Firestone Complete Auto Care Store

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This is my neighborhood car service location and I've always had great experience with them. They are quick and can usually schedule within 1/2 day of my call to get service. While they're a chain, they're consistently staffed with regulars and do a great job with helping maintain my two old cars. Definitely recommended for routine maintenance.

 Upon our return at the end of May I found my master cylinder to be completely empty of brake fluid. I filled it up and there were no leaks at all meaning they either charged us for work they did not do which is fraud and theft or forgot to check this which is pure incompetence. Were this to be the only item I might overlook it, but read on.
A few weeks ago we began to get this car ready for sale as we were gifted a newer car. During this time I find out that my brake lights are not working... none of them, interior or exterior, which is an interesting coincidence. So I switch them all out, and still they do not work. I check the fuse box, which I had them check during the April inspection also, and lo and behold but there is one fuse missing... the one that runs the brake lights. But it gets better, as still the brakes are not working with the replacement of the missing fuse. I get under the steering column and check the brake light switch to see if this is the problem. The switch itself will not release completely no matter how hard I stomp on the brake pedal. I remove the switch and suddenly my
lights start working. It was not the switch that was broken, but rather that someone had actually shoved it in and locked it in place so that  it would be impossible for the brake lights ever to come on regardless of how hard you depressed the brake. The brake lights worked fine between when we bought the car in 2004 and bringing it into Firestone for this maintenance visit meaning that either the switch unlocked itself from it's factory setting, shoved itself all the way in, and then relocked itself again, or someone else did it.
So, to summarize:

The brake fluid is empty....

The lights are all broken...
The fuse is missing...
The brake light switch has been tampered with.
It's pretty evident to everyone who has heard this, including the half dozen or so auto techs I have talked to, that the string of
coincidences are pretty much impossible, that it's pretty evident the person/people who last worked on it tampered with it to get me back into the shop to have more 'necessary work' done to fix the 'recurring problems' with my brake lights.
I drove around my family for three months like this, 5000 miles, without a clue simply because someone at Firestone wanted to make a few more bucks off of someone who they thought wouldn't know any better. It was dangerous, it was unbelievably stupid, and it was criminal. Bad move.
Do not make the same mistake I did by using these charlatans.

While installing new tires, the manager called me to the desk and said they had discovered a serious problem with fluid leaking at the CV joint. He said the problem had to be fixed immediately, before I drive it any more.  When I explained that I had errands to finish, he said the problem was so severe that I needed to rent a car or call a cab to finish my errands errands, but not to leave the shop without getting it fixed, or I could have a serious accident. When he stepped out, another employee to me to just have it fixed as soon as I could,  but that it wasn't as urgent as the manager was telling me.  The estimated cost was several thousand dollars for the "urgent" repair.  I later took my vehicle to my local repair shop that I've used for many years. They fixed the problem for $300 and said it wasn't urgent, but needed to be fixed. I had been getting my tires at this Firestone shop for a number of years, but will never use them again.

I had picked out some tires on the Firestone website. When I went to the store in my area, they did not have that tire in stock, but could order it for me. The service advisor also showed me some other similar tires that turned out to be at a lower price than the ones I had originally picked out. The service advisor was very helpful and let me see the exact cost. My original plan was to do some more comparison shopping, but I was so pleased with the service advisor's assistance that I went ahead with the work. The service technician was also very pleasant and let me see with my own eyes a problem with one of my wheels (bent).