Meineke Car Care Center

The car went there in the middle of October 2021 for a timing chain and a fuel pump and the fuel pump failed the next day after I got the car back. I had it towed back the next day and they had the car for two months for a variety of repair issues some of which were not necessary. When the car was deemed repaired two months later and I went to go get it they would not let me drive it until I paid for it. So I paid for it and drove it out and it still did not run right because the incompetent manager/mechanic put the wrong distributor in twice and lied to me right to my face and insisted the car was fixed. The car was not fixed and I had to take it to a guy and he found out the distributor was the problem all along and he had it fixed in one day! The owner would not give me any kind of a refund until I called the better business bureau on him. I spent close to five thousand dollars between the first bill in late October and the second bill in late December and another 1000 on fuel injectors which did not fix anything and the car was not fixed and I had to take it somewhere else because they never did figure out how to fix it right so there was no way I was bringing it back there. I was asking for a thousand dollar refund based on the return of the distributor, the labor involved, and my expense of around another five hundred dollars for the other shop and a different correct distributor. He would not give me more than five hundred and was hesitant to even do that! What he did next has sealed his fate to end up being a former meineke franchise. I paid him off of estimates he provided me which are not true invoices and once he refunded me he deleted the transaction and did not report it to meineke corporate. I know all this because I have in contact with the VP of meineke for the past six months. Now this franchise is under investigation by the meineke corporate legal department for doing what they did to me. When I went to go get the five hundred I signed for it and actually released him of any warranty on any of the work they did. Of course I would not have signed anything like that and I did not ask what I was signing and of course he did not tell me! So now I have filed a dispute with the meineke credit card company for 1100 dollars and they have ruled in the merchants favor three times in spite of having copies of all the bills from meineke to the tow receipt and the bill for the shop which fixed the car right. According to the VP meineke corporate still does not have a record of my transactions so they can not process a refund without the information. So this is been going on for seven months and I am not paying anything to the credit card company right now and pretty soon they will get tired of me yelling at them on the phone and figure out I have a valid dispute. The investigation of this place in Schaumburg could take another six months to complete and the corporate legal team is auditing every transaction from the past twelve months starting from the date of my transaction which was Decemner 30,2021. The guy who runs the place is a crook and a liar and so is the manager and I will not rest until he is a former meineke franchise owner!

They had my car for two months for a variety of problems and ended up causing a problem they could not diagnose or fix. They lied to me and said it was fixed and would not let me drive it before I paid for it. I ended up taking the car somewhere else and the new place ended up putting in the correct distributor and figured it out in less than one day. Meineke would only pay me for the second cheap distributor and one hour labor but considering the amount of money I spent and the time they had the car I feel I am due more. The so called customer service is a joke and even the vice president of Meineke was afraid to call them on my behalf! So if you own your own Meineke shop I guess you can do whatever you want and get away with it. There is much more to this story and I just wasted an hour typing it and for some reason I do not believe my complaint went through. They know what they tried to pull on me and have all the details so this is not something new and happened last year from the middle of October to December 30.

They had my car for two months and failed to fix and and diagnose the problem. I spent my own money for parts which were not needed and was overcharged for labor and the parts which they obtained. The day before I picked it up the mechanic lied to me and said it was fixed and I trusted him and did not take the car for a ride to see for myself. The radio had a blown fuse under the plug which attaches to the radio providing power. They let me take the radio out while the car was in their shop still. I put the new fuse in and turned the key and the radio was working. But while I was putting the radio back in the dash a wire came off and it stopped working. So we checked both fuses and they were good and there was power from the fusebox going to the radio. So I gave up without fixing it and went home because it was late. The next day was 12/30/21 and the mechanic who worked on my car was off on that Thursday. I went in to pick up the car and was told I would have to pay the entire bill which was over 3300 dollars before he would let me drive it! So I paid the bill and took off with the car and it was bucking upon acceleration which was the same problem it had all along before! So I called the owner and told him what was going on and he came up with some stupid [censored] story about how I messed up the car by knocking a wire off of the radio which is ridiculous. The so called certified mechanic also tried to claim the same story the next day 12/31/21. There was no way I was bringing the car back there and they never even bothered to ask me to bring it back! They were only working until noon on new years eve and were closed on Saturday and we were expecting a huge snowstorm and I was not leaving my mint 89 lincoln town car to get buried in snow! Anyway the car was barely driveable and I was able only to go fifty on the highway and I managed to get it to a radio shop where they found it was poorly grounded and had a loose speaker wire from the original poor installation job. I then managed to drive it slowly and deliberately to a speed shop where they found out the second defective distributor installed by Meineke was either defective or installed incorrectly or both. So it was fixed on Friday 12/31/21 and I had to pay a total of 430 dollars for another distributor and the labor to install it. The car now drives perfectly and I got it my garage just before midnight on New Years Eve. Keep in mind both the owner of the shop and the so called certified mechanic who worked on my car were still sticking to the wire story which obviously has nothing to do with a defective distributor. Eventually I filed a complaint with BBB and managed to get 500 dollars back but should have gotten close to at least eight hundred or more dollars but feel I was forced by the owner to settle for less. I am not done with this and will refile another complaint with BBB after thirty days. I feel I was taken advantage of and overcharged and worse of all lied to!

They took two months and still did not correct the problem. They would not give me the keys until I paid the entire bill. The car was still not fixed, so I took it to another shop. They fixed it in one day and considering I had spent over $6000 as Meineke I feel I am entitled to the $430 charge for the other shop to fix it right. I have been in contact to the vice president of Meineke but so far no decision has been made about my refund. This shop did not fix the issue and even put in another cheap incorrect distributor. They overcharged me on all the parts and then lied to me saying the car was fixed when if clearly was not. Another shop took one look at it and said the distributor was not the right one and fixed it in one day.