Meineke Car Care Center
reviews and complaints

i went to meineke on the 11/4/10 to get a brake replacment .they said they would give me a good estimate and take the jobif we could come to a agreement on th price.while waiting in the office another couple came in and said to the desk man that they just paid 600.oo dollars on to get there brakes done and that their brake padel had to be pushed all the way to the floor for the vehicle to stop.this was only one month later.I could see the people were upset, the desk man went outside with the peoples car keys and put the car on the lift.while he was gone the wife said to me don't leave your car herebecause they have a scam herecausing extra work and overcharging the greement price.this was very disturbing to me.at that time the desk mancame back and was figuring out my price.then the young machinic came back to the office and said to the couple that the car was a set and then he said to the couple that there car needs to be flush out for another 200.00 dollars and they said that they will take it to another car place that they will not be scam out of money like this company.And then i went outside and the lady said agaain don't leave your car here because they will make your car unsafe to drive and after the machinic call and said to me they break something on the jeep and to replace it it will cost another 200.00 dallors and i was very upset because they break something on the jeep and it was not my fault.so i was very upset and i said fix my jeep and i will come and get it.and i will bring the police with me because i was so upst that i was yelling at the machinic because he said my jeep will not be fix into tomorrow which is 11/5/10 and i had to call my girlfriend because i thought i was going to have a problem with this machanic.so when we pick a the jeep the brakesgo right to the floor so i can drive my jeep so i called then back after i pick up the jeep and they say i need my front ones done so i said to the i will get so one else to do the job.

After looking in the phonebook for a Meineke to repair a bracket that fell off my muffler, I went there, and Meineke is on the door and signs are up. They are no longer a Meineke shop. They are using Meineke's name for business.

Not only the professionalism was non-existant, but the garage is called Lo Temp. They hand wrote a reciept for magically 30 for labor and 30 for parts. They wouldn't let me charge it to my credit card. They lied about the price. They did unauthorized work. The mechanic kept hitting on me.

I just needed a simple front brake repair and an emissions problem resolved to keep my car going for a few more months. I explained this very clearly when I dropped the car off. They called me about five hours later with a laundry list of items that are wrong with the car, trying to sell me on additional repairs. Again, I explained that I just need the two things repaired. They call me back an hour later with a quote of $884!

I picked up my car and took it to another garage. They fixed the front brakes and my emissions problem in one hour and the bill was $153.74.

Here’s the worst part! Meineke charged me $90 for diagnosing my car! That’s right; I had to pay them $90 for trying to rip me off. Do Not Go to this garage!

I took my car in for service on the front wheel bearing, they didn't have the parts in stock so I agreed to bring it back. When I dropped off the car later in the week I asked that they change the oil while they had the car. I picked the car up the next day and while paying I asked the manager if they had remembered to change the oil. He told me he had "personally checked and all the fluids were topped off". I paid the over $400 bill and left. Within a few miles it was clear that the problem was not fixed and was just as bad as prior to the service. I took it back on Saturday afternoon, they never called, locked my car in a service bay and kept it overnight, were closed Sunday and (thankfully I was able to find a ride to work Monday) they called Monday afternoon to say they though it was the control arm on other side of the car and for an additional $300 they would repair it, I declined and picked my car up. My low oil light went on as I was pulling out of the station. I checked it and it was low despite having been charged for an oil change and new oil filter. In fact it still had a Jiffy Lube filter and seal on it from my last oil change. I went back to Meineke and the same manager that had lied about checking my oil very quickly refunded my charge for the oil change. I have an appointment with another mechanic to see if the other work they charged me for was actually done-doubtful since I still have the same problem.

My elderly father who speaks limited English went there to repair the muffler on his car. The muffler had a lifetime warranty that the shop refused to honor. The owner told him the car had been in an accident (not true) and he could not honor the warranty. He then changed the story and said the car needed a full tune-up and this is what caused the muffler to get damaged. Bottom line, he tried to rip of my father. I have filed a complaint with Meineke Corp Office, Better Business Bureau, and FL Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs. My father took the car to Midas who repaired it, and told him the car DID NOT NEED a tune up or other repair. Midas in Clearwater FL is UNETHICAL. The owner is very rude and disrespectful in replying to the complaint. I would NOT visit this Meineke...never had a bad experience with a Meineke Store until now. Clearly it is this SHOP not the franchise itself. Don't know how he is still in business!

