Last summer I took a road trip to Miami for my niece’s wedding, and stopped off in Orlando for a couple days along the way to take advantage of a timeshare in Kissimmee. I didn’t plan ahead much, and a heavy downpour in Atlanta showed my wiper blades were pretty much shot. Looking around a bit, I also noticed I was overdue for an oil change and tire rotation as well. I figure that since I have a week in Kissimmee, I could spare a morning to get the work done on the car at some local auto place.
Well, there was a Wal-Mart Supercenter a block away, with an Auto Center, and the next nearest place is miles away, and can’t get me in until next Thursday, so I go into Wally World. I’m one of the first cars to arrive (only two ahead of me), so I figure I won’t be there too long.
Guess again. Two hours later, and my car hasn’t even been started on, yet there’s a steady progression of vehicles moving through the garage. When I ask what the hold-up is, I’m rudely informed that they can’t drop everything just to work on my car, and I’d have to wait my turn. When I inform them I’ve already been there two hours, I’m told I should expect delays because they were extremely busy. When I tell them I was the third car in that morning, and their posted policy is “first-come-first-served,” I’m cursed. In Spanish.
The manager is not helpfull; his attitude is essentially, “Whaddaya want me to do? I’m busy, go away.”
I go back to automotive with the intention of taking my car and leaving, and I’m informed my car is already in the garage, so I collect my temper, sit down and read a newspaper. An hour later, I’m told it’s done, I pay, and I’m outta there.
A week and change later, I’m driving home, and hit light rain in Tennessee, so I flip on my wipers only to discover that they’re the exact same wipers I drove down with, and paid Wal-Mart to replace.
I go to the Wal-Mart just a few miles up from where I live, demanding new wiper blades are installed, and am informed I would have to go back to the store where I had the problem in the first place. I tell them there was no way in hell I was driving to Orlando Fl for a pair of wiper blades, and their attitude is, “that’s your choice, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
3 months later, I go into a local (and fairly reputable) auto service center for an oil change. These folks are my “regular” service center and have a decent maintenance log of the work done on my car since moving to the St. Louis area in mid '03. After the mechanic looks at my car, the manager asks me when I last had it serviced, and I tell him where, and what was done. He has some news for me:
-My oil and filter were not changed; the oil’s filthy, has metal contamination, and the filter still has the local service center’s “stamp” on it from the oil change prior to the one I (supposedly) had done by Wal-Mart in Fl.
-My tires were not rotated; this chain of service centers “marks” their customer’s wheels in an out-of-the-way (not visible) location to track tire rotations amongst the regular customers, and the tires are in the exact same spot they were when they last rotated them.
-My air filter, barely six months old, has been (almost assuredly deliberately) punctured in several locations.
-On a hunch, they checked my tranny fluid and filter, and find it in much the same state as the engine oil and filter.
Mustering all of my self-control (my mind dwells on my collection of fine firearms, all clean and olied, sitting in my gun safe at home), I ask the manager of my local auto service to catalog all of this in a letter for me, and to go ahead and make whatever repairs he deems necessary. He does all of this, and replaces my by-now almost totally useless wiper blades, and knocks 50% off the price of the work. Needless to say, I am now a rabidly loyal customer.
I sent a copy of the letter to my local Wal-Mart, the Kissimmee Wal-Mart, and another copy to Wal-Mart Corp. HQ. I also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
I have yet to receive any kind of reply, from any level of Wal-Mart Corporation, or even the BBB.
