Dobbs Tire And Auto reviews and complaints

I am contacting the better business bureau on Dobbs Tire and Auto..specifically the one in Hampton village in St. Louis, mo...I bought my car in for a simple oil change and their mechanic broke the dip stick tube that’s connected to the frame connected to the engine that you check the tranny fluid with. he broke the bracket that holds it to the motor and tried to tie it back together and tell us it was already broke...if that were broke we would have heard it moving and knocking up against something..but he tried to claim that it was broken when we bought it in...and we know that it wasn't broke...he spilled antifreeze fluid all over the engine and everywhere under the hood..on top if that they are trying to tell us the radiator needs to be replaced...however my car has never ran hot...the coolant light is not on...the service engine light is not on...there is not any fluid leaking from under the car...I just drove it out of town 1 week ago to Kentucky with no problems..then tells me it will cost 1200 to fix it...I bring it to these guys and all of a sudden everything is broken...even though all I came in for was a simple oil change...you guys are crooks, dishonest mechanics, and a scam...I will never do business with you again...all I asked for was a oil change and nothing was suppose to be taken a loose or moved around...you are crooks and I am telling the world...your mechanic could not even look us in the face...because he knew he did something wrong...I am on my out of town for the holidays and now I can't go...thanks a lot Dobbs...THEN……..we were instructed by Jerome at Dobbs to contact the corporate office. We called as soon as we walked in the door and spoke with Jerry who instructed us to take it to another Dobbs so they could verify the damage to the stick. We took the car to Dobbs on Dunn rd and spoke with Matt who indeed confirmed that someone had to pull on it with force in order for it to break. Matt told this information to Jerry at the corporate office and even told Jerry that if one of his mechanics did this he would go ahead and have it fixed. Matt even told us when we took the car to him, that Dobbs has insurance to cover things like this when their mechanic “accidently” break parts on customers cars and all the other mechanic had to do was file a report and fix it..no charge. Matt also said some mechanic won’t admit to it, especially if they have had complaints before because it could lead to their termination. So the customer is suppose to suffer…So not only do we have a broken car, but we also spent gas to travel to an even farther Dobbs and time spent. To which Dobbs is not going to reimburse. Even though a second mechanic with the same co verified that someone at the Hampton Dobbs had to break it, Jerry called us back to say it was out of his hands and he was going off what the people at Hampton had to say. So they lost a customer and brushed us off for a $50.00 part. I am taking them to small claims court.

Now, I have almost $300 in extra costs I pay out of my pocket because of shoddy work to meet a promised deadline – yes, Dobbs gave me new tires but broke my sensors when remounting my tires! The Brentwood (BW) store recommended that I get all new tires because my alignment was bad and had worn down two tires with the others also needing replacement "soon". I questioned how soon "soon" was and my specialized and expensive run flats tires were not in-stock for my Lexus. Dobbs said would get it done that day if I agreed to replace all four tires but would have to wait another day if I wanted only two tires replaced so they helped "rush" my decision. I went ahead and approved all four and was called later that evening around 6pm that they would finish at 7pm. I arrived just after 7pm and waited and waited. Finally, they finished around 8:30pm; note that the store is supposed to close at 8pm - the store manager kept going back to the tech working on the car to see how much longer it would take numerous times so that poor technician was undoubtedly rushed and my tires are not easy to mount and are extremely sensitive. I wished they would have just admitted that I could not have my car that day and they wrongly estimated. Instead, my tire indicator light continued to stay on despite multiple visits to Dobbs without success, so I took it to the dealer. The dealer said that these sensors on my car are extremely sensitive and they see this problem a lot when unspecialized techs work on these sports cars. The problem was, the first sensor was outright broken immediately but the second one was cracked so that sensor took a little longer to detect. I gave Dobbs more than nine (9) opportunities (and that is more than 20 hours worth) to find and correct the problem but they could not so I went to the dealer so I could spend my time doing something more productive than sit in the waiting room or at home. One store is pointing at another store for not sending me back to the original store, the other store is saying they are one company and did not need to send me back, the corporate office wants the dealer to write a statement on their company letterhead stating that Dobbs and only Dobbs broke my sensors for their legal department to review (which there are basically only two ways to break these sensors per the dealer like they are broken and one is during mounting the tires and the other is to continually ram my car into a wall or something and you would see other damage if I did the latter).

I give them a one star rating. If you can't trust them it does not matter how good they are. I believe they may have an unspoken corporate policy of using scare tactics first then use intimidation to jackup prices on repairs. I saw this on 60 minutes and it fit what happened to me. This is my story about Dobbs on big bend and sulpher springs road. On 3-5-09 at 2:35 pm i carried my old work car in to try and locate what was causing the front drivers side axle to run off the transaxle shaft. I had worked on this car the sunday before and let my 16 year old son install a new axle, lower control arm and new tension strut bushings. In the process he forgot to install a washer behind the tension strut to control arm bushing. When the brakes were applied hard it would let the tension strut bushing at the lower control arm slide in and out of the control arm, this would cause the wheel assembly to flex enough to slide the axle out to the edge of the transaxle shaft and make a grinding noise. To repair this car all that was required was the installation of the washer on the tension strut to control arm . Brian, the shop forman carried me to the raised car and showed me the missing washer, which, as soon as i saw it i new this was the only trouble the car had. Then in a very rude tone, he informed me that the axle was the wrong one (too short) . I new this was not true. Then he informed me that the passengers side axle was too short, I guess they saw where I had replaced it two weeks before. The passengers side axle is/was fine, wouldn't let them touch it. As I stood there looking at the problem and wondering, is this guy trying to shist me about short axles when it was obvious that the missing washer was all the problem, he broke into a tyraid about the car was unsafe to drive and he wouldn't let me drive it. I did not respond to him, then out of the blue he was saying something about, he didn't know what kinda problem I had with my parts supplier and if i thought i could bring my own parts in ( i had no parts nor had I mentioned anything like that) and he put them on, then this conversation was over. All of this sounded to me like he thinks he can hold peoples cars and they can walk home. Where all this B.S. came from I do not know, unless it is like the show I saw on 60 minutes. Usually I would not have submitted to this kind of threatening tone and pressure selling and would have told him to kiss my ars and lower my car, but I needed the car fixed fast.. I let him order a new axle, when it came in we layed it beside the one that they took out and both were the same length axles. Nothing wrong with the old (4 day old) axle. I let him install the new axle. Only then did he put a washer on the tension strut which was the only problem the car had. I hate to think this was a deliberate action to jack the price up on a small repair but the more I think about it that is the only explanation I can come up with. I would not use this Dobbs auto and tire.