Dang... My shop got a very nasty yet comical poor review on yelp

[YarisSedan]

So before you click on the link take the time to read my side of the story. The customer comes in for our coupon oil change. Strait off the bat she seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. She has a lexus rs300. Not 100 percent sure i tell her let me check the computer really quick i think your car has a canister oil filter which would be a additional charge not covered by the coupon. She replys. What you dont know? You are the mechanic you should know. I respond i am not a robot i dont have every filter for every car memorized.

I look up the filter and sure enough her car does. Our shop stocks almost every screw on filter but not all canisters since we dont do to many of those particular oil change and also it is about 3 times more expensive than the normal screw on type. I tell her hold on a second let me check if we have one in inventory.

Then she finally agrees to sign the paperwork claiming we are so much more expensive than what she is used to paying which is 20 bucks. While we are charging 29 dollars.

So we start to do the oil change and we are doing a tire rotation. The tech gets me while im in the office saying he cant find the wheel lock. I ask him did you check the glove box, arm rest and trunk" he says yes. So i ask the customer if she knows where it is.

She responds are you guys idiots. It is in the trunk like its supose to be by the spare tools. I told her no we are not we already checked there. So i personally go to check myself and its not there. I tell her again i checked its not there. She responds "you guys must be blind". Then goes very irate to her car to look and she cant find it!. I ask her who did the last tire rotation on her car and she tells me firestone. I explain to her that more than likely the last shop forgot to put it back in your vehicle. But we could just perform the normal oil change and you can bring it back when you get the key.

The tech tells me at the end her oil change was 10k miles ago. I talk to her while im billing her out. She says she read online its fine to go 10k miles between oil changes. I told her that is for synthetic oil not regular oil. She then tells me that she also read that there is no difference between synthetic and regular. I start to try to explain to her but then i just stop. And i say okay you can believe what you want to belive and i will believe what i want to belive. Me thinking this lady is just a complete moron. She is stubborn and she wont let anyone tell her that she is wrong.So we finally bill her out. Me and the tech are like whew glad to get her out of our shop.

10 months later. We get a call on my day off. The other service manager answers the phone. She starts screaming saying you guys are so incompitent idiots and so on cursing up a storm. She is saying that she took the car back to firestone for a oil change about 9k miles later. Keep in mind this is regular oil we used on our oil change not syntehtic. And they could not remove the oil filter. They ended up cracking it when they took it off. And they told her it was installed with 150ft pounds of torque!!!! And that spec is 20 foot pounds. Now she was stuck without a car had to special order the part and had to get a rental. Now the shop is blaiming us for this.

Now me being a tech and some of you out there who know a bit about cars know that it is quite impossible to isntall a filter on at 150 foot pounds. Even with all your strength with one hand. Even with 2 hands that would require a breaker bar and using a little bit of body weight into it to put it to that tight.

And even if it was put to 150 foot pounds would that mean it owuld crack the housing installing it?

The tool that we used was a filter cup. And a 3/8th ratchet. Just holding with the base of your hand to tighten it snug. The filter housing is plastic and it is not like a wheel stud and nut that will stretch and allow you to overtighten it. The filter housing once it sits flush will not be allowed to tighten anymore. So the max tightness i could guess could maybe be 30.

What my guess is. And i think its a pretty good guess is the technician didnt have the correct filter cup to remove the canister filter. So he used a large set of channel lock pliers to grip the filter house and turn it loose. In the process he cracked and broke it. Then the service manager not wanting to take blame try to blame it on the previouse shop who worked on her car which happend to be us.

So i call this shop and talk to the manager. He tells me that the technician was having trouble to remove the filter and not wanting to break anything he lets the manager know. Then he says he tried he oculdnt either. Then he states that he takes a 3/8th torque wrench and put it to the filter and went to tighten it and it immediately clicked. Then he infrormed the customer that it might break when they remove it. She said okay and then when they tried to remove it sure enough it broke.

To me something seems kinda fishy in his story. Well what do you guys think? Do you belive the shop and the customer or do you belive what my speculation of events what happend. Well below is the review for you guys to decide.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/indus-auto-sunnyvale-2

[tomato]

She has a Lexus ...

DOH!! Red flag No. 1 !! (owns Lexus, but uses oil change coupons?! hmmm)

OK, I'll keep reading :smile:


...

