hey Midas(tm), lick my.... (long)

The BBQ Pit
1

first off, I’m referring Midas™ the car maintanence company, not some user that I don’t know about…

So here’s the background… about 2 & 1/2 years ago I moved to a very new area, and my car was experiencing some exhaust system issues… So since I’m new to the area (by about 1000 miles) I decide to make a quick trip my nearest nation-wide-chain exhaust place, Midas™…(normally I’d have taken my car to a mechanic I trust)

So they find the hidden hole in the exhaust system, and they also notice that the calipers and rotors are begining to fail… I ask them about the hole, and the failing calipers and rotors, everything they say sounds reasonable… so I slapped down the credit card and get a new exhaust straight pipe and muffler, and supposedly got new rotors and calipers…

Fast forward 2 & 1/2 years… my car’s rear-end is making some funny sounds when braking… so I take my little car to my new trusted mechanic (the man is a god with cars… and honest too)…

Oh, hey, the rear brakes are shot… The calipers are frozen, the rotors are screwed (I checked them all out, and they were all VERY damaged)…

Since I have learned to trust my new mechanic, I just tell him to install the new parts (brakes are somewhat important… and six hundred bucks is a lot less important to me than my wife’s life)

I go to pay the man for his services, and pick up my car… he tells me that my car is ready to go, but I might want to look at the old calipers and rotors… the calipers were more rusted out than anything I’ve seen in any junkyard and are lacking any form of brake pad… the rotors had obvious channels from where metal had been scraping on metal for quite a while… My only comment was, “Those don’t look like two year old parts…” His response, “no, these are factory original parts.” (the car is a `94)

I’m not going to persue any form of legal action against Midas™… I’m assuming it was just an unethical asshole I bumped into that wanted to pocket a couple bucks for parts that weren’t really sold… I’ve had really good experiences with other Midas™ shops… but in the future, I’m always going to stick with mechanics I trust… but I might send a letter to Midas™ Corp. HQ about the shop that did the “work”

don’t get me started on the fact that my trusted mechanic charged me %50 of what Midas™ charged me for a rotor…

ok… I’m done venting.

please share your own stories…

2

Some guy used to have a website called “Midas Sucks”. I can’t find it now - they must have sued him.

Did you know that you can request to have any mechanic save all the parts they replace on your car, and give them back to you? That way, if they jerked you around, you have the evidence right there.

3

blowero, my friendly mechanic is holding the parts for me (I didn’t really want to bring nasty rusty old crap into my apartment… if I had a garage I would have brought them home)

this morning I did some checking, the particular Midas shop tht did the work about 2.5 years ago, has since closed… possibly due to such practices… so it’s not like I can just drive up with some warn out parts and demand a refund.

I really doubt it’s official Midas policy to lie about replacing parts… so if I showed them my receipt and the actual parts, I’d probably get a stock, “We’re really sorry, that’s not our policy, we’ll speak that branch immediately… oh, they’re already closed… well, have a nice day”

oh well… my brakes work again… I’m gonna go play pool.

4

Actually, what I meant was, had you asked MIDAS to show you the old brake parts AT THE TIME when they replaced them 2 years ago - then you would have caught them in their lie. I wasn’t suggesting you go back this long after the fact and try to get a refund; I just meant it’s a good thing to know for NEXT time.

5

Actually didnt midas is some places get in sears type of trouble for shoddy practices related to a work perfomance bonus plan?

I vaguely remeber ca going after them for somemthing …

6

The EXACT same thing happened to my brother. He bought his car from a woman who said that Midas had put new brakes on it two years earlier. She gave him the receipts from the repairs and everything. Inspection time came around and my brother took the car to his trusted mechanic. He got the same box of rusty, broken parts and $600 bill that bobo did. I now discourage everyone I know from going to Midas.

7

Semi-off-topic, but if you need to find a trustworthy mechanic in an area you just moved to, like I did, check this out. It saved my butt.