Ramesh Bhaskar

Locating a good mechanic for your car is a big hassle. One would hope that the big name shops like ‘Pep Boys’ would live up to their names in customer service. This is however a review of my experience with ‘Pep Boys’ located on the feeder of US-59 in Houston. I know that stores like ‘Pep Boys’ are franchised and hence service from one store to another varies. Which is why I’m being specific to this location when I write my review.

What: Automobile Repair
Who: Pep Boys
Address: 7525 Southwest Fwy, Houston, TX - (713) 779-8600‎

Ever since coming to Houston and I have been going to Pep Boys for all my automotive repairs. Needless to say I’m not a “happy” customer when I come out, but they manage to do a fair job, or so I thought, up until now.

I own a 1999 Pontiac Grand Am and recently my battery lights came on on the dashboard. Being the kinds who doesn’t like things not in working order, I immediately made my way to a nearby Autozone to get it checked out. After a few minutes of checking the battery, the guy at Autozone told me that my battery was fine, but my alternator was close to failing. It wasn’t pushing out the required volts needed in order to charge the battery. Autozone has friendly customer service.

So Pep Boys being my usual auto repair shop, I called them and asked them if they could fix up the alternator if I had bought it elsewhere. They said they would, but only if I’d gotten it from O’Reilly’s or a couple of other places (but NOT from Autozone). Luckily I hadn’t purchased on yet and I did get one from O’Reilly’s. I’m not sure why people do not like Autozone for parts (I’ve heard its because they are no up to the mark in terms of quality, but I have not validated that yet).

Either ways, dropped off my car and the alternator at Pep Boys, after they told me it would cost me $130 for labor alone ($230 if I’d purchased the alternator from them. I picked up the alternator from O’Reilly’s for much cheaper and the whole thing came to $170). I didn’t shop around for prices, and no one else was willing to fit an alternator that was purchased from outside, so I decided to go with it (like I had another choice).

The next day they called me to tell me that there was some ‘pig tail’ like contraption that was broken and they needed to replace it. They also told me that it cost $40 (so there goes all the savings I thought I was making). Having no other choice, I told them to go ahead anyways.

That afternoon while picking up the car, I asked them if I had warranty on everything and they said the parts warranty would be from whom I bought the alternator (O’Reilly), but because I never bought the parts from them they could not give me a warranty on the labor.

Paid up, walked out, drove my car and then about 10 miles out a whole lot of lights came on. The airbag light was the first to come up. I never knew why, but I decided to check that out later. In the evening on the way home, I started the car and shifted it into gear it jerked like crazy. It was almost as though the whole engine shifted. This jerking effect would kick in everytime the automatic gears would shift up.

Besides the airbag lights and the jerking, the next things that gave problem were that the traction control and abs lights switched on. It was as though the car was having a total breakdown and I wasn’t sure why because all I had replaced was the alternator which I figured was relatively easy to replace.

A day or two later I took it back to PepBoys to ask them why thinks were working that way and they told me that it might be a problem with the engine and they would have to take a look, but taking a look would cost $$$’s.

Having screwed up the first time I did NOT want to leave it with them. Who knows what they might do or charge me for next.

So I spent the next week attempting to find a good mechanic. Got info about one through my friend and showed it to him. The moment he looked at it he told me I was ripped off and that was the worst alternator job he’d seen. He couldn’t believe it when I told him ‘Pep Boys’ did this job. He was like “Pep Boys did this!!?!?!”.

According to him, what they charged me $130 bucks to do, should have actually cost me $40. And he didn’t know about no pig tailed crap. By the time the check engine light had come on, so I decided to give it in for an engine tune up as well.

Another $239 bucks later and a fixed alternator job and engine tune up and my car is running like spiffy new :). I asked the mechanic what had happened and apparently the “pig tailed” thing they were refering to was the wires connecting to the alternator (a set of 4 wires). They spliced it up and tried to fix it back together and got all the connections mixed up.

So the reason for all the lights going on and the engine jerks and everything that was happening was because they screwed up fixing in the alternator.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Previously someone I know had their car fixed up there and everytime it would come back with a new problem until it just totalled almost.

In my opinion, these guys really don’t know what they are doing half the time or get in-experienced staff to work on things and mess them up.

Conclusion: The staff at PepBoys are fairly irresponsible, do not perform a check once they fix things up, probably don’t even fix things up right, overcharge for their services and just make life miserable for the customer. This has been a harrowing experience and has lasted more than a week. I would NOT go back to this Pep Boys store and would NOT recommend that anyone goes there.