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Tom Martino Gets Played by Meineke Car Care Center, just like me!

New Update at Bottom of Article:

I’m going to get away from my typical marketing talk for a second and vent my frustration with a local Meineke Car Care Center (Lakewood, CO). This particular Meineke Car Car Center played me, they played my lawyers and they most recently played Colorado’s top-dog consumer advocate, Tom Martino not once, but twice.

Meineke Car Care Center
2010 South Oak Street
Lakewood, CO 80227
Phone: 303-456-0949

I took my 1990 4 Runner to Meineke Car Care Center in Lakewood, CO for a simple break change. When I went to pick the truck up I was told that the engine was misfiring and they would recommend a engine rebuild or replacement. They assured me they were the shop for the job, they up sold me from a used engine to a new complete engine rebuild.

I made a verbal agreement with the store manager & owner that the rebuild could not take longer then a month, I made that very clear that I would need my truckc back prior to Sept due to my temp tags were set to expire and I wanted to avoid late fees assessed by the state.

During the month Meineke led me to believe that everything was going great and on schedule for a ‘on-time’ delivery. This is where my problems begun.

The due date came and not a peep out of Meineke until I called them. They informed me there were a few problems that came up with the wrong parts arriving etc and that it would be a few more weeks… Two weeks later, yet another very similar excuse to cover up their competency issues.

To make a long story short, this was the same excuse I’ve heard for nearly 3 1/2 months until… Finally, they called me to say the car was done, running great – and ready to go. I was thrilled. I took time off of work as well as a friend who was more then happy to help me out.

I paid the final $1700 and drove off… I noticed the car was still sluggish and about 2 mins into the drive the check engine light went on, so I drove it back. The technician at the time said the check engine light was due to a faulty noc sensor, a sensor that was working fine prior to me dropping it off. Anyway I had a feeling they were full of $#!T so I decided to take the car to a Toyota Certified Technician who verified the engine rebuild was faulty. The technician mentioned that the rebuild looked like it was completed by someone who knew nothing about cars…

Here’s where Tom Martino got involved…

I called in the 630 AM Radio Talk Show of Consumer Advocate, Tom Martino. Tom seemed dumbfounded to why I brought my car to Meineke Car Care Center in the first place for a engine rebuild and rightfully so – dumb idea…

Martino’s partner got the shop manager (who is no longer there) on the phone. The typical business owner response to the Tom Martino Show is, “Sure we’ll take care of him” just to get decent ratings on the Martino show as well as get him off the phone…

I agreed to give them a second chance so I brought the 4 Runner back to Meineke…

2 months later,  no vehicle nor a solid date of completion… just more… excuses.

Here’s where Tom Martino was played for a second time…

I haven’t talked to Martino in two months so I thought I would give it one last shot to avoid litigation with Meineke…

Martino quickly took my call; he remembered my complaint. He quickly had his sidekick call Tom Remy from the Lakewood, CO Meineke to follow-up with my previous complaint. Tom Remy, the owner of Meineke told Tom that he would without a doubt take care of me, in fact he told Martino’s sidekick that he would be willing to replace my engine with a new, guaranteed engine – free of charge.

According to Martino’s screened this seemed like a reasonable offer, but what Martino failed to see was this same scapegoat tactic was used to throw off me for 5 months, it threw my attorneys off, and it has now played Martino for a second time…

The bottom line is this; Tom Remy’s mechanics in my opinion are not competent enough to completely rebuild an engine – if they were, it would have been done by now.

After the second Tom Martino appearance I met with the owner to come up with a ‘amicable’ resolution. This is what Tom Remy from Meineke countered with…

1. Tom Agreed to refund $500 of my $3200 if: I gave them the title to my 4 Runner.

My first thought was – is this a joke? I agreed to let them replace the engine if they agreed to replace it with a Toyota Factory Engine – they refused. I asked if I agreed to ‘whatever standard they thought fit’ if they could have it done by a certain time.. they have since failed to resolve the issue or respond to me.

Martino – I’ve gone with your advice twice now and all I have is a broken 4 Runner and a hell of a lot of penalties to the state, headache and a lot of wasted time.

The sad part is that the vehicle came back to me in worse condition then it was brought to Meineke in. It ran, and it ran pretty good. Now it doesn’t.

I guess the only thing left to do is file a complaint with the county court. Shucks.

Update: Tom Remy wrote back, nearly 1 week after the final request was sent.

Sean-

i will put a re-built engine in the vehicle. it will be your responsibility to get the vehicle back to us. i will return the vehicle within 2 weeks of receiving the engine.

tom

Too late Tom, i’ve since filed a complaint in county court, a complaint with the Denver  BBB and also filed a complaint with the Colorado State Attorney Generals Office.