car was behaving worse then before so I check and find out they rotated the tires wrong - they're directional tires, idiots flipped them backwards. Even now, I still feel the car drove better before.

[!Zar!]

Luckly I have found reliable shops to do things such as alignment and mount/balance. Best thing to do is talk to the OG muscle car dudes. I've found that when they work on your car, they treat it as their own. I mean it's only logical. Places that don't make the amount of money big chain stores make can't affort to get a bad rep. So their job tend to be with care. While the bigger stores could care less if you come back or not.

[nassin31spr]

Call the manager on duty and get the names of all the people involved and ask to speak to the district manager or look up corporate the corporate office number on the Internet and I guarantee they will pay for everything. They have a customer always right policy at merchants. The mechanic and the front desk manager could get fired and will definitely get monetarily penalized for the way they handled your service. Always make a scene though and tell the desk manager you will be putting in a complaint with the district office. When you do this he automaically looses his bonus for that month. My brother works at merchants and they dont play with stuff like this. Good luck.

[S14DB]

If you got the lifetime go to another Firestone and have them do it.

If not, call corporate. They will refund your money cause all their alignments are guaranteed for a year.

I had a similar problem and just had to drive 5miles to the Firestone in the next town over.

[Dorifto89]

Shotgun rampage [email protected]

[!Zar!]

Call the manager on duty and get the names of all the people involved and ask to speak to the district manager or look up corporate the corporate office number on the Internet and I guarantee they will pay for everything. They have a customer always right policy at merchants. The mechanic and the front desk manager could get fired and will definitely get monetarily penalized for the way they handled your service. Always make a scene though and tell the desk manager you will be putting in a complaint with the district office. When you do this he automaically looses his bonus for that month. My brother works at merchants and they dont play with stuff like this. Good luck.

Hmm. That's always nice to know. To bad I never have/will go there. haha.

[kodama]

going there was a last resort, the shop i usually go to was closed, and firestone was close :/

anyway, i called corporate, they feel bad about my situation, and the head for abq gave me his cell phone and told me to go get the alighment done elsewhere, fax him the printout and the reciept, and he'd reimpurse me for the other alighnment. he said the tech is in trouble for a few reasons, 1. not testing the car once the alignment was done, 2. not showing me a printout of the alignment sheet, 3. not treating a customer w/ respect and trying to sell products that are not needed.

[koukikat180sx]

^ werd. nice to know corporate took care of you. :)

[A Spec Products]

Yeah, I was gonna say, the tech didn't even test the car after he aligned it, which is typical procedure.

I never go to big name alignment shops, cause typically the techs there don't know anything (not necessarily their fault).

Go to the smaller mom and pops (support small business!), depending on your area some alignment shops will specialize in "race application" stuff.

I remember going to a Just Tires a LONG time ago, and the guy pointed at camber plates and said "what is that?"

Needless to say I turned around and left.

[nassin31spr]

Glad it worked out for you.

[mrmephistopheles]

Our old boss use to tell us to "turn" the steering wheel on the car before we checked alignment. Therefore, 99% of the time they needed a alignment. We would turn the wheel, printed out the sheet to show customer and then turned it back to normal to look like we made a change. Another reason we would do oil changes on Enterprise cars and 110% of them are newer then '06 so we wouldnt have the filter in stock. We would get told to "recycle" the filter?

I always hate hearing about shit like this. When I worked at a Nissan dealership, none of the techs wanted their reputation sullied by claims of false repairs or anything like it, so nobody tolerated anyone else doing it. That and Nissan Corporate would come down hard on any store that did.
About the only thing we accused each other of was being a 'hacker' (or doing a hack job on repairs). That was generally in fun, but there were some instances of crazy negligence on behalf of the technicians.
Hell I fucked up once and forgot to fill a lady's engine with oil. She came back 15 min later complaining about a strange sound. I realized my mistake and corrected it. Fortunately no damage done (or at least obvious damage).
I think I just about got fired that day.

Shotgun rampage [email protected]

Always sound and reasonable advice. :rolleyes:
I prefer 'Less talk, more stab.'

[SochBAT]

Call up corp and complain like shit.

Call up Local news, and complain like shit.

Firestone = the next JiffyLube

[Yuri]

Call up corp and complain like shit.

Call up Local news, and complain like shit.

Firestone = the next JiffyLube

Firelube.

It would be descriptive too.

[DoriftoPnoy]

+1 for the lil stores. That's where I go and they usually have the best prices for me anyways. They also let me watch what they're doing too, so i know they're doing their job. I'd do my own alignment if I had the tools.... which makes me think now that i should prolly just buy the tools.

