I had some extremely bad service here today. For the purposes of this story, you should know that I am female.
Went with my boyfriend to get a check engine light looked at. Spoke with the man over the counter. After a wait, the guy asked my boyfriend, not me, for the keys. I let him know [again] that the car was mine and handed him my keys. No big deal, mix-ups happen, they're busy.
He had his employee look at the car, and the employee told my boyfriend [not me, even though they now knew the car was mine] that he turned off the check engine light, and to drive for about 30 miles to see if it cut back on. Well, it only made it about eight miles and cut back on, so we turned around.
When we got back, the polite guy who worked on my car wasn't there, but a different guy was, and we told him that it had cut back on. I spoke with him myself. This was the first and only time that I personally was spoken to by an employee here, instead of being ignored in favor of my boyfriend. The resulting conversation:
"Hey, my check engine light came back on."
"... So?"
"Well, the guy told me if it came back on to come back."
"Well... duh, if the check engine light is on, then you're gonna have to replace something, you can't just cut it off."
"But your own employee just cut the light off and had me drive 30 miles to make sure it would stay off."
"... No... you're going to have to spend something to fix this, obviously..." *stares at me like i'm an idiot*
"I'm just telling you what your guy told me."
"It's not HIS fault if the light didn't stay on."
"I'm... not saying it's his fault, I'm only telling you what he told me."
"....?" *just stares at me*
".... ok. thanks."
At which point I went right out the door, because it was obvious that I was not being viewed as a competent human being, but a stupid child who knows nothing about cars.
I had done the diagnostic check myself beforehand, I knew what could be wrong with the car. I also knew perfectly well that just erasing the code in the car wouldn't fix the problem altogether. Foolish me for believing what I was told by a man who works on cars for a living. All I wanted was to speak to the other man again and ask him what he thought my next step should be. Instead I got treated less than human. I could not believe how he could be so polite to my boyfriend who is standing right next to me, and then turn and treat me so rudely and try so blatantly to cheat me out of money that he mistakenly assumed I didn't know better than to spend.
Coming from a career of working various customer service jobs for the past several years, I can say from experience that that was terrible business practice. Don't give this place business if you're going to be perceived as a woman, and therefore, treated like you're stupid and know nothing about cars.
Tire Country absolutely lost my business today, for now and the future. I was told that this was a good place to come to. Maybe if you are male, because it obviously isn't worth your money if you are a woman. read more
