Express Oil Change & Tire Engineers — Attraction in Mechanicsville

Very poor experience at this location. My wife came in for a state inspection and was told the control arm ball joint was bad and needed replacement. They wanted to charge $500 for this service. When the part was $90 and requires an hour to complete, there’s no reason that this cost should have been this high. We opted to fix the part at home. After fixing, we inspected the old control arm and absolutely nothing was wrong with it. No warping of the metal, joint was in tact, grease was in the joint, rubber covering was fully in tact and it made absolutely no noise or clicks indicating something was wrong.

After I completed the repair, we took the vehicle back for reinspection. To our surprise, the inspector was going to fail it again for a missing hardware clip on one set of brake pads. The tech that was with him (instead of giving us a cost estimate on how much to fix) was ready to get the rejection sticker on and told us specifically “You should take it back to whoever you got the control arm done.” This led me to believe that there was obviously some hurt feelings about us not purchasing the $500 repair. When we questioned the state inspector on why that was even assessed because on reinspectikn, the only part that should be inspected are what caused the vehicle to fail, he stated or if anything is clear and obvious. I don’t know about you but I’m not sure how a 2” small, metal piece that’s hidden by the rim 99% of the time can be labeled as clear and obvious. To me, the only thing clear and obvious was the shop obviously being upset about the previous situation and taking it out on us. After further conversation, the inspector there then started easing his voice unnecessarily and stated to us that the only way he was going to put a state inspection sticker on was if the state police told him too. Then, almost immediately after, he ADMITTED that if we called, the police would more than likely tell him to put it on anyways.

So keep in mind that I wasn’t actually there and this situation happened with my wife. After all this back and forth and the inspector displaying terrible customer service, my wife wound up having a panic attack in the store from the situation. At no point during this time did ANYONE offer a fix for the solution. I had to instruct my wife to get a quote for repairing it. $15….that’s right, it was a $15 repair. All this hoopla for a repair we would’ve paid on the spot for. Instead, the inspector and the technician decided to fail it without so much as telling us what we could do.

From my estimation, there are 3 possibilities to why this situation occurred.

1. Shop was upset that we didn’t opt for the $500 repair and decided to make our lives harder.

2. The inspector was either looking for something or, dare I say removed something, to fail the vehicle.

3. The shop stereotyped my wife as we know many shops do in an effort to get more out of her.

The sad part of this situation is we’ve regularly had good service there but this situation has caused us to re-evaluate our thought process. We will no longer be using this shop and highly recommend avoiding this shop if you are seeking a state inspection.

S/N, if anyone that has been to this shop has had issues with state inspections, please DM me! I suspect there may be other, ulterior things going on here that I want to make sure VSP...

i went in for a scheduled alignment, based on recommendation from discount tire. on my way there the check engine illuminated on the dash and my vehicle dead stalled, and i couldn't start it for 10 mins, on bell creek rd, in the right turn ln, hoping to make it to the home depot parking lot. after a prayer and petition, my battery was able to hold on enough during another series of cranks, and the vehicle started up and i quickly made it up the hill and into the home depot parking lot, where it stalled again. but not before i parked it in a convenient spot. i should have taken this as a sign! i popped the hood and discovered it was the pcm relay acting up. quickly swapped it with another relay of the same specs and arrived for my appt., 30 mins late. when they finally got my car up on the rack, and while i was sitting in the waiting room, an employee walked in and said the tech told him my parking brake broke while under care of the technician. hmmmm, that's mighty unfortunate. i'm not going to place liability on them b/c who knows, that cable could have snapped on me at any point. but it didn't, and it caused me to become very frustrated. he also mentioned "it happens all the time", huh? but get this, the employee gave me a quote of over $400 to repair it. lmMFao. are you crazy, literally? so finally after the alignment was finished, i paid and was on my way. but i was given no paperwork, other than the receipt of payment and the general description of the alignment service. i was much concerned about getting the vehicle home safely, so i didn't realize i was not given the alignment spec sheet. the next day (less than 24 hours) i called to request a print of the geometry measurements (before/after). the guy who answered the phone said 'we normally give those to customers, but since it's been almost 24 hours, that information/data may have already been deleted from our system.' huh? have you ever heard of aws? he took my number for the tech to call me, and much to my surprise, i never got a call. and, to top it all off, the vehicle still noticeably pulls left. now i understand there could be some other suspension issues, but that is why the spec sheet was critical in my next diagnosis. so i can not give any more than 2 stars based on my experience. no apologies. and how ironic, i called bjs (just right across the street) and they offer alignment services on weekends, at a cheaper cost....

MANAGEMENT PLEASE READ 👍🏻👍🏻 As a former technician and current service advisor I have nothing but good things to say about Express upon my first visit, I recently bought a new truck and there was no oil change sticker, I figured I’d get it changed regardless since it was bought at a used lot, I took this week off on vacation from work and was determined not to stop by my own work and have it done and decided to swing by Express. The lane setup is very fast and efficient for oil changes, the guys are very professional and the shop is very clean. I assumed the oil had not been changed since the used lot manager said they had not changed it. upon getting started the tech working on my oil change immediately noticed how clean the oil was( I should of checked, silly me haha it had obviously been changed right before the previous owner traded it in ) and showed me the condition and reccomeneded it not be replaced(very honest move for this industry!) and even topped off my power steering while I was there, this is a classic example of “help a customer out once, and earn one for life”. I appreciated the technicians honesty and him still topping off my power steering and sending me out the door, dealerships are too concerned with every ounce of fluid to do something as nice, I will definately be coming back! Congratulations on the new location and y’all are doing great! This is one of the few reviews I’ve left in my lifetime, but it was well deserved and I wanted to make sure the technician was acknowledged for outstanding customer service!

Management, please find out which technician had helped me with my black F150 on Monday October 15th in the farthest right bay( the closest bay to Target) , they deserve...