Owning a business is difficult. You have the demands of customers and staff. You are reliant on people to always perform at their best and reasonably correct things when something maybe didn't go right. The owner of Kwik Kar Auto Center Josh Alluri is the a real life example of how to NOT RUN A BUSINESS. My family brought our daughter's Jeep in for an oil change. We've only gone to the dealership for services to this point, but it was only an oil change, had limited time, and close by. The resulting events are numerous and caution to all to never use this business for even the slighted of services.
While only needing an oil change, I stayed with my daughter's car to do some work calls. The service tech approached me in the lobby and said he wanted to show me something. There appeared to be a possible leak in one of the coolant hoses. He showed me. I trusted him. And said to replace it. While the job was going to take longer, that was fine. It appeared it needed replacing. They ended up replacing it, and did the oil change. We picked it up in the evening. My daughter drove it the next day to a track meet. About 10 miles away. She noticed right away that something wasn't right with the car. As a 16 year old, she even knew something felt wrong. She called us, said a bunch of "oil service" lights were on, and some other things. She was scared. I told her to pull over. My wife and I went to pick her up (wife brought her to track) and I hopped in to drive the car. I didn't get a mile and knew immediately something was wrong. I pulled over. Popped the hood. There was NO COOLANT in the container. What they attempted to "fix" was in fact not fixed. At the time, I thought they just forgot to put coolant in, which alone is a huge oversight. I called our insurance and had roadside assistance bring it back Kwik Kar (2 hour wait). Once at Kwik Kar, a different employee examined things and told me he was going to be straight with me and said they messed up. They didn't fasten the claps on the hose correctly and all of the coolant leaked out.
All he said they would do was fix that. And apologized. I'm not a mechanic, but I do know that if you drive a vehicle for long without coolant there's risk of other damages to the engine. This was my biggest concern given this is my daughter's vehicle. He said he would look it over. He then called to say that in fact the coolant "container" had a leak. Not the hoses they replaced. But the container. So their initial diagnoses was wrong. By now I've talked to the dealership and plan to bring the car there for repairs. But before I could, without my permission, they replaced the container! And then actually tried to charge me for it! I came in for an oil change, and got hoses put on that I didn't needed, got a container replaced that I didn't ask for, got other damage that's still be assessed, and was asked to pay for the thing they "fixed" that I didn't trust them to do.
And here's the best part. I tell all of this to Josh Alluri the owner. The lead service tech at the store gave me his number. All he says is that he will reimburse me for the container. Is has nothing to do with the cost of the container! It has everything to do with all of the errors that led to the container, and the likely future issues the Jeep may now have because of those errors! He says his "fine print" lays out everything in terms of their guarantees. Like I'm asking for that? Says I can't drive it (it doesn't drive. The "oil change required" light and the start/stop unavailable service stop/start system" light both come on now.) or he can't prove that the warning lights weren't the result of something while driving it. We've put on less than a mile since leaving the dealership. Just the drive home.
Josh hasn't returned multiple calls now. And, I'll be bringing it to my dealership, hopefully working something out with my insurance (Jeep is under extended warranty), and getting the vehicle fixed correctly this time.
Stay away. The staff is clearly not fans of Josh either as they were trying to cover their butts regarding the gaffs and tried to avoid getting to a point of me calling the owner.
All after just stopping in for an oil change! read more