The ABS brake light appeared on the dash of our Honda Accord. We took it to Meineke who told us it needed a complete brake job and new rotors for about $600. (It turned out later that the only thing wrong with it was the brake fluid was low in the ABS reservoir.)
This began a real nightmare. Their employes proceeded to cause extensive damage to our car, pounding over and over at the rotors with a sledge hammer because they couldn't get them off. They damaged the pads, rotors, bearings, drums and half shaft. THEN put in the wrong sized brake pads. The car was roaring like an airplane from the damaged bearings and they told us this was the new brake pads settling in, and the noise would go away.
The ABS light was STILL on, and they told us we would have to take the car to a Honda dealership to have them turn it off with a "special computer". We went roaring to Honda where they showed us all the damage, and the nearly empty ABS tank that was the real problem. We called Meineke and they had us call the regional manager "Larry" and he told us they would not pay Honda to repair the damage until we gave Meineke a chance to fix it first.
That began a nightmare of being sent from one Meineke location to another where they tried to fix it, only to make it worse. They replaced damaged parts with defective or wrong sized parts, and did even more damage to the car. Their "trained" brake mechanics were not aware that there even WAS an ABS reservoir. We had to show it to them, and then the mechanic filling it nearly blinded himself with brake fluid gushing into his eyes when he tried to bleed air out of the tank.
Finally, after 6 unsuccessful attempts to repair the car, with us sitting all day in 90 degree temperatures while they worked on the car, we had to leave with the brake pedal going nearly to the floor, the car vibrating, clanking loudly when you turned the wheel, and braking power virtually nil, they told us they had done all they could for us, and they were done with us, and asked us not to come back.
We took the car to Honda, where it cost us $1,268.69 for repairs, which included replacing the wrong sized brake pads, the damaged rotors and the hubs. Meineke refused to pay for anything.
We were able to get a charge back of the original $600 from our credit card company, but still had over $1,200 worth of damage we had to pay for. Meineke stonewalled us, so we went to the Consumer Protection Division of the Indiana Attorney Generals office. They contacted Meineke, then informed us that since Meineke refused to make any offer of settlement, we should take them to small claims court.
We did, where we won not only the $1,268 to repair our car, but $1,000 in damages because the judge felt they had endangered our lives by making our car unsafe to drive. This "regional manager Larry" had turned up as Meineke's witness and lied repeatedly to the judge, told him they had given us a VOLUNTARY refund of our money, that he observed extensive damage to our car the day we brought it in (he didn't even HEAR about us until Meineke had extensively damaged our car and called him asking what to do), etc, but he tripped himself up repeatedly, and the judge saw through it, so we got our judgement in the amount of $2,268.89. Great, huh? Yeah, right.
Meineke waited until the very last minute and filed an appeal. This basically made the judgement useless, and the case was to be completely retried in Superior Court. We found out after contacting nearly 30 attorneys that it costs between $3,000-6,000 to litigate a case in Superior Court. That does not include witness compensation and prep, or many other expenses involved. That is just the attorney's cut. The last lawyer we contacted told us this is what is known as "the appeals game".
Big companies never worry about small claims judgements, they know they can file an appeal for peanuts, and unless the plaintiff has deep pockets, they won't be able to follow them into superior court, as litigation fees would usually exceed any possible judgement, often by thousands of dollars.
Even so, if the person is angry enough to go through Superior court and actually win their case, all Meineke would have to do is file another appeal, and this would take it into the appeals court where the plaintiff would have to come up with tens of thousands of dollars to go forward.in other words, game over.
So, even though we won, we lost. There is no way for us to get any justice, and Meineke got away with it. We are still paying on the cost of the repairs and will be for some time. As far as we are concerned, Meineke is a totally dishonest coompany, and their employees are improperly trained and incompetent.
We even contacted their "deeply religious" minister spokesman, George Forman, who had his attorney contact us to let us know he was deeply shocked at the way Meineke had treated us, and he said he was going to contact Meineke's corporate offices and check into it for us. We never heard from him again. Evidently Meineke has the right spokesman after all.
There should be some way for the individual customer to be able to get satisfaction from this company. Meineke has many complaints filed against them all over the net, but it doesn't seem to bother them any. Nobody is getting any satisfaction, and Meineke just keeps rolling along, doing shoddy, substandard work, refusing to honor their WRITTEN guarantees, and basically thumbing their noses at their customers.
What can be done to stop this?
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