.....

Hmmm.. Ok. She's only written 2 bad reviews on Yelp, no positive reviews. Looks like it's as far as it's gonna go since her damages are so small. I wouldn't worry about it.

[AlexNet0]

hmm, they seem to be being bumped down by positive reviews!

[TinyGiant]

And i say okay you can believe what you want to belive and i will believe what i want to belive.

there is a better way to handle that statement. It once inspired my mother to slam on the breaks and kick me out of the car when i was a teen.

"you believe what you want to believe and i'll believe what is right"

lol the mind thinks its going to be the normal cliche statement where no one is wrong. then bam.. you're still wrong lol..

[TinyGiant]

you can email the site that does the reviews and say that the listing was posted by an disgruntled employee that no longer works for you. lol the place work for does that all the time with insider pages lol they will remove everything if you want them to. every 5-6 months we trim out all the nasty ones lol

[lilredrocket]

That is kind of funny. I used to work for Firestone and we always tried to blame it on someone else. But 9k miles one one of those canister filter will glue that o-ring in there and make it a complete PITA to remove and since it was the plastic one filter cups don't like to stay on there if you put a little torque. I have broken the filter cups trying to get these loose both the plastic and alum. ones :eyebulge:

When I worked a a quick lube right out of high school I tried to get a woman go inside and I was going to pull her car in the bay which was company policy. She insisted on pulling the car in and told her I was only following rules and she was not alloud to pull her car in. She said "The Nazi's were only following rules. I'm not a child I can drive my car into a bay."

[silver_echo]

not trying to start an argument, but toyota themselves states in the 2009 rx350 manual 5k miles OR 6 months period, if you make 6 months without 5k miles you take it in immediately, so she is not following her own car's specifications, so you are no longer liable...

in the future, if you get someone like that, show them the appropriate page of their owners manual...


also, technically, firestone is at fault for breaking it, as they obviously did not have the appropriate toyota SST...

i am in the toyota t-ten program, and pulled this info from TIS

[tk-421]

To me something seems kinda fishy in his story. Well what do you guys think? Do you belive the shop and the customer or do you belive what my speculation of events what happend.

I haven't read the review yet, but to me it sounds like the mechanics are playing nice to both the lady and yourself. Try e-mailing her and let her know what those mechanics told you (that she said it was OK if it cracked) and let's see what happens. :evil:

[YarisSedan]

not trying to start an argument, but toyota themselves states in the 2009 rx350 manual 5k miles OR 6 months period, if you make 6 months without 5k miles you take it in immediately, so she is not following her own car's specifications, so you are no longer liable...

in the future, if you get someone like that, show them the appropriate page of their owners manual...


also, technically, firestone is at fault for breaking it, as they obviously did not have the appropriate toyota SST...

i am in the toyota t-ten program, and pulled this info from TIS

Yeah there is kinda a common practice in automotive that if the shop who is working on the car damages something they are responsible no matter really what the circumstances are. Like for example if i remove a lugnut and it snaps the stud. Now me a mechanic know the reason it snapped the stud is probally some one (A) either, way overtightend it probally with thier impact gun on number 5. Or (B) put the lugnut in the socket of thier gun and then used the gun to zip it down without first spinning it on by hand a few threads and thus crossthreading the lugnut into place. But yet i am still responsible. Only if you are lucky and can get away with it and the customer is not there. You can call the customer. State that it is not comming out right. And that it may break off. Do i have your authorization to continue. If they say yes. You can call them back again and then say it did broke. Now you can charge the customer and you got away with it. Sound familiar?

[SilverBack]

It doesn't look like your shop or the other one did anything wrong. She was just being an idiot

[PETERPOOP]

You should have bodyslammed her through the table, and finished her off with the people's elbow.

[CtrlAltDefeat]

You should have bodyslammed her through the table, and finished her off with the people's elbow.

then hit her with a folding chair and :slice: :bellyroll:

[Vioz]

Then the firestone manager comes and smashes you over the head with a folding chair, now its a brawl lol (jk)

As a customer service type of business there are always going to be angry confused customers pointing fingers at you, but you will always have very satisfied customers, lol angry customers and people are entertainment to me now, i deal with it every day at work debt collections. :P

[Rain]

Post a reply to her review so that potential costumers can also read about your side of the story and not just go with what she accused you off. Try to keep it brief.

