Have a Sears Automotive service horror story?

One guy over at VMF had Sears put on his tires. Only they came off the car causing major damage when he drove it down the street from Sears. IIRC they tried to blame it on him. But his previouly original and unmolested car now requires extensive body work on the entire DS.

Think about who these places have working for them. Usually some kid that is hired for the sole purpose of laying on the impact hammer to get em as tight as humanly (or inhumanly) possible. I wouldn't let them change the hard rubber wheels on my push lawnmower.

2nd Mustang said:

Yes I totally agree! My son admitted he has learned his lesson.

My other story is when I had a clanging noise on the front end of my Camaro. The "mechanic" took it for a test drive and said it was the struts, so I said okay, replace them. After replacing them, he said that he couldn't align the front end properly and that I need additional suspension parts, so I looked at his work and he had the top part of the strut so way off that you could see where the clean paint was showing that was previously covered by the old strut...DUH. After he "fixed" that part, he told me my rear hydraulic shocks were leaking hydraulic fluid...ANOTHER DUH...gas shocks! (The clanging noise was actually an old alarm brain by the previous owner that was banging on the firewall under the dash).

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I have one. I bought a new set of American racing wheels for a 1980 F150 I had. The shop mounted and balanced them and installed. I started to have a vibration and after 2 or 3 hundred miles, I went back. There was a grey-black graphite looking stuff all over the rims. Turns out, the chrome lug nuts that they used were not open on both ends and the caps were bottoming out just before they seated, not allowing for a proper torque. It was like the studs were too long for the nuts. Wallowed out every rim and I think the guy that mounted them was fired. Got new rims, but they wouldn't hold air. Put fix a flat in them and it worked for a few months. Long story short, the rims had factory mold flaws and was allowing microscopic holes to leak air.

I was having them put 2 new tires on the front. I watched as the guy let the car down and the tires went immediately flat, then the idiot trys to drive the car off the lift and realizes it wasnt' moving easily. He raises the car again, checks the valve inserts, reairs the tires, and lowers it again. Tires go flat immediately again....so by this time he's scratching his head. Another tech takes a look and actually reads the tire sizes....turns out they were trying to put 15 in tires on a 14 in rim..duh... This was when it had the original style 14x6 styled steel rims on it. Ya figure they would have bothered to read the size off the original tires..

Sears employees are ALL morons and losers. I know a few people who work at Sears. Most of them are all foreigners who come from third world countries and who get hired at Sears because they don't want to go and work at Burger King. They are so stupid that these people don't even know how to put merchandise in a bag.

Heres one..My brother had a tire taken off at a little tire shop up the street..the idiot went to put the tires on with a impact and He rounded off 2 of the lug nuts..He told my brother "I guess you wont be getting that tire off again!" my brother complained to the owner and He basically said "thats not my problem" needless to say we dont go there anymore! I go to a shop that uses a torque wrench to tighten the lug nuts

Ron Jeremy said:

Sears employees are ALL morons and losers. I know a few people who work at Sears. Most of them are all foreigners who come from third world countries and who get hired at Sears because they don't want to go and work at Burger King. They are so stupid that these people don't even know how to put merchandise in a bag.

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Hey now, I was once employed by BK.

Ozsum67 said:

Hey now, I was once employed by BK.

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Me too. That's where I met my wife.

Not all Sears employees are idiots, I am one. An employee, that is, not an idiot. I hope. Hmm.

Still, I don't know that I'd trust most of the guys down in Automotive.

Ash

That is why I do my own work (not to mention recomend REAL tire shops).

~meow

I just moved and got a FREE oil change coupon in the mail. So I figured what the heck I took my daily driver (honda) over to the Shell station. It was totally free, but when I went to pull out of my driveway later that day I saw a couple of oil drops. She's got over 110K on her but no leaks. I looked underneath at the pan, and could see about an 1/8" of thread between the base of the plug and the pan. At least they tightened the filter!

Here's an old saga! I was a NCO in the Air Force at March AFB, CA. A new guy was assigned to the shop and I was his super. On Monday morning he failed to show up for work as scheduled and so I started looking for him. I asked one of the young airmen if anyone had seen him over the weekend and one said, "He went to San Diego Saturday and I saw him in the barracks complaining about an expensive car repair." He showed up about 10 am apologizing for oversleeping. I asked him why he was late.

He told me this story about how he drove to San Diego and after getting off the freeway having his car sputter and die several times. As it happened he pulled into a Sears automotive service facility and asked if they could look at it. His ride was an early '60's Chrysler New Yorker. The service manager gave him a tale of woe about how bad the engine was and how it needed a teardown inspection. He paid $75 for the inspection. They disassembled his engine then told him the engine was toast and he needed a rebuilt long block. He said he was tied up all Sunday trying to figure out how to get out of the dilemma because he didn't have the $400 needed for the long block (that was a lot of money then). I told him to go rent a truck and tow the Chrysler back to the base where we could look at it in the auto hobby shop. I told him I'd assist him with a less costly repair. The next weekend he retrieved his car and got it back safely (cost was now $150 - $75 for the tear down and $75 for the rent-a-truck).

Back at the hobby shop he pulled the car in and I did an inspection of the parts. I couldn't see anything wrong with anything! I told him to get a gasket kit and we'd reassemble the big V8. Everything went smoothly and the engine went together with out a hitch. Once together we made the first attempt to start the car. I primed the carb and the engine fired right off and ran for about 10 seconds then quit. I checked the fuel guage and the tank read half full. I checked the output of the fuel pump and it was zero!

At that point, I asked when he last filled up. He said perhaps two weeks earlier. I said lets just put five gallons from a Jerry can in the tank to make sure there's gas before we start checking fuel lines. As soon as the fuel was in the tank and the engine primed once again, the engine fired right up and in about two minutes was close to being in tune. Nothing was wrong with the engine at all! The only problem was the fuel guage had stopped reading and the car ran out of gas!

I called the store manager at Sears and told him what happened and what the results were. He said, "bring all receipts to me and I will refund everything spent to restore the engine to working condition!" His request was I allow him to discipline his employees and not to seek other damages. I asked the owner what he thought. He had a check mailed to him in the amount of the repairs. It ended okay but I've never trusted a Sears auto store for any kind of repairs since. Fortunately Sears only does TBA and no longer does major automotive repairs.