Terrible service--straight out of the Stone Age. If you need entertainment at your own expense, Corona del Mar Chevron is the place to go!! I needed an appointment for my BMW smog check and figured I'll get an oil change also. I made an appointment with Mike (who I will refer to as Barney) the service manager. for the following morning Thursday, and he suggested that I could get in and out in one hour. Great! I was greeted 10 minutes before the appointment by a pleasant lady who introduced herself as Diane (I'll call her Betty) who also offered me some coffee.I settled down on the bench out front to relax and do some reading. Little did I know that the Fun and Games with the Flintstones were about to start.\r
I overheard another customer complaining to Barney that her check engine light was back on after she had just spent several hundred dollars to repair it. She was upset, and Betty left to give her a ride somewhere. I glanced into the shop and noticed two mechanics leaning on a tool box eating. I asked them where Barney was, at which time he reappeared. I asked if we were still on track for an hour wait time since my car was still parked in the same place and half an hour had gone by. He stated that his smog mechanic wasn't there yet. The two mechanics chuckled at my remark, saying that ""so and so is never there before 9:00"". I told Barney no problem, things happen. Asking about the oil change, Barney told me that the smog mechanic would do that theyneeded to keep a car lift bay open!\r
As Betty arrived back at the station after 9:00, a rough looking character wearing shorts and a hoodie sweat shirt cruised up on a skateboard to meet her. They started making small talk, and he opened the hood of the refix car. Barney emerged from the garage and started arguing with hoodie guy slowly at first, It soon turnined into quite a scene, with hoodie getting into the car and screeching away, parking and slamming the car door. He then moved my car in front of the garage. I found out later that this was the smog mechanic, Shanon (I'll call him Fred). It was almost amusing to hear the loud boisterous rant that that Fred continued, but my car was still sitting waiting. I then approached Barney and asked him if there was a better time to bring my car back. He stated that ""he is working on it now"". Since my car was still sitting outside, I asked him what he thought as far as time, since it was now approaching 9:30. He glared at me and walked away. I flagged down Betty, who returned to tell me that the smog equipment needed to warm up(?), and my car would be done soon. About 9:45 Fred drove my car into the garage. At a few minutes after 10:00 he approached me, still wearing the same hoodie, etc., asking me if this was my car. He told me that I needed brake pads (?) and my maintenance light was on. I asked him if they reset it during the oil change, He asked ""what oil change?"" Fred started ranting again with Barney and demanded ""why didn't one of those as***les do it before I got here"" and I won't reset it for free"". They then started arguing again about the refix car with Fred yelling that he ""had enough of this s***"" and stormed off the lot. Barney then assigned another mechanic to change the oil. Ten minutes later, as my car was being finished, Fred walked back into the shop and proceeded to banter again with Barney about the oil change light. He finally hooked some equipment for a couple of minutes and declared ""there you go"" and moved my car to the area in front of the service window. When I got in my car, there was a strong chemical and cigarette smell, and a sticky feeling on the steering wheel and armrest. During the ensuing tirade, it turns out that Fred smokes in car and strong industrial chemicals were misused to clean grease prints off of the interior. Truth is stranger than fiction. If you need to see what happens when the tail wags the dog, you should visit this station.
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