I went to meineke one day, my car was running fine just overheating. The guy ran a diagnostic and told me it would cost 1500 to fix everything it would cost me 1500 dollars. WTF are you crazy. I deny it and of course he still charge me a diagnostic fee of 100 bucks. As he is looking for my keys one of the techs slide me a card and says call me. I thought he was hitting on me, but when I looked at the card it was his business card. LONG STORY SHORT. I went with him to an automotive store let me purchase all my parts which came out to two hundred bucks which when we compared the diagnostic sheetmeineke was charging 600 for WTF WTF WTF AHHHHHH. And of course he charged me a fee of two hundred bucks. He told me about how meineke marks up their parts by 20% each part and then slack off on their labor to make you pay more, for which is 90 bucks an hour for example a two hour job they request four or five. I love it because I screwedMeineke.

It is advertised 5th oil change free and a free tire rotation! Before I could receive my freebies Nancy Finch at the Meineke location removed me from the member list because I complained to her that the service workers there were not doing their job-not doing everything they said they did. Like I had a low tire going into the location and was told that tire pressure would be checked and when oile was done I asked how the pressure was and was told fine- but it wasn't I had to put air in my tire right after leaving the location! I payed for ALL 4 oil changes and expect to get my freebies, I'm not letting NANCY FINCH RIP ME OFF OR MEINEKE! Just because a customer complains about service provided gives you (Nancy) no right to remove me (the customer) from the list and tell us we must start over! START OVER! That's what she told me to do! HA
Meineke
41 Woodlawn Rd. W
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
[protected]@bellnet.ca
IS A FRAUD AND RIPS PEOPLE OFF!

I went to Meineke in Bremerton, WA to check if my breakpads or rotor needs to be changed because of the squeeking/annoying sound but all they did was a brakeflush which they charged me $159.00 for that( other auto shop will only charge $60.00 for breakflush).I went back and they checked my car again but to no avail the sound just got worse And now, I remember, I had a bad experience from them too while i was in Oakville, CT. Just a warning: Don't ever go to any Meineke. No offense to George Foreman.

We made an appt to have our car inspected at the business. Also, we had received a quote from them to fix another issue in the car. The total to have the car inspected and fixed was around $500. Within two days the issue that was supposed to be fixed started to act up again. I went back and talked to them about it and they agreed to take it in and look at it since it was under warranty. Before I had a chance to go in the car overheated and died on the highway. We had the car towed to Meineke since we had an appt there in a few days.

Up until we had the car inspected there have never been any major issues with the car. It ran great and was very reliable. Once the car was towed there we waited for them to look at it. The came back and told us the heads blew.

To make a very long story short. They misquoted us on numerous occasions, gave us the run around on the progress on our cars. Kept insisting that our car had additional problems to it that need to be fix and once we got the car back some of the features we had before no longer worked. They told us that they never worked…We had a “new” engine replaced in the car. The total amount of money was over $3000! We are having issues with the new engine and its still under warranty. When we called and asked about it they told us the warranty doesn’t cover damages to the engine, just if the engine fails/dies in those 60 days.

They won’t honor the warranty that they have given us. They said it’s free to look at but if any repairs need to be done it would cost us! Why if its under warranty? They also would not fully honor a coupon we had, they gave us some lame excuse. I have tried to contact headquarters but they referred my complaints back the shop we were having issues with. This shop needs to be reprimanded and/or shut down for their lack of business ethics.

my car stalled, I pulled off Highway in a small town on a Sat in July. Only place open was Meineke (car dealer shop not open til Monday) he ran initial test found nothing - came back an hour later and tried to get me to pay $800.00 for an alternator but I would have to stay in the little hotel down the road until Tues when he could get it. Keep in mind in had a 1 week vaca and was 3/4 of the way to my destination and he knew it.

I declined and paid him the test fee of $62.00. went on Monday to the car dealer in my destination in Florida who did many tests trying to confirm what they found and could not. only needed a battery but because Meineke said alternator and the distance I was from home 1, 000 miles they took an extra 2 days to inspect things and I needed to rent a car for 3 days an expense that was NOT necessary had Meineke done there job and just given me the battery I needed.