[cali yaris]

^ +1, good answer.

although, it is now 8 months later, lol

[Stove]

You won't loose any of the satisfied customers that you already have. Word of mouth is still a better sales tool than the internet. Any potential new customers that choose to go someplace else because they believe everything that they read on the internet (One bad review, Synthetic Oil=Regular Oil, 10K between oil changes is OK), are customers you don’t want anyway.

[YarisSedan]

Wow this was a old thread. Somehow her posting just magically dissapeared and never came back.

We did end up getting another stupid review though. Customer came in and asked to change his window regulator and brough his used part he bought from ebay and asked us to put it in. We said okay. He then asked what if the part is wrong. We said once we pull the door panel apart and match it up with the old one if its wrong we would still have to charge him for the labor to put everything back together. That upset him so he went to another shop and end up paying more. So for that he left a bad review. Which to me dosnt make sense since we havent even performed any work on his car yet.

Its like leaving a bad review for resturant that you havent even tried the food yet. "I drove by the resturant and i didnt like the color of the building. I dont think i will ever eat here"

[severous01]

even with synthetic toyota recommends a 3-5k oil service interval...depending on engine.

also, if you dont put oil on the o-ring it will glue itself to the other parts...or worse, get cut and you have an oil mess everywhere.

third...i hear that stupid crap all the time about scratches on panels and switches when i hadnt even been on that side of the car...my manager takes care of the BS thankfully or we'd be out of business.

[YarisSedan]

even with synthetic toyota recommends a 3-5k oil service interval...depending on engine.

also, if you dont put oil on the o-ring it will glue itself to the other parts...or worse, get cut and you have an oil mess everywhere.

third...i hear that stupid crap all the time about scratches on panels and switches when i hadnt even been on that side of the car...my manager takes care of the BS thankfully or we'd be out of business.

I have even a better story one time when i was a early mechanic i did a tire rotation on a car i remeber it was a old honda accord it think 92. The drivers door handle was cracked and very brittle so i was careful when opening it. 30 minutes later i get a call from the manager showing me pictures of inside the car. All 4 door handles were cracked and the 2 in the back wre completely broken off. Customer claims i broke the drivers door handle and was scared to break it more so i tried to go out the back seat. Then i broke that handle off trying to get out so i was stuck so i tried to get out the other side but that broke too. Then finally i went out the passanger front seat.

I just replied oh i guess i must not know my own strength. He just blew the customer off. I dont know what she was expecting we would replace all her inner door handles for free or something.

[severous01]

hahaha...ya catch this....my luck

i was at work today and i had an X3 with a super=tight filter. guess what...it was a local service shop or used car place that changed the oil. they didnt lube the o-ring. took me a 3 foot breaker bar and the right filter adapter to get it off. when i took it off they had 2 o-rings on there...mega tight...way too much.




HAND TIGHT PEOPLE, PLUS 1/8 TURN. and dont forget to lube the ring.

[cali yaris]

^ 150 ft/lbs? :laugh:

[silver_echo]

^ 150 ft/lbs? :laugh:

nope... just put on by he-man... :biggrin:

[ChilliwackGuy]

I can never figure out why some businesses don't just refuse to offer service to difficult clients. Is it worth it invoicing for $29 US for all that hassle???

[1stToyota]

I can never figure out why some businesses don't just refuse to offer service to difficult clients. Is it worth it invoicing for $29 US for all that hassle???

I did not too long ago and it nearly started a knife fight. I was in the middle of stabbing a transmission and another mechanic was pulling some heads when a guy pulls up and says he needs a flat fixed. I told him only if he could leave it. He starts mouthing how lazy we are...I say "yeah, we're so lazy that we just do easy jobs like head gaskets and clutch jobs"

He starts walking away screaming "LAZY!" so I told him to sober up [he was drunk, btw]. His 3 friends pile out of the car, when they heard that, and they all start running towards me. I close the bay door down just as they get to it...boy, that really got them irate! :laugh:

[silver_echo]

not advocating this at all but...

one thing that i am noticing, is that it seems to be about one in ten... to the point where i have heard from people at the dealer that they want to just walk up to #10 and bi*** slap them... that way, since he was not gonna be happy anyway, at least the tech got some release...

