Complaint Review: Walmart Tire & Lube Express - Comstock Park Michigan

I work at a transmission shop and have been in the business for over 38 years. Britt is right, the man said your fluid was low, but not how low and that makes a big difference. If it was a pint low, its not going to cause damage. The fact of the matter is you need to accept responsibility for checking your own car, just because you take your car to have it serviced every 3000 miles doesn't mean that at 1000 miles your not going to be low on oil,trans fluid,anti-freeze or air pressure. You need to stop looking to blame others and accept responsibility for what you neglect.

      I work for Wal-Mart and I am a certified technician in the Tire and Lube Express. In your situation I can tell you that if you've been sent to claims, you'll almost never get the money. To be honest, and this is from experience in my store not only my department, all you have to do is yell and cuss and you get the money you want. 
 
     I believe the techs were in a hurry, glanced around, didn't see the stick for the transmission fluid and put sealed system. It's very unfortunate. We have "bay times" that we have to meet and exceed for every step of an oil change and tires. So that can cause extra stress and hurried work.

     I will agree with Britt on one point. There is no guarantee that there was a leak when the vehicle was serviced at Wal-Mart or how low the fluid was. One tip I would give, and this is for every where, not just Wal-Mart, because many service stations have bay times, is before you leave the parking lot DOUBLE CHECK the fluids.

     In your situation you were wronged, but day after day I have people come in with cars that have oil leaks prior to service, temporary plugs, striped studs, etc. and when we decline their car they start cussing and our managers force us to do the work.

Then when the car is still damaged, because we can't fix those problems, they come back and try to file a lawsuit. So this is what us techs, managers, and Britt is dealing with. You may be an exception, but we've dealt with millions who will lie, cheat, and break something on their car to get a couple extra bucks.

Well from what i read u bought a 1998 lincoln continental..which is a pretty old car with what i imagine has alot of miles on it..i dont know why they said it had a sealed system..but i do know from what i read apparently u havent been checking the fluids yourself cause if u first got it serviced in january and then in july that was six months..u have to check your oil and trans atleast once every week or somewere in there ..alot can happen in 6 months ..u also need to look at why if the car was perfect did the person u bought it from even sold it..the brown burnt trans fluid could be from addatives used to keep it from leaking. That the person u bought it from may have tried to cover up leak.....not saying wal mart was right or wrong ..cause i am a mechanic and i my self check my fluids daily and if needed top them off...people always try to say it was the dealerships fault are ever who u got your services from..but really if u are paying the price to get it done maybe u should check to see if it was done right ...i would if i was paying for services..but also like u said u love the car well show it some tlc..check its fluids ..cause even if walmart checked it and it was good doesnt mean that u wont have a mechanical problem in 3 month are 3000 miles...

I work at Walmart TLE myself as a tech and I hear plenty of horror stories from customers and also from co-workers telling old stories of the s**t-for-brains who come into our crew. I do believe Walmart should have better hands-on training for techs instead of online based training so at my Walmart the certified and experienced techs take the newbies under our wing and show them the ropes. I do care about our reputation which doesn't seem to be very high at these Walmarts I've been reading about. I can say for my store that we have a good crew that I'm comfortable enough to let them do an oil change or tire work on my own vehicle. We have a small crew of just five techs and one isn't certified, but he is very knowledgeable and performs good work. I'm not too worried about him. Also, we trained him well. We've weeded out the problem techs and currently have a hiring freeze on our department to keep it the way it is. In the past I've personally seen techs who would do things such as break studs on a car while changing tires and comment the work order saying it was broken on arrival. This dishonesty burns me up and the reason why they are gone. That is one thing I trained our newbie on. Honesty. Own up to your mistakes. Also, how to protect himself doing simple things such as removing the oil cap before you drain the oil just in case he drained the oil and the cap is broken. We don't get a lot of complaints at our TLE.

Unfortunately, proving culpability regarding a nearly 13-year-old car is difficult at best.  I'm curious as to how many miles the Lincoln had on it when this all happened. 

Either way, I have taken vehicles in to WM for simple service twice, both oil changes and lubes.  Both times, WM screwed it up.  The first time, the oil was overfilled...not by enough to become a disaster, but certainly more than it should have been.  The second time, the oil filter was not installed properly (the gasket was askew) and it leaked.  That time, they also left an oil filter wrench under the hood.  

I returned the wrench with a promise to stick to buying paper towels and cereal at WM, not auto servicing. 

It's like taking your car to Harry and Lloyd, not Floyd. Not sure what the time line is but it looks like you had the vehicle serviced on 1-8-10 and then again on 7-10-10, 6 months later. Which means six months between services. In the old days, they suggested you check your own oil and transmission levels every time you filled up. Now I don't know a whole lot of folks who do it that often but it's probably a good idea to do it once a month. If YOU had, you probably would have caught the low trans level. So you bear some of the responsibility of maintaining you own vehicle.

If people are that dumb, to still take their car to walmart they deserve what they get they are like harry and floyd from the movie dumb and dumber.

And this is the guy you want working on your car?

First off you should have taken the $350 offered,  I can't even believed they offered you that much. 

Yes they were the last to look at your car and yes they appeared to have not checked the transmission fluid.  Ok that means they own you a partial refund on the service.  That doesn't mean they are responsible for low fluid in the transmission.  At best they might be found to have partial responsibility but I doubt even that.   Like I said the $350 was awesome offer.  I would have taken that and ran.

Second you had over 6 months between oil changes.  This is your biggest issues since it appears you don't check your fluids yourself between them.   Nor does it appear you checked the fluids when you bought the car.  I know most of us don't.  Hell I don't.  But if my transmission goes out due to low fluid I know it is my fault.

Third I have had three transmission go out on me.  And in all cases you could tell something was wrong ahead of time.  Given the amount you drive and the low fluid you should have felt it.

In summary this is your fault and Wal-Mart should not have offered you $350 even.  Check your fluids especially if you are a low mileage driver.  If you dry that little you should be checking your fluids almost every time you drive.

In most cases, Wal-Mart TLE staff are NOT "mechanics".

These are people who know nothing, in most cases, and cannot get a job anywhere else.

I have a friend of mine in the business out here and he makes a massive amount of money off of the numerous TLE screwups. My favorite is the use of an impact wrench to put the oil drain plug back in! This is a common occurence.

I wouldn't let the monkeys at TLE put air in my bicycle tire!

Idiots.