WALMART

Walmart employees aren’t professional mechanics.

I had some problems the last time I did my oil change. They always put a sticker inside your windshield what time you need your next oil change and it’s supposed to be 3000 miles and they put mileage down as next oil change as 6000 miles. I had to make then do some changing on that. It’s not a real big deal, I still got the oil change that I wanted for the price that I wanted. It’s just if I went with their numbers I would have gone twice as long as I needed to for my oil change. The price is right at Walmart and they use all the different types of oil that you have to choose from and that’s a good thing. You have a place to occupy your time while you are waiting for your oil to change.

Walmart employees aren’t professional mechanics.

They are not very intensive once they have your vehicle. They just want to get the work done and get the money and go.

I waited almost two hours in the waiting area and finally got bent because it was taking so long. I walked up to the desk and asked what was going on. They had forgotten about my vehicle and were sitting around shooting the breeze. They pulled my car in as soon as I made them aware that they forgot me. They changed the oil in about 10 minutes. They also rotated my tires. On the way home, I smelled burning oil, so I pulled over and opened the hood. I discovered that they had cross threaded the cap that goes over my oil filter (the oil filter sits inside the engine block on my car and has a large cap that must be screwed in to hold the oil in). I drove back to Walmart and demanded to know what was going on. They acted sheepish and called some manager into the shop. After "consulting" with the technicians for about 20 minutes (remember, this was about 3 hours after I originally walked in for a 15 minute oil change), the manager came back and explained that they tried to open the cap with an impact wrench (Why on EARTH would they do that?) and accidentally ran it too far and when they tried to back it out it cross threaded. Not only that, but they didn't have a filter for my car (which is just a run of the mill GM vehicle, nothing special), and had left the old one in, even though they charged me for a filter. Of course, on top of all of that, they had sent me out the door like nothing had happened, which could of course have ruined my engine block if enough oil had leaked before I discovered what was going on. The manager apologized and told me to take my car to my dealership to get it fixed and they would pay for the damages. I took my car to the dealership the next day, they had to use some kind of special tool to re-tap the threads on the engine block and get a new oil cap and filter, which cost around $200. When I went back to Walmart to get the repair bill paid, I had to explain the situation over and over again to three or four managers, giving the original manager's name each time, before FINALLY they sent me to customer service where a check was cut after waiting in line for 15 minutes and explaining the situation yet again. I went in for a 15 minute oil change, and ended up wasting at least 5 hours of my life screwing around with their incompetence. I will NEVER, repeat NEVER EVER EVER EVER, use Walmart for any auto related work ever again.

Well I use Walmart for oil changes on my older car because it is cheaper and it saves me from doing it myself. They do a serviceable job, but nothing to write home about. They never seem very willing to help and they just go through the motions. The good thing about this visit is that it was quick, no waiting. It was unclear who was going to take my order, so I went inside and was quickly told that I needed to tell the guys in the shop what I needed done. It would have been nice if the guys in the shop would have told me that. They were clean and didn't leave the car a mess. The cashier rang me up and was polite, but again nothing out of the ordinary. It was a fair price and I will probably use them again because of the price, but I do not go to them with my newer car.