If you live in the Cincinnati area and need a home electronics component fixed such as a TV, receiver, vcr, etc, don't waste your money or your time with this establishment.

They charge you an up front fee of $35 just to take a look at your stuff, whether they fix it or not. Thats fine if they at least can provide you with a diagnosis or some other sort of useful information. But if they hand it back to you and say 'we couldn't figure it out', that's something different all together. They were able to duplicate the problem too. If they had not, well then I could see where you simply can't fix what is not broke, but this was clearly not the case. Would you pay money of any kind to anybody to look at somthing (your car or otherwise) and tell you they have no clue? I had no clue either. Thats why I paid you so-called professionals to figure it out for me. I don't have to pay someone $35 to tell me what I already know.

Their best advice was to send it back to the manufacturer. Now why would anyone need to pay someone $35 to tell them something they already knew they could very well do themselves?

To add insult to injury, the owner (and chief troubleshooter) told me what he thought MIGHT be the problem. Now I'm no electronic specialist, but I do know some things about this stuff. What he told me didn't sound logical and related to my problem. When I questioned him about this line of reasoning, he then backpeddled and said that 'it was just a guess.' I don't pay people $35 to guess. Knowledge and professionalism are what I pay for. This conversation has led me to believe that either they are not very good at what they do, or they are just plain inept.

In any case, the proper and honest course of action would have been to refund my money, which I did ask for. Instead, the owner insisted that his time was worth money, and that he would not do so. Evidentally his time is much more valuable than mine. What a wonderful way to justify your incompitence with your customer.

To Mr. Meineke I say: There is a cost to doing business. Though you may have expended some of your valuable time attempting to provide a service, the fact is you did not provide anything of tangible value to the customer. How do you do this and maintain a clear consious? The right thing to do would have been to simply bite the bullet on this one and accept the fact that you didn't do anything that could be accepted as useful to the customer and worth paying $35 for. Instead, you kept my money. I hope it was worth $35 dollars to you. The long-term repurcussions of this will far outweigh that amount in your future business.

My car was scheduled for new spark plugs and wires at 4:00PM Saturday 02-02-07. Everything in my car was working fine at that time. That bill was $204.16. Is that the usual for a tune up on a 4-cylinder car? By Sunday afternoon I had no heat in the car. When I called on Monday I was told that the mechanics were nowhere near the thermostat for the heater and the car was "old and things wear out." I then left my car to have the heater repaired. Repairs were expected to take two days as a part had to be ordered from Hyundai. Meineke had my car for 3 complete days, one of which the car was not worked on at all because of days off and personnel problems. I was not given the courtesy of a phone call telling me it would be an extra day. I had to borrow a car for my own transportation. I finally picked up my car on 02-09-07. That bill was $583.20. The driver's side door lock is now broken. When I called about this problem I was told again that the mechanics were nowhere near my door lock. Is this a pattern? The door lock was not broken when it was brought in for repair on 02-06-07 and now it is. The car was looked at on 02-10-07 and I was told that the door had to be removed and the spring replaced for an extra $30.00. I did not damage my car and I expect to be compensated for the broken door lock.

After paying Meineke $350 to replace front rotors and brake pads, the new pads wore out in 2 months. I went back to Meineke and they said this was not normal...I was driving too hard (these were 1 year warranty brake pads). After a lengthly debate they agreed to turn the rotors and install new pads. 2 months later...same problem. Now they say the calipers are sticking and rotors are cannot be turned again. I said no problem, I will pay for new calipers if you cover the pads and rotors under warranty (the calipers were the problem all along). They laughed at me. Not what you would expect from a National Chain that rides itself on brake expertise and customer service. Their website states "Our brake repair technicians will inspect your car brakes and tell you exactly what the problem is". Yeah Right!

I took my car to Meineke car care center at 1261 N Delsea drive Vineland NJ. where I was charged over 80 dollars for an oil change with no Filter, and a balance and rotation of my tires, or should I say UN-balance. since it was worse after they were finished. I did return today and was able to get a refund for the so called oil change, but not for all the other crappy service. According to the Meineke franchise website, it says that No experience is Necessary and I believe it now. Don't waste your time or money with this company.