Pep Boys

Sent my mother here to get tires for her car and I set up an appointment online to have them installed and her oil changed. When she arrived at the time of her appointment the customer service person, Kenny, kept her waiting 20 minutes while he gab with another customer about dogs. By the time she finally talked to Kenny he told her she didn’t have an appointment and that the Internet appointments don’t work and treated her like an idiot. Also the tires that PepBoys website showed were in stock for her car at that location were not there and Kenny further belittled her. After an arguing about the appointment my mother showed Kenny a text message from Pep Boys saying she had an appointment, he left her and went out to check on the tire size on her car. While out looking at the tires, Kenny walked outside and continued he conversation with the other customer about dogs. After he came back in from another 15 minutes of not taking care of her, he changed his tune and helped her get tires for her car but came back saying she needed more work than she wanted. She only agreed to the tires and the oil change but had to wait 2 more hours to get her car. Kenny also said he would give her a deal on the oil change for $ 19.99, which is what the website states it costs and that if she wrote a review on Unilocal it would help his guys out. After all is done she got out of there but still needs to get the other work done to her car. Plus the they didn’t do her fluids.

Just made my first (and last) visit to PepBoys auto repair in Bradenton, Florida. The purpose was to swap out the original equipment headlight bulbs for higher performance bulbs. Cost of the bulbs were $ 59 and estimated labor was $ 118 (1 hour).
Dropped the car off and walked over to an adjoining restaurant for breakfast. PepBoys called 20 min later. All Finished.
When I went back to pay, the total charge was $ 188. I asked why the labor was so high as it didn’t take more than 20 minutes to complete the entire job. He asked if I wanted a «less skilled» mechanic to complete the task as it would have taken them about 1 hour. How ridiculous. I asked to be treated fairly and he knocked $ 10 off. Never mentioned the $ 16 «shop fee» added on. This place is a total ripoff.
Now that I see the details of the charge, it gets worse…
Remove and replace headlamp $ 89.60
Remove and Replace headlamp $ 11.20
Shop Fee $ 16.06
Headlamp bulbs $ 59.99
Total (after customer courtesy discount of $ 8.96) $ 178.81
Will never return.

We have used them for several years for various repairs (AC, alternator, etc). Price was always less than the Ford dealer and customer service was good. Recently called about front brakes and as always compared to the dealer. They were $ 70 higher. Thinking maybe new person trying to up sell called a different Pep Boys and they were $ 25 less than dealer. Called back to this location and was quoted a different price that was $ 120 more than the dealer. Each quote we made sure asked for the same repair. When I mentioned how the price quotes were different and $ 120 more than the dealer he said they can match it. It appears they want to gouge if they can get away with it. Not sure what has happened but shop around!

There are two aspects of PepBoys that I feel need commented on:
The first being their customer service — the men working there are always friendly. They do good work and are always willing to explain whatever issue your car is having, to ensure you understand. My experiences with the workers there have been only positive.
The second is their prices… I need a new compressor for my A/​C and after all of the parts and labor the estimate is $ 1112.00. This includes almost $ 500 in labor. The labor cost seems to be exceptionally high. I have noticed both times I’ve been, that they tack on many different things that «need» to be done when that is not the case. As an owner of an old jeep, it’s important to me that my mechanic is honest in telling me only what I need and not all of the bells and whistles that I could do.
All in all — not a bad place to go for a quick fix, but not a place you want to go for larger car issues. Make sure you read over what they want to do to your car and question what each thing means before blindly agreeing to the «fixes».

I got great service at Pep Boys in Bradenton yesterday and the service advisor, Maggie was great! Thanks for the excellent help and great work!

Went in the day after talking to the guys at Advance Auto Parts who said I needed a new alternator, after my car was having difficulty starting. Came in, Kenny got me a pretty decent price for the alternator and install (quoted $ 310 OTD) so I came in for the service.
Shawn the mechanic brought it into the bay, and told me it would need a new battery before they could check if it was in fact the alternator that needed replacing. Turns out my battery had a dead cell, so they sent me back over to AAP for a battery (because the one I had was their brand) instead of trying to get me to buy one of their’s, even though I didn’t know I had a warranty on the battery. So I went to AAP and bought a brand new battery off them and went back to Pep Boys for the alternator check.
I did need a new alternator. Kerry, the service manager, talked with me throughout the time I spent there (4 hours) and sympathized with me, and cut me a deal on the service. Everyone there was very friendly and helped this painful and unexpected process go much more smoothly. They also changed out my bald and cracked tire for my ok spare for me, and filled my tires for me. I will be coming back.

Call ahead when you choose to do business online and schedule service via online. I was in dire need of new tires for my wife’s car. With endless searching I found that pep boys had the cheaper deal of all. They also have a very friendly online purchase and appt scheduler but that would be tested later with major error.
their online ordering system which seem to work out very well, until I made my way in the front doors to pick up my order. I went to verify my order but yet my name did not show up on the screen, the gentleman said that oh here it is and proceeded for awhile looking everything up. I was on my way to signing paperwork and having four new tires installed when the tech said I can’t find the Tires. They looked around the shop for little bit came back and said they don’t have them but they show that they have them in stock on the computer. Coming from a company that uses the same type of technology I understood their frustration and ask them what do we do further. The service writer said will move you to the next ones because it was our fault and will price match the price. Before all this I agreed to doing an alignment and oil change because of the great price I was getting on the new tires. After the new price change it became apparent that this was going to break my budget quite a bit, so from there I had to pick apart the add-​ons to get the price to come down to an agreeable amount. Given any other situation I probably wouldn’t have agreed on this because knowingly coming in with the price I had set online I would’ve rather done with that price but due to circumstances the position I was in I had to make a choice to do it now.
Feeling taken advantage of and experiencing the bait and switch I decided to fill out the online customer service contact form. The next day I received a phone call and voicemail from the service manager Fernando insisting that I contact them so that they can resolve the issue at the store level. Fernando was very friendly and what I expected out of a manager. He showed great concern for my feelings and provided excellent customer service. I expressed my understanding to the problems with e-​commerce coming from my own experience at my own job. In the end we were able to work out a deal satisfying both parties me getting a refund for the amount that I shouldn’t have paid and Pep Boys getting a customer for life.
This visit would have received five stars if I would have came in and everything worked out perfectly from the get-​go. I gave this review four stars because I was able to resolve an issue without any problems or grief everything worked out perfectly in the end.

Pepboys is ok for tires, but don’t let them touch anything else on your car. July 2013, I bought 4 tires, had the oil changed, and had the transmission fluid changed. Transmission fluid poured out of the vehicle overnight, and, I brought it back to them the next day. Oh, said the manager, there is a bolt that’s not tight. Again, got the vehicle home, and it stilled leaked. My husband decided to change the fluid and see what was wrong. Pepboys techs didn’t let the silicone cure that was on the trans pan. my husband took care of the problems. He said they didn’t change the filter and the magnet in the trans pan wasn’t cleaned off. The trans fluid that my husband replaced 2 days after pepboys did was filty. Mr Manager, you need to watch your techs a little better because they apparently don’t know how to do their jobs. They were suppose to place one of the old tires on the spare rim, but never did, even though I asked and paid for it. At checkout, they had to find the tire, take that cost off my bill, and place the tire not on the rim, in my truck. It is now 6 weeks and I still haven’t received my tire rebate but the website says its coming!