DO NOT GO HERE.
Under any circumstances, do not get your vehicle serviced here.
I needed to get an oil change on my way out of town a couple weeks ago, and this place was close and could fit me in within half an hour. The waiting room has an old TV and is dirty, but that describes pretty much every auto service center so I figured it wasn't a bad sign. I was also annoyed by the insanity coming out of the TV in the way of The 700 Club (the program that was on while I was in there was the story of a little girl who was diagnosed with autism at 18 months and then miraculously "cured" in three years by "really intense prayer." A "doctor" attested to this), but for some reason auto shops and The 700 Club seem to go together like peas and carrots, so I didn't see this as a bad sign, either.
I did start to get nervous when I heard the proprietor of the shop telling some other customers about how President Obama has made it illegal to order parts for cars that are more than five years old, and how "Obama is crushing perfectly decent Chevy Tahoes!" like the president has a car crusher out in back of the White House and is crushing any car older than five years that happens to drive by. I mean, this guy runs an auto shop. He obviously orders parts on a weekly--hell, maybe daily--basis for cars more than 5 years old. Yet here he is, telling people that Obama has made this illegal. (I'm assuming he was making up some bastardized conservative version of the old Cash for Clunkers program, but who knows.)
After about 45 minutes of listening to all kinds of insanity coming from the TV and this guy, my car was ready, and then I almost had a heart attack when I was told it would be $60. Sixty dollars to change the oil on a seven-year old Honda. I asked why it was so high (the most expensive oil change price they had listed on their board was $40), and I was told that my car "takes a really, really thin oil." Now, I know my car takes 5/20 but I've never paid more than $40 for an oil change, even at the dealer. I asked if they had used a synthetic oil three times and got mansplained about thin oils and how "they are making cars so hard to work on nowadays." I never got a response to my question of whether a synthetic oil was used. If I hadn't been getting ready to go out of town I would have pressed for an answer more, but I had to get on the road so I just left, irritated and flabbergasted that it would cost $60 to get my oil changed.
When I got home, I popped the hood like I always do before I head out on the road just to have a look at things. And that's when I noticed my washer fluid reservoir cap was missing. I had just traveled to Nashville a couple weeks prior and, as I always do, had popped the hood before that trip and the cap was still in tact. I hadn't had my car serviced since then, so I assumed Midas had forgotten to replace it when they were filling my wiper fluid during the oil change.
But when I called, the proprietor answered and said he noticed it was missing during the oil change (which he did not perform, mind you) and "forgot" to tell me when I was paying. I insisted the cap was not missing before I brought my car to them, and asked if he could please go ask the tech who performed the oil change if he possibly left it off, or check to see if it was on the ground where my car had been. He refused, and very condescendingly told me that he was absolutely positive my reservoir cap was missing when I brought my car in.
Even more annoyed and angry than when I left, I hung up. Now I have to buy a whole new reservoir, because you can't just order a cap.
Oh, and to make things worse? My car started putting out white smoke from the tailpipe a couple days after getting it serviced there. I can't say yet if it's something they did, but my car was completely fine before I brought it into MIdas.
And now I have to order a new washer reservoir and take my car somewhere else to find out why it's got smoke coming out of it.
Again: DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR HERE. read more