Over the past 7 years, I’ve been to this Chevron five or six times to have a couple of our cars worked on. They did an okay job on one repair. The others they dropped the ball. Big time. Drop #1: I have a classic ‘70s Mini, and so did the manager of the Chevron at the time. I thought “Hey, perfect! He’s worked on his Mini, he must know Mini’s.” How wrong I was. He cranked down the lugs on the wheels way over the manufacturer’s recommendation (probably used the gun) and I had to pay a Mini specialist $80 bucks to fix the problem he created. Drop#2: We had a Nissan Quest and the air conditioning needed some stuff done to it. We were going to drive thru the desert up to SF, so it was crucial to get it working. $450 later they got it working. It worked for 10 minutes. I called them when we got back and he said, “Oh, must be a leak in there somewhere.” Hey genius, ever think of checking that before giving back to me? Drop #3: Giving them a second chance to put front tires on my Mini. I gave them the lug torque specs and the tire pressure suggestions. Figured it was a no brainer. Turns out they have no brains. Get the Mini back and it’s pulling to the left like crazy. Now this is a car that has been going dead straight for 4 years. Now it’s all wacked out.. I take it back and tell them the prob. He says $130 for an alignment. Lots of work to align that car. I ask him if he knows how to align a classic Mini. He gets upset. Heated. I then tell him my history of poor car repairs at Chevron and ask if he can give me a deal on the alignment. (I know, I should’ve run away and never came back to Chevron years ago, but it’s so close to our house! Lesson learned. Finally.) Well now the manager guy gets really steamed, with the arms waving and the lips peeling back from his yellow teeth. He basically says “Stuff you (expletive)” and proceeds to tell me that he warned me about the Quest air conditioning problems (he didn’t) that he doesn’t recall the over tightened lugs on the Mini (how convenient) and that I probably hit a pot hole in my Mini and that’s why the alignment’s out (how many times have we heard that lie). So I call my Mini Specialist. He tells me there’s only one simple adjustment for aligning a classic Mini. And it won’t help correct the pulling to one side. The Specialist tells me that on older Minis the tires are sometimes a little off in their sizes. He suggests I switch the front tires to the back and see what happens. I did it (by myself) and the problem was solved. Lots of work to align an old Mini, yeah right.
Pros: Location
Cons: Everything Else
more