Firestone Complete Auto Care

Previously, I took 2001 vw passat in for an alignment and they did a great job. I took my 1997 F150 for a coolant flush because the coolant was looking pretty bad. When I got home, I opened the hood and looked at everything. They over tightened the top radiator hose clamp so tight that it was sideways and starting to come apart. The coolant still looked dirty. I had to add another ¾ gallon of coolant. So I paid $ 100, wasted almost 2hrs, spent another $ 12 on more coolant, and still have dirty coolant. I just didn’t feel it was worth my time to drive back over from Milton to argue with anyone. Won’t go back for any engine work. I would go back for an alignment since there are only higher skilled techs who can perform alignments.
UPDATE: Joseph phoned me this morning to discuss my concerns. FS is going to reimburse the added $ 12 coolant cost and redo the flush in a couple weeks. I really appreciate the gesture and offering and will take them up on it. I’ll revisit this review in a couple weeks after the coolant flush.

Long story short: The team here is sleazy. Please heed my warning: if you are a female, don’t go without your husband, dad, etc (especially if you drive a cute car).
Long story long: I walked in, told them what I needed done, asked how long the wait would be (wasn’t in any hurry– just curious), the guy went to the back to check. He came back, said there was no wait and that the other guy was almost finished with the other car and would take mine right back. I said «great!», signed the form, and handed over my keys. I sat down and another guy came out from the back. Guy #2 said the wait would now be 45 minutes to an hour. I didn’t even ask a second time so I’m not sure why they’re so concerned with the wait time. I asked if I could come back in 45 minutes and they told me they were booked full for the day so I couldn’t make the appointment and leave to grab lunch even though there were only two other people in the waiting room and they said they were slow for a Saturday. Yeah… Sure. So I asked for my keys back. I wasn’t going to sit there and start playing games with the creepy car guys before they even touched my car. Once I was ready to get my keys back all of a sudden the wait time goes down to 30 minutes! Fantastic! Who knew that was all it would take to put the pedal to the metal. So needless to say I walked out. Females: find a place you can trust to get your car done. THIS FIRESTONE IS NOT THAT PLACE FOR YOU.

We took our car in for a 1200 dollar repair, we have in writing that they messed with a part that broke 2 weeks later and had no prior problems. They were also asked to check all pulleys (which means they would have caught any damage) and they refuse to cover it under warranty. Either they caused the damage or were negligent in their promise to check for further damage and now want to make a profit off of it.

This is my first experience with this Firestone shop. My daughter was on her way back to college, and half way to school she called me and said, «Daddy, I have a problem. Every light on my dashboard just came on, and the car is about to overheat.»
We live an hour from Pensacola, so I decided to see if I could handle the problem myself. I drove over there, found her, and it took me about 10 seconds to discover that her car’s serpentine belt broke. But the brake wasn’t a normal «wear-​related» break. Instant sick feeling in the stomach…
I’d knew there was a minor A/​C problem with the car, and I’d already had the system checked out by a couple local specialists, and I had two prices to replace the pump and associated hardware, empty the old coolant, and fill the system with new coolant. And I was pretty sure that the best price I could find from a very reputable local mechanic. So back when we first discovered the problem my daughter and I decided to wait to fix it, until the system actually «broke.» My mistake.
Now that the system actually broke down, and had caused us a «situation,» I found myself an hour from home, at 2:00pm, and I had to be back home by 4:00 for another obligation. We were able to «limp» my daughter’s car the two blocks to the Firestone shop on the Davis Highway, just south of I-​10.
By 2:20 we had the car at Firestone, and the Firestone supervisor was looking under the hood of my daughter’s car. As I’d suspected, the A/​C unit had seized and broken the serpentine belt. I explained our situation to the gentleman, and he started making calls to find the A/​C replacement and fill kit he needed to fix the car.
It took him some work, but he actually was able to find the kit (on a Saturday afternoon). He said it would take about 30 minutes to be delivered, and 3 hours to do the work on the car. I explained to him that my daughter needed to get to college that night, if possible. And that I was in a situation where I needed to be back home by 4:00. So if they would do the work that day I needed to leave my daughter to wait for the car, and head home. But if they couldn’t do the work I’d have to leave the car and drive my daughter to school, myself, then work out a plan to pick the car up next week when Firestone was open again, and had finished the work.
The Manager said he thought they could fix the car that day, and said if they ran into any delays that they’d call me so I could drive back to pick up my daughter. So, I took the chance that they could do it, and I left for home. Firestone’s closing time is 6:00pm. I left Firestone at 3:20, and they were just pulling my daughter’s car into the garage bay. So I was a bit apprehensive about leaving.
At 4:30 I texted my daughter to see how it was going. I wanted to be sure to head back to Pensacola early enough so there was no risk that she’d be waiting, alone in some parking lot, outside locked-​up stores. She reminded me that the Firestone manager said he’d call me if they had a problem, but that otherwise, I probably wouldn’t hear anything until she picked up the finished car. So I waited.
At 5:30 I got a call from a strange number… not my daughter’s cell… and a sick feeling in my stomach, suspecting that Firestone was about to tell me they’d run out of time to fix the car, and that I should start driving to Pensacola to pick her up. But to my surprise (and delight), the gentlemen told me that they couldn’t fix the car by closing time, but that he and the mechanic doing the work were going to keep the work going until the car was fixed, so my daughter could head on to school.
At 6:40, nearly ¾ hour after they should have been closed, I got a call from my daughter saying she needed my credit card information to pay the bill… and that the car was fixed.
I don’t know how I could have been happier with the service we received. Who could have hoped that Firestone would stay open at least an extra hour, and pay two employees to stay on the job until my daughter’s car was fixed? And what family or personal plans did those two men have to alter or cancel to ensure my beautiful daughter was safely on her way to school again? Wow… just Wow! How can a father of a college girl put a price on that?
And if that wasn’t good enough, the final price of the work Firestone did was very near the same as best price I’d received here at my home town.
I know this is «wordy.» But any parent of a teenage girl knows how I’m feeling right now. I couldn’t be happier with the help we got from the guys at Firestone. I feel blessed that this problem happened within a «stone’s throw» of Firestone. I can’t imagine how anyone could have done a better job to ensure my daughter were safely back on the road again. Thanks, guys… thank you, so much!
Update: The Firestone manager called me the following day to make sure my daughter made it back to college safely! Wow! Incredible service.

We wound up at this Firestone on a Sunday traveling home after attending the Orange Bowl and our Yukon died on I-​10. We got a tow from AAA to this Firestone. Robert and the staff were very hospitable and worked to diagnose the problem. They found the problem to be the death of the Body Control Module (BCM) which only GM dealerships can repair/​program. Since it was Sunday, we got to spend the night at the Fairfield Inn next door.
While they were not able to repair the issue, they kept our vehicle in the garage locked up overnight. Robert called a friend of his at a GM service department in town and got us slotted for their service center to work on the issue for us first thing Monday morning. Everyone we interacted with was friendly and helpful. Also, since we were there for a couple hours, we saw the techs come in and speak with other clients. They took their time and explained the issues to clients and politely answered questions.
When I went over to meet the tow truck to take the vehicle to the dealership and settle up the bill for the diagnosis efforts that were provided on Saturday, Robert graciously chose not to bill us given the situation.
So he invested time to determine the problem, set us up to get in at a dealership through a friendship of his and chose to waive the diagnosis charge that I signed up for when we arrived. All of this was very much appreciated. If I lived in Pensacola, I would find a way to provide these honest, helpful folks some business.