Hood Tire Center

I do not recommend this auto center. I went in with an alignment issue, I needed a new tire, and my muffler needed a screw tightened. My husband and I came here the day before we were leaving for a road trip across the country.
The man at the desk was scattered and unprofessional, complaining about another employee’s lax habits of taking off early. He wrote down our concern and seemed to understand what was going on. A few hours later, we were told we could pick up the car. Before we left, I checked the muffler. It hadn’t been fixed. If I tapped on it, it still rattled. So I told the man at the front desk about it. He said they forgot to do that, so one of the mechanics went out and fixed it.
They said they weren’t able to fully fix the alignment because we actually had an issue with the axle, so that’s why our tire was worn prematurely. They explained what an alignment was and that that wasn’t actually what we needed. This was great information, because we’d taken it to two other places to get a new tire, and neither of them had mentioned why we were having that difficulty. Because they couldn’t fix that, they didn’t charge for an alignment, which was very generous. This valuable information is where they get the 1 star.
As we started to drive away, the car was shaking all over the place. We couldn’t even drive it down the road. It had not been doing this when we brought it in.
We brought the car back again, and the first guy said that’s just what we’re going to have to put up with because they weren’t able to align it properly. I said, no, it didn’t do this before. We brought in a car we could drive, and we came out with a car we couldn’t drive. Finally someone said that when they put on the new tire, they must not have balanced it right or something (I don’t quite remember), so one of their mechanics, covered in grease, got in our car and drove it back to the back.
So they do whatever they should have done the first time and tell us once again, the car is ready. We got to our car and there was grease all over our cloth seat and on the floor. Good thing we hadn’t just cleaned our car for our long road trip. Oh that’s right, we had. [Sarcasm]
So then we tell the guy at the front desk, and he apologizes and rubs lysol wipes on our seats. He said that if that didn’t get it out, to come back the next day (the day of our road trip), and he would get it professionally cleaned. By this time, I never wanted to see these people again. We still have marks from the grease, but I didn’t trust them with my car, even to clean it.
The next morning, at 6am, my husband and I started on our road trip. We had 9 hours of driving ahead of us. As soon as we got onto the highway, our car started veering very strongly to the right. It was a fight to stay in our lane. It had never done this before. We obviously can’t drive that way, so we had to park outside the Hood Tire Center and wait for them to open.
By this point, I am livid.
When they finally open, we tell them what’s going on, and this guy (I think his name is Randy. There are two men with the same name there who we worked with, and I think both of them were named Randy. The first Randy was shorter and more rotund. The second was tall, slender, and actually knew what he was talking about).
So the first Randy takes our car in the back. And I can see that he’s just airing up our tires, which should have already been fine, right? And 10 minutes later he says there’s nothing they can do, that the problem is with our axle. I told him that it wasn’t like that when we brought it in, and I’m not leaving until they fix it. He says sarcastically, «Well if you want, I can work some ‘magic’ in the back and tell you it’s fine, but it will drive just the same.» REALLY??? I could not believe it. He kept insisting they couldn’t do anything about it, and I kept insisting that I wasn’t leaving until someone figured out how to be a mechanic and fix whatever they broke while they were changing my tire.
About 30 minutes later, the first Randy comes in and says that the guy who actually knows about tires, alignment, axles, etc is now in the shop, and he can look at it and fix it. I said, «Is he going to actually fix it, or just do some ‘magic’? And I thought you said that it couldn’t be fix. Now you’re saying it can?» That’s when he admitted that he had no knowledge of axles/​alignment/​etc, but he assured me this other guy (Randy #2) actually knows what he’s doing.
Randy #2 saved their butt because he fixed the issue, talked to us about options for getting the axle fixed elsewhere, and actually knew what he was doing. He also said when they put on the tire, they forgot to rotate them, leading to some of the issues we were having.
We love Randy #2, but he was the only professional one out of the 4 other people we worked with. Also, I saw the greasy mechanic get in 2 other cars while we were there. I will never return, and I don’t recommend this place to anyone.