[severous01]

not advocating this at all but...

one thing that i am noticing, is that it seems to be about one in ten... to the point where i have heard from people at the dealer that they want to just walk up to #10 and bi*** slap them... that way, since he was not gonna be happy anyway, at least the tech got some release...

u have no idea how often i wanna slap the crap outta #10. and it's usually a big black B****...not prejudice or nothing, we have our honkies out there too that are idiots.

i had a customer tell me that i was trying to rip him off by telling him he needed an AC service cuz his AC stunk, and that his power steering fluid was toast. he proceeded to tell me that it's 100k fluid and it's not going to be changed and he's not paying for it and this and that...no less than a month he came in for a leaking AC (not that my AC service would have cleaned it) and he needed a new power steering rack and pump. also, not that a flush would have fixed it...but, i was right and he was wrong and i made sure he understood i was rubbing it in his face that he needed the services.

[RedHatch08]

Customer service of any kind is ridiculous sometimes.

It's almost like a test to see how much ignorance and stupidity it takes to make someone snap and kill a mofo.

[YarisSedan]

Just the other day a customer dropped off his vehicle for a wheel bearing replacement. 3 Weeks ago he came by again and asked to us to do it and i asked him why he wanted it done. He said the dealership told him it needed it. Apprently he hears a slight noise that changes pitch with speed that comes and goes. I told him that we can change the side that he requests but if it dosnt fix his problem we are not responsible. Then he replys well i dont feel that thats right. I explain to him you had someone else diagnose it and if there are any issues you will have to go back to them. if you want us to diagnose it and we diagnose the wrong side then we are responsible that is what the diagnostic charge is for.

He then leaves because he is unhappy with my response. So anyways he brings his car in again and drops it off. I declines the diagnostic charge. We always test drive our vehicles before any service at my shop cause our customers have a tendency to claim there car wasnt acting a certain way until after whatever service we performed no matter how unrelated. So anyways the technician gives me the keys and asks me to drive the car. I go i hear nothing. We both are wondering why in the world we are doing a wheel bearing. From my experience a wheel bearing once bad wont come and go the sound will always be constant.

So anyways i call the customer to let him know and he thanks us for our honesty. Pretty much he got lucky and got a free diagnostic. He asks us to do a oil change since it was here and he would be picking it up in 30 minutes. So we finish the oil change and give him our coupon rate which is 19.95 plus sale tax and hazz fee which is 2.99.

Total bill comes out to be 24 even. He then starts to argue and ask if we gave him the coupon price of 19.95 and why is the total 24. I go are you seriouse I just saved you hundreds of dollars on a service we could have just performed and this is how you show your gratitue. Well the price is 19.95 there is disposal fee which any place in this state charges as well as sales tax. I dont know if people really expect the price 19.95 on the coupon is the out the door price or that are just playing stupid sometimes because i have to explain that about 3-4 times a day. But i digress he then apologizes and leaves. But things like that really get to me when I take care of the customer but they do not appreciate it.

Oh and at the end i ask what shop had recommended the wheel bearing he said it was the Toyota dealer.

[RedHatch08]

"Customers" can be not only a source of frustration, but also hilarious amusement.

In a previous job, I heard a customer talking to another employee about his recent stay at the hospital. I gather from what part of the conversation I heard that he caught some kind of infection at the hospital, and they were trying to figure out what the infection was.

To do that, I guess they took samples and grew them on a petri dish.

As this "genius" was telling the story, he was referring to the petri dish as "a peach tree dish".

Every once in a while the ignorant moron customers are good for a laugh.

[jcemitte]

ahh man i know im late to the party here but i used to run a lube truck for john deere and man tractors or the dirtiest son of a bees out there this was my set up for filter removal, the claw and a 24" ratchet

[chrisj]

I was a computer tech for 25 years and had to put up with lots of a-holes while working for the Computerlands and other businesses I worked for all the years. I had people pizzed at me because I had to wipe their computer and THEY didn't have a backup, which they were told to make time and time again. Things like that.

