Sent from my iPhoneTake 5 Oil Change horror story!!
On June 15th my significant other took our family car to TAKE 5 Oil Change at 9340 N May Avenue, OKC OK for a routine oil change. Not even two miles away, after having the oil change performed his 'low oil pressure' light came on and the engine began to make a knocking noise. As he worked to get off to the side of the highway the car completely died and would not start. He called the service location 30+ times with no answer. He then attempt to contact the corporate office, but could not leave a voicemail, because the mailbox was full. Dustin had to call a different location to even speak with a real person. A mechanic from that location drove to original service location to get someone to contact Dustin. After about 45 minutes of continuously calling, the assistant manager answered the phone and finally went to the location of breakdown. The engine completely locked up leaving Dustin sitting on the side of the highway on 95+° temps with no AC for over an hour. Thankfully Dustin's handicapped 62 year old mother was able to come sit with him to cool off. Finally, after an hour to hour and half the Assistant Manager arrived at location and ran through all the possibilities and confirmed to Dustin that the trainee FAILED to put oil back into the engine. The assistant manager then proceeded to ask our 62 year old handicapped mother to take a piece of paper to the the service location and pick up 6 quarts of oil so he could put it back in the engine in hopes that it would start, which obviously failed. At this time the Dustin requested a tow to a mechanic to diagnose the situation. The assistant manager refused to pay for the tow and told Dustin it would have to be paid out of pocket. Dustin refused to pay out of pocket for a tow and asked them to contact corporate. The AM finally contacted someone at Corp who agreed to tow. However, it took them 3 hours to get a 60 minute quote time on determining when a tow truck would even be available. No one had any details as to where the car would be transported to once the tow truck arrived.
While still sitting on the side of the highway, Dustin then waited for over an hour on hold to get in contact with someone at corporate to find out who the district manager was and what the plan of action would be. The corporate supervisor refused to provide Dustin with the DM's phone number. The district manager over the Oklahoma chain, Jason Thompson, was finally contacted and got in contact with Dustin. The DM was able to speed the tow up and only extended the additional wait time to another hour. Sadly, this is the only part that the DM has been able to accomplish sufficiently thus far. The car was loaded up and towed to the closest dealership, Joe Cooper Ford. (JCF has been on our side and as helpful as they could be-they are not the issue here) Once arrived at the dealership Dustin was informed they would start working on figuring out the exact damage and that he would be contacted in the morning and would need to meet the DM at JCF to go over the findings.
Besides the poor original customer service and services provided here is where the next half of our horror story begins. Dustin was not contacted the next morning by Jason Thompson, the DM, but had received and email from JCF with the original estimate on repairs for the motor. $9,700 to replace the damaged engine with a refurbished engine and labor cost. (Have documentation that we can provide) Dustin called and left a voicemail with the DM asking to have his call returned since he was promised a call first thing in the morning and inquired about what time they would be meeting to go over the findings. Jason, did not return Dustin's phone call; however, Dustin was able to get ahold of him around 2pm in the afternoon. Jason informed him that they didn't have all the details but that they had received the estimate. That if we wanted to pay for a rental car out of pocket that we would be reimbursed. That afternoon Dustin and myself rented a vehicle with $300 deposit and daily charges just to be able to get Dustin back and forth to work. Thankfully I get to work from home, so two of us weren't out of work. We are a hard working, middle class family that has to stick to a tight budget just to survive. We do not have a ton of extras, especially in large amounts like this.
By Oklahoma law the threshold is 60% of cash value for repair to the car before it is considered a total loss. The $9,700 put us over the 60%. Expecting Jason to call us this morning with that information, Jason had a shop manager who is below him (Dylan) call us. To which we were met with, "We 'found' a used motor and are just going to put that in your car." Much to our surprise it went from a refurbished motor to a 'used' motor they 'found' who knows where. None of that information was provided to Dustin. The service advisor at Joe Cooper was kind enough to provide Dustin with the information that "neit read more