[ms!3]

When I worked at a Nissan dealership

so you were a nissan technician? how was it? id like to work for nissan or infiniti in the future.

edit: glad to see you got things fixed kodama, i had to go through a similar problem with a shop in town, except it dealed with exhaust work. i had a custom exhaust made and they wire welded all the pipes and burnt a hole into the side of my canister where the hangers would go. they said it looked fine and wouldnt even listen to what i had to say. meinike sucks balls, haha, never go there.

[Frosty_spl]

My dad had big problems with firestone in the 80s.

He wanted 4 new tires. They sold him 4 slightly used tires. He called them on it, they said he was a liar.

10 years later (seriously), he got $210 dollars worth of firestone vouchers.

[mjjstang]

Yah they gave you the money back because they know they are fucked in small claims, and that the bad alignment could do much worse damage to tires /maybe components in the long-run. I say take them to court, this could be a landmark case for all of us. you go get em.

[mrmephistopheles]

so you were a nissan technician? how was it? id like to work for nissan or infiniti in the future.


Yeah, low-end though. I didn't stay long enough to be given good jobs.
It was hard work, but if it's your thing and you know what you're doing, you can make alot of money.
You basically get paid for each job in flag hours. In other words, let's say a 240sx headgasket job pays 13 flag hours. If you can get it done in say, 8, you've just freed up more time to work on other stuff.
Same principle can bite you in the ass if you're a shitty worker though, ie working for 5 hours on an oil pan job that pays 2.5 hours.
It's a great learning experience, and you'll find stuff out from techs that you'd never think of. For example, almost all Nissan techs HATE doing clutch bleeds on 240sx's because it's such a pain in the ass.
One downside to being a mechanic is that it can drain you and completely strip away your will to work on your car.

[s13gold]

You shouldve taken the money back when you could have. But anyways you should ask to speak with the manager. And the managers boss...and so on until you get your problem resolved. Number One is customer service, just dont cuss at the workers or raise your voice. THEY JUST SUCK. put it like that. Try and keep your cool.

[s13gold]

^...thats just my two cents.

[illvialuver]

sounds like it sucks to live in the 505.
i say go vigilante. you should watch the place find out what car the asshole who fucked with you car drives. than go to anothe tire place and get the tape on weights for balancieing the wheels and than just stickem inside his rim, use alot of weight to fuck up his shit.
or you can just throw nails around the ground by the employee parking, or say fuck it. and let karma catch up to the pricks and just tyry to stay positive.
thats what i usually do.

[max240]

If you want to take it further, call the B.A.R. (Bureau of Auto. Repair) They take things in the auto industry a lot more serious than the BBB.

I used to be a Nissan parts guy, and we loved calling our techs hacker or butchers!!! I once saw a guy doing an alignment on an FD not set the parking brake and the bitch rolled of the edge of the rack..He quickly locked his box and left for the week!!! hAhahahahaha

[ms!3]

Yeah, low-end though. I didn't stay long enough to be given good jobs.
It was hard work, but if it's your thing and you know what you're doing, you can make alot of money.
You basically get paid for each job in flag hours. In other words, let's say a 240sx headgasket job pays 13 flag hours. If you can get it done in say, 8, you've just freed up more time to work on other stuff.
Same principle can bite you in the ass if you're a shitty worker though, ie working for 5 hours on an oil pan job that pays 2.5 hours.
It's a great learning experience, and you'll find stuff out from techs that you'd never think of. For example, almost all Nissan techs HATE doing clutch bleeds on 240sx's because it's such a pain in the ass.
One downside to being a mechanic is that it can drain you and completely strip away your will to work on your car.

seems alright, ive heard the thing about not wanting to work on your own car. cars are the only thing i know tho. i couldnt image having a normal job. i basically have a scholarship with chevy, if i stay for 2 years theyll send me to wyotech. its an AYES program at my autotech class. so i think im gonna give it a try. then after that 2 years ill move to infiniti.

[driftskeetka24e]

My bro use to work at a firestone. If you talk to corp. and complain or w/e most of the time that person will get fired. I saw it happen to other people that worked with my bro who did shit ass work.

[kodama]

I usually go to this lil shop, but it was past 5pm, and the only place open was unfortuneatly firestone. and yes, my alignment was really that bad where the car was almost undrivable, so i had to get the alignment done.

anyway, douche technician got fired (aparently he had be working there for 38 years, must be nice to know he got schooled by a 19 yr old on cars). the manager was docked pay and on probation. i will be getting my alignment done at a local shop that told me to stop by after reading my rant on another forum. as for my experience w/ big corporations:fawkd: ill stick w/ small companies in every way, shape, and form now.

[sblack13]

Glad he got what he deserved, can't people understand. No customers, No Job.