AAA Carolinas – RTP Durham

I’ve never had a good experience at AAA auto but I had a coupon for a free oil change so I thought I would give this location a shot. I made an appointment for 10am, got there at 10:05 and waited 10 minutes to get checked in which took 10 minutes, so I didn’t hand them my keys until 10:25. At that point they estimated a 75 minute wait. The waiting area is comfortable with coffee, tea, and hot chocolate and a tv.
It took them over 2 hours for them to change my oil and of course come up with a long list of other problems. My experience with AAA is that this list is not reliable — I’ve taken the list to a dependable mechanic and they couldn’t find any of the same problems. I had them change the air filters and clean the battery which took another 20 minutes. The people here are nice but the business is not.

Not happy with this place. I went in for a simple auto inspection by appointment on my 3 year new car. This shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes. I left 1 he 15 minutes later with no inspection but with my key fob broken by their reckless mehanxu mix and dirty steering wheel and dirty shifter and vehicle parked outside on top of another vehicle. Ridiculous.
The batteries just worked fine (yeah it probably doesn’t hold ideal level of charge). They were insistent that I replace batteries. It seems AAA has turned into a place where they push for additional services when you go for auto inspection without very crisply and clearly saying that those services aren’t required for passing the inspection.
They were focused on everything other than what I asked to get done. Also if they are poking around other places no wonder they cannot finish inspection in 75 minutes.
They blamed the state for the modems not working causing inspections not to complete. There was a person who was being turned away second time because they couldn’t hook up to state to upload inspection data. In my 10 years in North Carolina I have never seen this at any place.
While I will follow up with management on my experience but I wanted to share it with others so they are forewarned.

This place is ridiculous. Went there last Thursday and they said it was a 2 hour back up. The lady who waited on me suggested I make an appointment for Friday so I wouldn’t have to wait. I did. Made an appointment at 9 and left at 11:30, for an oil change that I made an appointment for. Really! I will never go back and it is 4 minutes from my house. No «sorry for the wait or anything.» I would’ve been better off waiting on Thursday. Tried it give it 0 stars but it wouldn’t let me. First and last experience at a AAA car center.

I went here last year with a friend who got ok service. At the time I thought they were not very professional. But recently when I had a problem they were nearby. So I decided to go to this location. Couldn’t have been happier with the service I got. The atmosphere was totally different than when I went in last year. Did notice there is a new Manager. I am older and like to be treated with courteousy. I was kept informed and felt they truly wanted to help me. Very impressed with how quickly I was taken care of and my Mazda back on the road. I will go out of my way to use this location for all my car needs.

Nice location, but poor service. I called ahead to book an appointment and request a quote, but when I arrived at the appointment time, they immediately tried to revise the quote amount by an additional $ 50. After I contested the revised quote, they backed down and said that it would only be about $ 20 more, accounting for taxes. Right. But when I returned for my car later, they tried tacking on another $ 80 on top of that. This is exactly the kind of nonsense that a AAA member would be expecting to avoid in choosing a AAA car care center. I will not return. This is really no different than any random repair shop except they have a lot of travel guides and fancy Eagle Creek luggage for sale in the lobby. If you go there, be prepared for the up-​sell.

Upon arriving home from GA my serpentine belt snapped on a Sunday night. AAA picked up the car and dropped my keys for me which I liked. The next morning I called in talked to the manager very nice. He called back told me my air conditioning compressor locked up and broke the belt. Cant believe I made it back from GA. Anyway being as I only have two vehicles and my daughter uses one for school and I work during the day. I was very happy when to my surprise it was ready for pickup that evening and is running great. Coming back with my car to get some things taken care off.

I took my car in for an inspection and found that at least 2 of the 4 tires failed the inspection. It took over an hour and a half for me to find this out. I didn’t do any price checking against competitors, so I can’t comment on this AAA’s affordability, but they did work with me on getting the appropriate tires for my price range. I was pleased with that.
Then, it took another 3.5 hours to get out of the shop with the 4 new tires. So, it took a little over 5 hours total for just the inspection and four new tires, which felt like a lengthy wait. This by itself wouldn’t be worth taking off the 5^th star, but when I got to my car, the contents of my trunk where totally out of place. The extra tire wasn’t covered (since they had to find the tire lock nut under the cover), the cargo net was out of place, and everything essentially looked disheveled. Also, instead of putting the tire lock nut back where they found it, they handed it to me at the counter to put back. I figure after 5 hours they could have spent another 10 minutes to fix things up as they found them.
So, I would definitely recommend this place, but my experience wasn’t quite 5 stars worthy due to the time required and the little bit of missing professionalism.

If you’re a AAA member, you get your passport photo taken for free here. Other places will charge as much as $ 15. In and out in 5 minutes. The staff is friendly enough, although maybe a little unprofessional (publicly) about not wanting to do «More Work» on a Friday afternoon.
In any event, I probably wouldn’t bring my car here for service (based on an experience one of my co-​workers had here), but if I need passport type photos again, I’d come back.