When I started my own business doing the same thing back in 1998, I brought lots of those customers of mine with me, which helped my business be profitable right off the bat. One thing I did NOT do though was bring over the a-holes to my business. I left those off my list of clients and ended up with happy customers who I could be happy with. It's nice to be selective, if you can be. ;)

[vwtech]

honestly 19.99 for an oil change you are probably losing money we have a 19.95 oil change with oem filters (vw dealer) and there is no way we make money. On vw's all the oil changes 06 and up are 10k intervals and I have only seen one housing break so I dont know if the guy was using filter pliers on it or something and cracked it or what. I cant believe how dishonest customers are blaming people for things they didnt even touch, I get it at my work all the time and I thought well maybe its cause we are the dealer and get the bad rep that goes along with it. 99% of the time my customers are awesome I guess because they know we are the only good dealer within 80 miles and they dont want to piss us of because not too many independent shops will work on vw's.

[vwtech]

Just the other day a customer dropped off his vehicle for a wheel bearing replacement. 3 Weeks ago he came by again and asked to us to do it and i asked him why he wanted it done. He said the dealership told him it needed it. Apprently he hears a slight noise that changes pitch with speed that comes and goes. I told him that we can change the side that he requests but if it dosnt fix his problem we are not responsible. Then he replys well i dont feel that thats right. I explain to him you had someone else diagnose it and if there are any issues you will have to go back to them. if you want us to diagnose it and we diagnose the wrong side then we are responsible that is what the diagnostic charge is for.

He then leaves because he is unhappy with my response. So anyways he brings his car in again and drops it off. I declines the diagnostic charge. We always test drive our vehicles before any service at my shop cause our customers have a tendency to claim there car wasnt acting a certain way until after whatever service we performed no matter how unrelated. So anyways the technician gives me the keys and asks me to drive the car. I go i hear nothing. We both are wondering why in the world we are doing a wheel bearing. From my experience a wheel bearing once bad wont come and go the sound will always be constant.

So anyways i call the customer to let him know and he thanks us for our honesty. Pretty much he got lucky and got a free diagnostic. He asks us to do a oil change since it was here and he would be picking it up in 30 minutes. So we finish the oil change and give him our coupon rate which is 19.95 plus sale tax and hazz fee which is 2.99.

Total bill comes out to be 24 even. He then starts to argue and ask if we gave him the coupon price of 19.95 and why is the total 24. I go are you seriouse I just saved you hundreds of dollars on a service we could have just performed and this is how you show your gratitue. Well the price is 19.95 there is disposal fee which any place in this state charges as well as sales tax. I dont know if people really expect the price 19.95 on the coupon is the out the door price or that are just playing stupid sometimes because i have to explain that about 3-4 times a day. But i digress he then apologizes and leaves. But things like that really get to me when I take care of the customer but they do not appreciate it.

Oh and at the end i ask what shop had recommended the wheel bearing he said it was the Toyota dealer.

I saved a guy $200 once because I got his tie rods unsiezed so he didnt have to buy new ones (other shop couldn't do alignment) we had to basicly give the alignment away.

[sickpuppy1]

I work in Heating/Cooling trade and too many people have a "my minds made up, dont confuse me with the facts" kind of mentality. It makes it very hard for a good, properly trained tech to do the job we're supposed to do, when those that know nothing feel they know it all.

[chrisj]

^ Oh yeah!

[firemachine69]

I work in Heating/Cooling trade and too many people have a "my minds made up, dont confuse me with the facts" kind of mentality. It makes it very hard for a good, properly trained tech to do the job we're supposed to do, when those that know nothing feel they know it all.



Hey! Just like a Liberal! :evil:

[silver_echo]

so my gf just bought a car, and i went to change the oil on it, they had the drain plug either he-man'ed in there, or un-lubed, and seized in place, because even with the right size wrench, the plug rounded right off... and still did not come loose so that i could change the oil... called the dealer, and have an appt on tuesday to have them get the plug off and replace the plug...

i know that this is a little bit of thread jacking, but i think that it is close enough to the current subject to be relevant...

[chrisj]

I regularly got computers in virtual (some literal) paper bags after some dope finished "working" on it. Most people would generally call some teenage "computer genius" down the street to f*ck it up even more before finally getting a professional to fix the damn thing. One reason I stopped working on home computers as soon as I got into my own business. Home users are tight and headaches.