Why I'll Never Go Near Midas Again

So in October one of my back tires went flat. Just out of nowhere died a fast, brutal death. We took it to the Midas at 5526 Carolina Beach Road, Wilmington, NC 28412 . We asked them to change both back tires (b/c they were pretty worn anyway), do an alignment, and an oil change. The place wasn't busy, this should have taken like an hour, two tops.

We sat there for over four hours.

After the first two hours, they took us back to the car and showed us stuff, told us our brakes would need to be changed in not more than a month (we had them done elsewhere) and tried to tell us all kinds of other things that should be changed (like power steering fluid. which my car doesn't have, b/c the power steering system is completely electrical. red flag, if only I'd chalked it up to more than them being money-grubbing assholes).

About an hour of sitting around doing nothing after that, they told us only that they were having trouble "getting the bolts off" doing the alignment. That they were going to use torches to heat then up to loosen them. Okay, fine, whatever.

ANOTHER HOUR LATER they tell us the car is finally ready. We leave. Sadly I did not hang on to the receipt, let that be a lesson to me.

Fast forward a month later, we take to Toyota to do the safety inspection so I can renew the registration (due the 28th of December).  And they tell me I'm going to fail my inspection b/c my rack and pinion system and inner tie rods are completely shot. That it looks like extreme heat was applied and basically destroyed the whole damn thing. And that the heat/damage was done recently.

There was only one place that could have applied the kind of heat. So I called them, pretty fucking angry, and demanded to speak with a manager. Chris spent most of the conversation calling me 'young lady' and talking to me like I was a little woman. I was encouraged to come in so 'we can sit down and talk about this and work it out.'

Because yeah, it's such a good idea for me to sit down alone in an office with somebody who not only caused extensive damage to my car, but lied about it. When I said I was going to take this to small claims court, the manager got pissed off and said that if that's how I was going to be then this conversation was over, he was going to work with someone like that. And then hung up on me.

Called back two minutes later and said it had been an accident. Given the trail of lies already established, I'm sorry, I don't believe that.

We get the paperwork from Toyota, I send an email to Midas (which was ignored) and call to file a complaint as well. Midas said the OWNER would call me in 24-48 hours.

Two days later, right at the edge of the 48 hours he had to respond, I get the manager Chris again. Not the owner. To date the owner hasn't said a single word to me. He tells me to bring the car in so they can fix it and 'save me the 1400.00' I said with respect, I wasn't trusting the people who broke the car to fix it. He said he understood, he'd have to call corporate to let them know. I asked how long that would take, he said he didn't know. He also gave me the owners number, but I'm not comfortable calling the man who in all of this just ignored me and shoved everything onto his manager. And I'm waiting for the call from corporate anyway.

But nobody calls us.

So we call again. Get bounced to customer relations. Who tell us they're busy, but leave a message and they'll call us back.

Almost a week later, nobody returned our calls. We call back. Get informed that Midas thought the store was managing it, and the store of course wasn't doing anything. And because it's a franchise, corporate Midas can't do anything but play intermediary.

Which explains why the Midas twitter went from being kind and helpful to just ignoring me.

If there's one thing corporate and franchise both seem to be good at, it's ignoring problems in the hopes they'll go away.

So now we've had to email stuff to Midas, who will put pressure on the store. But right now it looks like I have to take the car to the place that broke it, and they'll look at it (because of course their word is to be trusted).

And in the meantime, my car still needs to be fixed, re-inspected, and I have until December 20th to do all this since I'm leaving for New York on the 22nd.

So now it's just waiting around until Midas gets back to us (which they suck at doing), and I have to take my car back to the lying jackasses who broke it in the first place.

And right alongside the whole Midas drama is problems with my car insurance and THOSE people being liars and jerks.

Merry Fucking Christmas. Thanks for ruining mine, Midas. If you have any decency in you at all, you'll apologize for ruining my car and cut me a check for $1415.34.