Meineke Car Care Center

I have had the worse experience with your franchise in Clayton, NC. I went in for an oil change and after the inspection they told me my rear brakes were beyond terrible and needed to be replaced immediately, they quoted me a price and told me i could even apply for a credit to cover the services. I didn't even think twice about it and i went ahead and told them to start working on it. My car was not ready until 3:30pm. At checkout they explained to me that they had a bit of a hard time removing the rear wheels and that the locking bolt broke and they had to remove them completely so i would no longer have a locking bolt nor the key to remove the locking bolt for that broke as well. I was very upset for the front two wheels still had the locking bolts and if i was to need to replace them in case of a flat on the road i would not be able to without the key. I asked who would be responsible for this and they stated it was not their fault, but the company who installed my tires last put the locking bolt on too tight. They stated i needed to take it up with them (just tires). Finally after minutes of discussing this with him and getting nowhere, i checked out and went to take my car home. prior to entering my car i went to lock at my tires since they no longer had a locking bolt. It was them that i noticed that the meineke employees had beyond damaged both my rear rims and did not even care to let me know (maybe expecting my to never even look at my tires and notice it) I went back to speak with ""domingo"" to see why he would not have informed me of this huge damage they caused my wheels if we had just spent over 10 minutes discussing the damage tothe locking bolts and their lock of responsibility! There was no true explanation, it gave me his number and stated he would call me later or friday morning to let me know if there was anything they could do to help with the rim situation. I had domingo take pictures and i too myself took pictures of how badly they damaged my rims. I have yet to hear from Domingo with a solution. I very upset, went to Just tires to see if they could do anything in the matter. I was informed by them that the locking bolt key does wear out in time, and that sometimes they do break, but there are tools to remove the locking bolt without causing damage in those circumstances. I showed them my rims and the locking bolt key that Meineke returned to me and they stated with much certainty that it looks like Meineke tried to use the proper tool to remove the locking bolt after the key broke, but later decided to use an air hammer to remove it which is what caused all the damage! \r I am so upset that i didnt come to my regular tire specialist for this brake job(Just Tires). It would have been cheaper and without all this stress. but i thought i would give Meineke a try since i was already there that morning, BIGGEST mistake EVER!!! I will make sure that all my friends and family know to not go to a meineke for they have truely bad work ethics and lack of responsibility. If they were truely having a hard time with the locking bolt, i would have preferred them to tell me they were unable to do the brake job then to have damaged my car which i have worked really had at maintaining. I am truly upset and disappointed beyond words. more

We took our car there and was told it was a blown head gasket and would be $2000 to have repaired. We took it to two other places for a 2nd and 3rd opinion and neither one said it was the head gasket. There was a leak that ended up costing $140 to fix! Huge difference. We decided to give them another try and have them complete our car inspection. They failed the car and said we needed a new serpentine belt and tensioner and it would cost $300. We took the car to Jiffy Lube as they said they could replace the belt for $70. When they went to replace it, they said they couldn't because there was absolutely nothing wrong with the best, in fact they said it looked almost new! We called Meineke to see if they would pass our inspection (so we would only need to pay the remaining inspection balance) and they said no! The manager said since it's already in the system they can't do anything about it and he trusts his mechanic. Well, that's wonderful but I don't!!! We ended up getting the inspection done at Jiffy Lube since it was way cheaper than replacing a serpentine belt that didn't need replaced. We were still out the money that we spent for the inspection though at Meineke. We used different Meinekes in the past and didn't have issues. We were actually excited when we saw they brought one to Clayton, but this place is horrible. We will NOT be going back! more