Complaint Review: Meineke Car Care Center - Clinton Maryland

In April 2016 we took our Ford Expedition to Meineke to have a broken bolt removed from the motor. The manager asked that we leave the turck overnight so a Diagnostic could be done on the truck. The manager called us the next morning and said he had found a lot of code erors. We went to the shop and received from the manager a list of approximately eight codes that the manager said had to be fixed before the truck would drive safely. The manager said that due to the error codes and the fact that black smoke was coming from the exhaust we would need a manifold, 1 converter, and 2 heads.The manager explained that they would need a couple days to fix the code error,,,s and that we would be called when the code erors were fixed.

After not hearing anything from the Meineke shop for several days, my fiancee dropped in to see how ithe repair was going. The manager told my fiancee that it had been decided that another motor and a secod converter had to be put in our truck since black exhaust smoke continued to come from the exhaust after the previous mentioned manifold, and the previous 1 head, and the previous first converter had been put on the truck.  The process of putting another motor into our truck had already beeen started without notifying us or asking us if we agreed previously. Our original motor had already been broken down.

The manager said that the repairmen would need about 1 work week to finish inserting the new motor and testing.  We picked the truck after about 2 weeks as it took longer to finish the work.  We rented a truck for about 5 business days while waiting for the repair. We picked the truck up and about 5 dsays later noticed that the truck was leaking. We took the truck back to Meineke and the Meineke employee determined it was leaking transmission fluid.  The Meineke reparman fixed the leak and we dove home.

About 4 days later we started hearing a grinding noise when the truck was driven and noticed a couple details had been overlooked. from the repair. The plastic covering for wires on the back wall had not been pugt back after the repair and the battery holder was not put back, it was hanging loose.

We again took the truck back and the Meineke reparman put the plastic cover back on the wires on the back wall of the truck. When we asked the manager about the grinding noise and mhow we thought it was from loose bolts that had not been tightened. We asked the manager if nwe could take the truck to a Ford dealer to have the truck examined and fixed and send Meineke the invoice. The manager then said that we could have loosened the bolts ourselves or had somebody else work on the truck.

My fiancee and I told the manager that his suggestion was ridculous as Meineke had done the original work and it made no sense to switch in the middle of the process. At this point, we had called and talked to Meineke Corporate Head Quarters , which was a total, waste of time as Corporate kept referring us back to the manager.Merineke had also said the truck would pass emissions and it failed.

On August 4, 2016 (Thursday) the air compressor fell completely out from under the truck while the truck was being driven. The serpentine belt came off as well, making it hard to steer to get out of the way of traffic. We have paid $2,999.56 and as of August 8, the truck is back in the Meineke shop. The manager refuses to give us any written documentation for record. Hopefully we will pick up the truck again and determine if there is anyone else we can talk to about this rip-off. 

We will never use Meineke again fro anything and will make sure to warn family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.