Complaint Review: Service King - San Marcos Texas

On June 20, 2014 I was rear ended in my 2010 Kia Soul by an uninsured driver.

I took my vehicle to Service King in San Marcos, they affirmed that only the back of the car was damaged. There was no frame damage but multiple panels had to be replaced.

The work took more than a month, much longer than their original estimate. However, that wasn't the problem.

As soon as I got the car back I drove back to my hometown of Pasadena to visit my mom, once I got there the car had trouble turning on. I took it to Auto Zone who tested the battery and said it was no good. Since my battery was less than a year old they went ahead and pulled it out to replace it for free because it was still under warranty. That's when we ran into a problem. The battery they pulled out of my car was NOT the battery they had put in a short time ago!!

I was at a complete loss! The employees at Auto Zone were too, they didn't even recognize the brand of battery. I can't remember the name of it right now but it had the word "rocket" in it. The guys at Auto Zone looked it up out of curiosity and found out it's a super cheap Chinese knock off of some Korean brand of battery. I don't remember the exact terminology they used, but they said something that had to do with the size or the power of the battery not even being enogh for my 4 cylinder car!! 

Right away I thought it must have been an honest mistake. Before I had taken my car to Service King I'd had NO problems with my car and it was the ONLY place I had taken it. I figured they might have taken the battery out of the car since they'd be working on it for so long and accidentally put the wrong battery back in. When I called the manager to let him know that my battery was either in someone else's car or still at the shop he informed me that because they were working exclusively in the back of my car, they'd have no reason to even open the front of my car. He claimed that they never took out the battery or even popped the hood the entire time it was there, therefore there was no way the battery switch could have happened at their location. 

At this point I tell the manager that I had a brand new battery when I went in to his shop and a rinky dink barely a battery when I left his shop. He basically told me that wasn't their problem and suggested that maybe I didn't know what battery I had bought a few months prior. 

He changed his tune once I drove back up to San Marcos and handed him the receipt that showed what battery I had bought just a few months earlier and had the manager of Auto Zone call and confirm what battery HIS employees had put in my car. They also informed him that nobody even sells that brand in America, the only way to even get ahold of it is to order it online. He heaved a huge sigh like I was just causing a big hassle over nothing and dismissively waved me off and told one of his employees to go with me to the local Auto Zone and buy me a new battery exactly like the one I had.

Considering that one of his employees had stolen my battery and replaced it with a piece of crap, his attitude was completely unwarranted. Now if anything should go wrong with this battery I won't be able to take advantage of the warranty because they charged it to the Service King account and put it under their name. This wouldn't have been the case if they hadn't helped themselves to my original battery.

Another rip off that I can't confirm is the condition of my car since the trip to Service King. Not even a year after my visit where they claimed to not have messed with the front end at all, my engine went out. The sensor that shows engine temperature was broken, it showed that the engine was within normal range when it was really overheating. My engine burned up and left me stranded on the side of the highway with my dog in the middle of nowhere Texas when it was over 100 degrees outside. Aside from basic maintenance like oil changes and such, nobody else has had access to my car. Certainly nobody has had it unsupervised long enough to dig around and break stuff. Nobody but Service King, who has already proven their employees are untrustworthy and get into areas of the vehicle that they aren't even supposed to be working on. A five year old car that's been well maintained doesn't just up and start breaking sensors on its own.

I cannot prove my suspicions about this last rip off, but I feel it is best to include it because it is very very likely that Service King is responsible for the death of my car.