Firestone Tire & Svc Ctr

I normally don't write negative reviews - I know that everyone has a bad day and that everyone makes a mistake here or there... but they botched my visit so badly, I felt it was necessary to share my story and warn other would-be patrons of this shop.

I was very nice the entire time I was there (3 hours). I spoke clearly and left no ambiguity as to what I wanted. I had a good rapport with everyone I spoke to while I was there and everyone was all smiles. I never came off as grumpy or difficult. Furthermore, I called twice before I arrived to make sure they could do the work - they had my work ticket waiting for me when I arrived. And even after all that planning, communicating, and coddling, they were unable to do the work that I had paid for.

I asked them to do three things. Oil change, tire balance (with no rotation), and a State Safety Inspection. Unbelievably, they messed up all three.

Oil Change - In my GMC truck, there is an oil life indicator in the dash. For some reason they decided to change the language setting in my truck to something other than English. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out where the language setting was while I was flipping through the settings in a language I didn't understand. It is unclear if they actually changed the oil.

State Safety Inspection - When I asked them to do the inspection, I asked them to take great care in making sure the sticker on the windshield was on straight. Not only was the sticker not put on straight, but in removing the old sticker they cut up and marred my registration sticker. This may not be important to most, but I specifically asked to make great care and now I have to drive around with two eye sores in my windshield.

Tire spin-balance (and no rotation) - When I took the truck in, I had two new tires on the rear of the vehicle. (New tires always go on and stay on the back to prevent over steer.) I had a vibration problem I was trying to solve with the new tires I had installed, and made it clear that the tires were not to be rotated - only balanced. Upon receiving my truck, the driver side tires were swapped - so they did a 1/2 rotation on my tires. I don't know what they were thinking - were they doing or not doing the rotation? Either way, it was done wrong. Upon asking to them to fix their mistake I was told that "it would take a while" and after waiting 45mins for them to correct their problem I decided to check on the progress - and I found that my truck hadn't even been touched. I promptly asked for my truck back and decided that I'd do it myself. Upon attempting to rotate the tires myself at home, I found that the lug nuts had been tightened to the point where I couldn't get them off with two different wrenches. Clearly, they didn't use a torque-wrench to tighten them to the spec'ed torque settings of 100ft-lbs. Heaven forbid if I were to get a flat and try to change a tire - I would have been left stranded. Ultimately, I had to take my truck to another shop, pay another $50, to correct the 1/2 tire rotation and have them loosen all the nuts and retighten them correctly.

Don't be mislead by the slick waiting room and seemly qualified people at the counter - the work is done in the back, and its clear they do not operate in a professional manner nor do they respect their customers time or their vehicles. There are many other shops out there - this is not the one you're looking for.

Posted 06/27/09 | Report Abuse

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I went to the Firestone on Voss@Westheimer and it was a mistake. They half way fixed one of the problems. Did not fix another one but told me they did, and replaced brand new wiper blades when I specifically told them NOT to. I had to bring the car back for them to re-repair the brakes, and the wait time (even though I had an appointment) was ridiculous. The waiting area is extremely uncomfortable as well.And to top it off, if you walk around outside during your interminable wait, you stand a good chance of being accosted for money by one of the ever-present panhandlers always around.I will never go there again, even for a basic oil change.

Posted 07/07/08 | Report Abuse

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