Canadian Tire

Hello complaints department,

My name is M. and I showed up at the Heron location in Ottawa on January 5th at around 6:20 pm and I told the clerk I have a GPS mount that's stuck and I need it to be taken out with their help. The clerk said to pull up next to the front of the store and he will send me a mechanic to take a look and remove it for me without any effort. The mechanic came in my car and had a screw driver and broke off the phone mount and then my vent tab broke off as well, two pieces fell right out and the little silver part fell in the vent and is stuck in there, which I am worried about as I do not know much about cars and if that little metal piece will do damage.

The Canadian tire mechanic told me it is not a big deal and to just go to Nissan to replace the tab only and jumped out of my car. He kept telling me it is an easy fix and not that big of a deal and that I could even do it myself and I believed him and just left it alone and drove off very confused and disheartened. I went to Nissan thinking this was going to be an easy job where I just order the tab, clip it in and call it a day but they told me:
The tab is not available separately from the vent assembly. To have it installed by the Service Department I would be able to set an appointment and have the parts ordered. It would be a special order part and would take 2 days to arrive.
The part is 255.47 and the labour would be 70.00 before tax.

I am heartbroken and highly upset that your mechanic did damage that is very costly and he just jumped out of my car acting like it was just a small job and had no knowledge of the kind of damage he did. You can check the cameras in the store on this day and you will see me walking in and asking for assistance and the clerk just said no worries we can take a look and remove it no need to pull into the garage just pull the car up next to the store and they will take care of it. This damage that they did is going to cost me a serious amount of money that I do not have for this. There were two things broken on this day and it was the Nissan factory vent tab and the GPS mount. I was so shocked and didn't know what to do and I just believed he was telling me the truth and now I am stuck with the repairs for something that was done by your young workers. Please I need help with this as your mechanic worker has done damage to my car. Is there someone who can help me fix the problem they started. I don't know what to do at this point, I trusted them and they just dismissed me after the damage and went about their day which I am sure they knew was wrong. I look forward to hearing from someone who handles things like this. This was a very unfortunate situation and I hope it never happens to anyone else ever again, especially in these uncertain times where money is tight and people have lost their jobs and have so much other worries in their life. This experience with your workers has really added to my stress level and I am hurt by this. My contact information is below for you all to please look into this and rectify this situations. I look forward to hearing from someone soon. Thank you for hearing me out.

I bought an air hog airplane for my son for Christmas. He tried it a few times but it wouldn't go up in the air at all kept crashing into things. I went to return it because it had only been a week. To my surprise that particular Canadian Tire wasn't taking back any returned Christmas gifts even if you had the receipt. I asked why and they said that the owner would lose money on it. They told me to try another Canadian Tire store. I asked where that was posted they pointed to the customer service counter where there was a small paper stuck flat down on the counter. Unless you were at the customer service counter at the time of the purchase you would never know it was there. However posted on the wall in plain site is a sign stating that they will gladly refund your money for any items bought there as long as you have the original receipt. Funny how the cashier failed to advise me that the item I was buying was non returnable. Instead they just excepted my money. I told the manager that they just lost a customer, I will never shop there again.

Where to begin, what was meant to be a weekend getaway turned into a nightmare. Drove from Toronto to Ottawa and my alternator went on Sunday as no other garage was open it was recommended by the CAA tow truck to go to Canadian tire. We thought fair enough we called and found this location had the part that we needed. Took in the car, around 12:30PM. Guy asked me if i would like a test done on the car to see if the alternator is the real problem or faulty wires it will cost $47.50. I'm like sure if it could save me some money let's do it. Well they charged me $854.50 for the job. didn't get the car back until 6pm, 4.7hours of labor for a job that according to their store policy is 2.8hours job. Plus $34.99 for cleanup of oil plus $55.60 for a new belt. On top their mechanic wrote frame rotted in the little notes. No one mentioned anything to me expect please pay and your car will be brought to you. Drove back to Toronto, and the car felt weird having some steering wheel issues took it to the shop again. My Right control arm bolt isn't tighten. Turns out my sub frame is rotted and can't be tighten. Spoke with the manager of the auto body store in Ottawa that advised me that they never touched or looked at my control arm, yet the mechanic wrote frame rotted just didn't mention the location or how serious it could have been. The other store wanted me to tow my car back to Canadian tire as they didn't want to touch the problem. Went to Canadian tire by my house and they said we don't need to take apart all this to get to the alternator. Okay they wouldn't allow me to drive my car off the lot either. Towed the car to my mechanic who fixed the problem. But how come Ottawa allowed me to drive my car no problems off the lot with a 2 year old in the back seat and the other two garages wouldn't. But i guess according to the manager they only overcharged me by $66.50 which i preceded to tell him that is a shady business and will never go back to Canadian Tire as most of my friends have warned me to stay away from them but again it was a Sunday and no other shops were open. Never again Crappy Tire.

I made the mistake of purchasing a car battery from Canadian Tire, foolishly believing that they would honour their 3-year replacement warranty. After 18 months the battery would not hold its charge, so I took it into the store to get my free replacement. The fellow at the counter looked at me and condescendingly told me that it was empty and needed to be charged before testing. I told him that of course it was empty; it wasn't holding its charge. That was why I brought it back. After about a half hour of charging he informed me that the battery was perfectly good and that I should have the alternator and voltage regulator checked. Three days later the battery would not charge at all, even with my battery charger. I had to call a tow truck to jump start my car, and I elected to take it to the dealer for service, as it was time for its oil change anyway. The dealer performed an AVR test and told me that the battery was dead and that it should have been fairly obvious from the voltage spikes during charging -- meaning that the Canadian Tire guy had lied to my face. The alternator was perfectly good. I had the dealer replace my battery. Between the AVR test, new battery and tow truck I was out over $200. I angrily went back to Canadian Tire and showed the manager the invoice from the dealer, and that I had brought the battery in for testing, and was told that my dead battery was still good. I felt that at the very least I should get a refund on the original purchase price of the battery. All he would do was give me a replacement battery -- which I no longer needed.

The moral of the story: do not buy a Canadian Tire car battery. Their warranty is not worth the paper it's written on.