My Lincoln Mark VIII was having a electical problem that caused the car not to start. It was not getting a spark to the plugs. After trying to start most of the day, had a PepBoys Tow Truck pick it up and take it to PepBoys repair shop. Shortly after it arrived there the Service Manager called me and said 'it's the battery'. I told her I know the battery is almost dead, now, I've trying to start the car all day and of course it drained the battery down. I told her the battery was fairly new and never gave me a second of trouble.
She insisted the problem is the battery. And never ran a diagnostic check on the car. She told me she would call me back shortly after installing a new battery to let me know if the car starts or not. She called me back later and said the car is ready to go. The total bill $219.48. Since I knew my old battery was still good, I told them to put it in the trunk.
When I got home and went to pull the old battery from the trunk, it was not my battery. They put a very old Sears Die Hard battery with a top terminal post completely broken off. I did not have to look very hard at this battery at all to know i t was not mine, because I NEVER shop at Sears.
Less than 2 weeks later, the same car will not start again. So had the car towed back to the PepBoys again. And later that day the Service Manager calls me and says it has a bad on it that is choking the engine and preventing it from starting. I told her it was not getting any fire to the plugs and that the problem was electrical. She said her diagnostic test shows it is a hose. She said they already put the new hose on it and it was starting every time. The car was ready to go. Today's total bill was $212.45.
Took the car home and parked it in the garage. Just before this car went back in I had bought another car as a backup car. So when I got the problem car back home I did not need to use right away. Over the next following week the same car had the same problem about 6 times. Only difference was if it did not start at one time then let it sit for about 4 to 8 hours and then it would start. Then finally after 4 straight days of no start at all, had it towed back to PepBoys.
The following day they called and said the car was ready to go. I asked what was done to it this time. They said they did not have to do anything because it was starting all day for them. They did not even re-run a new diagnostic test on it. Went there to pick it up, and guess what? It would not start. Took the key back inside and told them no start again. They said they would push it back in the shop that night and run tests first thing the next morning.
My son decided to mark the parking lot where the tires were to see if they actually move the car for testing. I called them later the next day for a status update. They now said they can not find out what is causing the problem and I need to contact an electrical shop.
When I went to pick it and tow it back home we checked the marks on the parking lot we left the night before and the car had not been moved at all. I guess after ripping me off for the 2 repairs above totaling $431.93 they would just give up on it. My son pushed the car out of the parking space to line up with his car to connect the tow rope, I got in it and this time it started. When we got home we decided to look at that new hose. No surprise, all hoses on the car are the same hoses it always had. No new hose anywhere.
It has been home for 2 days and I have not driven it yet, but tried starting and again it is off and on, starts sometimes and sometime it doesn't. PepBoys did not even try to find out what the problem was, they just decided to charge me for repairs the car did not need and that did not correct the problem in any way. And from the looks of it the second repair was only repair work on paper. I want all of my $431.93 back, and they should pay for testing to be done at the Ford Service Center to find out what the problem is.
This same PepBoys replaced a water pump on this same car last year, and after picking it up and having to take it back twice for getting hot, the service manager said the radiator has a crack in it, and it is loosing water at a fast rate. I filled it up at home and drove it less than 3 miles to PepBoys and it was out of water and running hot. Pretty good sized hole. Funny how it never lost a drop of water from the radiator before they replaced the water Pump. There was another extra $200.
Personally I feel the PepBoys corporate office needs to replace the entire service center personnel and start with all new people. These service people obviously do not have a clue on what they are doing, or worse is they DO know exactly what they are doing. Either way they need to go.
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