My husband and I were on our way to the Outer Banks and we discovered a nail in one of our tires right before we left. We drove down 55 and found this AAA center. I’ve been a AAA member for years but I didn’t know they had physical locations… Anyway Preston at the shop took amazing care of us. They were able to patch one tire but they found another nail in a different tire that could not be patched. Unfortunately AAA did not carry the tire I needed but Preston made a quick call to Just Tires down the street and they were about to squeeze us in. We’re at Starbucks now waiting for the tire to be replaced so hopefully we’ll be able to head to the beach soon!

My daughter and I had a great experience with the service on her car at this AAA shop. She went for an oil change the first time and did not have any suggestions for additional service or parts needed. This second time, the staff said she would need new tires soon and gave us a quote. It did not feel like they were «upselling» since no recommendations were made the first time. We were not pressured to buy from there and left and checked prices elsewhere. We came back because we trusted the staff here and their price was competitive.

I went this AAA because I had recently gotten a membership and needed an oil change. I get my car serviced at Speights Garage on Fayetteville and Barbie and Mr Speight had always been very straight with my husband and I.
When I got the oil change the mechanic had found something and the salesman (oh, and that’s what he is) got me and took me back to see a part that had broken on my suspension. He was derogatory about my mechanic being blind and told me it should be done, and done in pairs. For $ 220 he’d fix them both. I decided to take my car over to my mechanic.
When the AAA mechanic brought me my keys he asked where I was taking it and agreed that that was a good idea. He told me it was far less worrisome than the salesman had let on. I went to Speights and Mr. Speight said it wasn’t dangerous but it needed to be fixed.
He fixed only one side for $ 110 and told me that AAA lied. I didn’t need both sides done, the other side looked fine.
I really felt taken advantage of. I wouldn’t use them for anything. Liars and thugs.

They illegally failed my car inspection because the brake light was on. They couldn’t figure out why it was on. Since there was nothing wrong with the brakes. They then tried to sell me almost $ 700 worth of brakes and other unneeded items which may or may not get the light to go out. Another place had told me the light being on was not reason to fail the inspection. Called the State of NC and confirmed the light being on was not reason enough to fail the inspection. The State told me to file a complaint against them. Honest? Trustworthy? I don’t think so! Complaint filed with the State, Oh yeah!

My car failed inspection at another shop because it needed tires. I wanted to get tires shipped to a shop from Tirerack, so I called around to all the nearby shops and AAA had the BY FAR best price for installation/​balancing. The other shop quoted $ 144 to install and balance 4 tires whereas AAA was $ 50 for 4.
When the tires arrived, they called AND emailed. Got scheduled right away.
I wasn’t planning to get it aligned, but the manager offered to get a printout of the current alignment and then if it was out of spec, I could decide to get it aligned. It was out of spec (not a surprise) and I believe they were honest because the printout showed the right front was the issue and I had been experiencing a pull to the right front. Since they went to the trouble of getting the printout and proving it was out of alignment, I consider this very good service (a necessary upsell.)
Rich, the manager, also told me they do a 35 (or 350, or 3500, whatever) point inspection while the car is in… Great, I thought, so they’ll find a dozen other things wrong with my 20 year old car that leaks oil. I was pleasantly surprised when they didn’t come back with a list of other stuff that «needed» fixed!
Will definitely go here again. Admittedly a little freaked out by all the bad reviews about this place, but they seemed pretty good.

Husband took 2003 Camry in for inspection… Would not inspect said it wasn’t idling good enough. Wanted to charge $ 110 just to diagnose. Needless to say left there to take to mechanic… Here is the kicker… After leavin there it cuts off every time up you stop. Called in complaint to home office. Get a call for a very rude manager that says my husband was in car whole time… Not true… He as in waiting area for 45 minutes… Would not trust them with a bicycle!

Honest. Trustworthy. Lightning Fast. The AAA Center delivers. Rushed over to the center by 5:15pm on a weekday in time to get a state inspection done before they close at 6pm. The gentleman helping me at the front desk was friendly, courteous and assured that they could do the inspection quickly. The waiting area has refreshments for purchase, a tv and a viewing window to the garage (if you wanted to check on your car). While I expected to wait, I brought a book and everything, I barely had time to catch up on emails before the car was ready. It was so quick and easy and there were no upsells. Also, I noticed that I had left a wad of cash in an accessible place in the car… it was untouched. If you’re tired of dealing with long waits and constant upsells check out AAA Center the next time you have routine maintenance, this place is the best!

Great experience! I went to AAA to get an oxygen sensor replaced. Honda quoted me $ 350 for the repair… The repair at AAA was just under$ 200. I also asked them to check my brakes because I thought I needed new brakes, turns out they just needed to be cleaned which was only $ 50 with my AAA membership. All in all an awesome experience!