When my friend and I took he 1997 Pontiac Firebird in to Oil Can Henrys she asked for an oil change and the service of having them to top off fluids came with the service.
My friend told the employees doing the service that the car needed to have a special coolant added in and not the regular coolant because it says on the car, under the hood that if regualr coolant was putt in then it would result in engine falure.
My friend told them that she had the coolant in her trunk if they needed to add it and then the employee asked whick kind it was and she sayed Dextron collant and the employee said, " oh, well we use Dextron anyways, so we will use ours."
After they finished the service my friend and I left to stop at a couple of places and then went home. She didnt notice anything wrong at that time.
5 days later, early in the morning she had to take her son to school. While driving she noticed that the car was driving a little differently, but didn't think anything of it.
A couple of hours later, when my friend and I went to go to the beach for our walk she and I felt the car shaking and the engine was slipping and seemed like it was going to stall, so she thought that maybe it had something to do with the collant and wanted to go back home to her house to call Oil Can Henrys to ask them what type of coolant they use.
My friend called, they asked for all her information on the type of car, year, licence plate, etc. And told her that they used Dextrol and that its a redish color.
My friend and i went and looked under her hood and opened the top of where the coolant was and it was a yellowish color... At that time I told her to call the phone number on the back of the recipt and call Oil Can Henerys. She called and the corporation number the lasy that she needed to talk to was out sick for the day and when she called oil can henrys the manager said that he would come out to see. I told her to take a picture of it before they come.
The manager and an employee came to her house and looked under the hood and said, " oh, yep, they did put regular coolant in." The manager told my friend if either one of them or her could drive her car to oil can henrys and then they would drain and flush the coolant out and replace it with Dextrol and then it would be fine. Well my friend told them that she didn't want the car to be driven because of the regular coolant being in her engine and didnt want it to ruin her car if it hadnt already. So then my friend had to call her AAA and get it towed because they didnt offer to tow it.
The drain and flush was supposed to only be an hour long so we went to the store next to oil can henrys, which is across the lot and I left my car in front of oil can henrys and we walked to the store.
20 minutes later I walked back to my car because I needed to pick up her son from school and my friend stayed at the store christmas shopping.
When I got to my car I saw my friend's car parked outside of the oil can hernrys and they were assisting another customer, I heard the car running and thought that it may be the other car on and not my friends, so I didn't think anything of it.
When I got back about 20 minutes later I parked my car in the same spot in front and staill saw her car parked and herd it running and thought that maybe they were finished and running the fluids through.
I went to my friend and told her that I thought that they may be finished because I seen her car outside.
We went over there and saw her car in the room where they do the work and the guy took 15 minutes to came over and tell us that they flushed it out 5 times and were gonna put new collant in, so we stood there and watched them do it.
I noticed that the engine was hot because of the coolant sizzling when it touched the car, the coolant spattered and was smoking when it burned off. When the car was finished they told my friend that the thermostat was defective and need to be replaced and for her to go buy one and that they would pay her the amount due to her.
She went to drive the car, went 5 feet, stopped and said that it doesn't feel right. The guy told her to give it more gas, so she did and went 25 feet more and the car just shook even harder, and she pulled over and heard a cracking pop sound and then she saw the guy running to her yelling, no, no, stop and at that point the car started smoking.
Smoke started comming through the vents. The guy told her to turn it off and said that her head gaskets just went out and then ran back to the store.
When he came back with another employee 15 minutes later the 2nd employee told my friend to start the car up and the 1st employee said, no, it can't start, and then they started talking in spanish so we wouldn't understand.
The 2nd employee just said to my friend, well all I can tell you, is to have it towed back home and get an estimate on what's wrong and bring it back and I will fax it to my boss and see what we can do from there.
I got mad because he was trying to get rid of the problem instead of fixing it.
So I told him that we want to see the manager. Something has to be done about this, that this was not my friend's fault. This was their mistake and now my friend has to suffer with no car because of their mistake.
The 2nd employee said yah, there's a manager but I will have to call him. I told them to call him because this is not right.
My friend talked to the manager on the phone and I could see the anger, frustration and hurt on her face, so I asked what he said when she got off. She told me that the manager said that the employees pulled 2 quarts of regular collant out of the car and they only put in 2 ounces. So basicly they are trying to make it seem like the mistake was already made, even though my friend only had the car 5 months and no one besides them and the car dealer has touched it... They changed their story quick when the damage to the car went up...
I told my friend to get a receipt for what work they did on the car today. My friend was too upset so I went to ask for one. The guy told me that he can't give me one because it wasn't paid for and he didn't put it on the computer. So I told him that I want him to write out what ever work you did on her car.
Then he said, well then I will just have to write down that the car was not running when it got here. I looked at him and said, you know dam well that that car was running, but go ahead and write that because I'm gonna need that reciept for when we take you to court, then he said, ok and walked away.
I didn't think he was gonna give us a receipt so I called the police so that way we could have proof that he tried to get some type of documentation of being there that day, but anyways I have proof. We ran into an old friend that was getting something done there and talked to him for a while.
The police man came and they still didn't give a reciept but told the officer that they would give one to us the next day, but the officer even told us that he doesn't think they will give one to us either and that makes them look guiltier.
We had to wait for my friend's grandmother to get home so that way we can have money to tow the car, then we had to wait for the tow truck.
So for something so simple that takes a few minutes, we spent 5 hours waiting for her car to be from running perfectly fine to not running at all.
We are taking all the measures to suing them and we talk to a lawyer tomorrow.
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