My boyfriend and I went to Pep Boys to purchase a full-set of Z-rated tires for his '96 Trans Am. At that time, they were having a "special sale" if you bought all four tires at the same time. For a set of 4 Z-rated tires, he spent about $500 on the four tires. Pep Boys also went on about how he should purchase the Road Hazard warranty, which would guarantee that if your tire were damaged for any reason, it would be repaired free of charge; and if the tire was beyond repair, the tire would be replaced.
According to the salesman, no matter what happened to your tire, the tire would be covered under the Road Hazard warranty. He bought the Road Hazard warranty for all four tires. (I believe it was $20-$30 for each tire for the Road Hazard.) Z-rated tires are rather pricey, so he figured the Road Hazard was a good deal rather than having to buy a new tire if something happened.
A few months later, we were driving on Highway 2 when one of the tires went flat. He put on his spare, and over the weekend we went to Pep Boys to make use of the Road Hazard warranty. One of the other tires, we noticed, was also starting to have sharp pieces of tread strip off. We showed the customer service rep the two tires - the one that he had removed that had gone flat, and the one that was still on his car that was starting to get sharp pieces of tread. The customer service rep went to the manager, and they spoke.
When the customer service rep came back, he told us the Pep Boys manager could not honor the Road Hazard warranty for the two tires because of "mechanical failure" in the car. We went inside to speak to the manager about the situation. Even before we opened our mouth, the manager was very aggressive and adamant about not honoring the warranty. How shall I say it... The manager was a total @sshole! We tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't even give us one minute to discuss the situation!
We told him we have gone to Pep Boys before to do service and to buy car products, and the jerk replied matter-of-factly, "Well if I lose you as customers, I'm sorry to hear that!". I could not believe what I was hearing and the kind of service I was receiving from a manager! The attitude that we received from this manager was just horrible, so we asked him for the corporate number. He told one of the cashiers to give us the corporate number as well as his (the manager's) name.
According to Pep Boys, they could not honor the Road Hazard on the two tires because of "mechanical failure". They did not explain WHAT the mechanical failure was... They just simply stated that it was a mechanical failure and that it was basically the customer's fault and responsibility for the tires going bad. It's not only the fact that they did not honor the warranties, but the fact that the manager was an @sshole who did not even discuss the situation with us, did not even talk to us for more than a minute, and he did not care that we were frequent customers of Pep Boys.
Customer service was the last thing on his mind. My first student jobs were in retail, and it was drilled into me that customer service is always first. You always want to make the customer happy so that they keep coming back for your services. It was also drilled into me that one bad experience by a customer will result in loss of sales, not only from that one customer, but from that customer telling his/her friends about their bad experience. After that manager basically told us to F-off (by his actions), we went over to the service department and told all the customers that were waiting to get service that Pep Boys does not honor their Road Hazard warranties and what we just experienced! It's funny because there were customers there who were waiting to buy tires.:)
I'm sure we made them think about their purchase.
Elaine
Woodland Hills, California
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