Big O - Big Disappointment


Big O Tires, a national chain of tire dealers who also do a fair amount of mechanical repair, is being let down by two factors - their lack of commitment to customer service, and the people they hire.  My recommendation:  There are lots of tire dealers out there - find one that's not Big O.  The story behind this recommendation is a bit long and convoluted, but please hang in there with me.

Here's what happened, from the very beginning.  Last year, I arrived at the Big O dealership on North Nellis Blvd. in Las Vegas - it's the closest tire place to where I live and work (and where I'd bought the last three sets of tires for the car), about ten minutes before closing. Their door was open, and the sign saying "Open" was still illuminated.  However, when I went in and asked to be taken care of (as a customer), I was sent away.  The fact that they were still open made no difference to the manager (whether he was the overall manager or just the manager-of-the-day, I don't know).  He sent me away without even trying to handle my car's problem.

So I went home, and still pissed off at this cavalier treatment, I went to the Big O website and explained what happened.  The next day or two, I got a call from a regional manager, who assured me that what happened was at odds with Big O policy; as well as the fact that they'd had other complaints about this individual, who was no longer working for them. I was then offered a free oil change - all I had to do was call this regional manager when I was ready, and he'd take care of it.   However, I'd just had the oil changed, and by the time I was ready, I'd misplaced his name and number, and that ended that. But at least they tried to make it up to me.

Fast forward to Sunday of last week (July 7) and once again, I was having problems - the car was pulling to the right, and the front end was making a rhythmic noise unlike any I'd heard before. Having driven across the Valley to attend a writer's meeting, on the way home, it seemed to be getting worse by the minute. So I headed straight over to Big O (where I'd bought the tires on my car), about 4:50 p.m.  When I said I needed help, the guy behind the desk told me that they were closing in 10 minutes, and that I'd have to come back another time.  So much for the regional manager's assurance that this wasn't policy with the company.

So, another visit to their website, another complaint with details (of both incidents), and then I waited.  It was three days before they got back to me, and instead of hearing from the regional manager, I heard from the store manager.  In an almost deja vu (part II), he asked me what he could do to win back my business, offering me a free oil change.  This is where a bit of backstory needs to come in to make things clear.

By this time, I had a more serious complaint than just having been turned away.  Here's what happened:

The next morning after I'd been turned away, the morning after I'd contacted their customer service website, I went out to my car to go to a doctor's appointment, only to see the left front tire not just flat, but with a sidewall hole large enough to swallow a baseball.  Since I'd only recently gotten out of the hospital, and since it was already well over 100 degrees (hey, this is Vegas, baby!), I was not physically up to changing it myself, a fact I confirmed after I'd tried.  So I called a service that would come change the tire for my spare, for $84.00.  They came promptly, fitted my full-service spare (I hate those undersized "donut" tires, so I'd bought a wheel and put my best tire on it the last time I'd gotten new tires.  Once it was on the car, the problem I'd had of the car pulling to the right was completely gone. Instead of bad alignment, this had been caused by an about-to-fail front tire.

So I told the store manager that anything in the realm of winning me back would have to involve fixing or replacing the blown tire, which I'd bought there and assumed was still under some kind of warranty.  He asked me if I had the paperwork (I don't know if I do), but I suggested that he look in his computer, which had records of all my previous service visits and purchases - I knew this because I'd seen it once on their computer screen.  Anyway, he told me to come by and he'd take care of me, and we made an appointment for me to come late Friday morning.

When I got there, I spoke again to the manager who'd called me - he'd been waiting for me.  I gave him the keys, reminded him about the tire, which was in the trunk, then headed across the parking lot to grab lunch. I figured that both the tire and the oil change would be taken care of by the time I finished.  An hour later, when I got back, my car was up on the grease rack, and so far as I could tell, nothing had been done to it.

I went inside and asked the guy behind the counter how my car was doing.  He said I needed rear brakes, that it was metal-on-metal.  This made no sense as I'd had the brakes serviced within the past year, and even in Vegas, brakes don't wear out that quickly.  Turns out, he thought I was someone else, and that the brake problem was a false alarm.  However, as an author and writing coach (which I am), I should have seen it as foreshadowing.

Eventually, I got the manager's attention and asked him how my car was coming. He said they were working on it, then left to check on it.  A few minutes later I was called to the counter where a mechanic told me I needed a front-end alignment, that would cost $108.  Which puzzled me, as I hadn't said anything about the front end pulling to the right - I can't imagine why he'd even checked this.  So I told him, "not at this time."  I didn't go into detail why, but I could tell he was trying to up-sell me, and I wasn't buying it.

So I asked him about the blown tire in the trunk. He seemed not to know that this was the real reason I'd come by the shop - oil changes I can get almost anywhere - in 15 minutes, instead of 75 minutes - and they aren't expensive enough to go to a place I'd had a series of increasingly-bad experiences at.  I was there to get the tire fixed or replaced, at no cost to me.  But they hadn't even looked at it.  I handed the mechanic the keys and he went out, looked briefly in my trunk, then came back to tell me I needed three tires, and could he write them up.  However, I'd looked at all my tires and they seemed to have lots of tread-life left ... beside which, he hadn't even looked at the four tires before making this sweeping diagnosis.  Apparently, he thought I had "idiot" written all over my face - but instead, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

So, in attempting to win back my business, they tried to cheat me - twice - with unnecessary upsells, even while they had also completely ignored the real and important reason I had been there.

I'm not going back, and if you do business with Big O, you might want to rethink this decision, unless, of course, you like wasting money on repairs you don't need, based on the words of a mechanic who seems to be on commission for up-selling their services.

So, caveat emptor - let the buyer beware!