AutoZone Auto Parts — Attraction in Port Clinton

I’ve always had good experiences at autozone. But this particular branch is run by a manager with no manager skills. That day my battery drained and had to jump start my car, so I drove for a bit and went to the autozone in Port Clinton to get it tested.

An elderly employee was immediately bothered he had to go outside in the heat and made a fuss bc the battery’s cranking number (which is needed to run the test) was underneath a lid. So he entered a made up a number instead (on the high end) and ran the test, telling me it would make no difference. Sure enough the test said the battery was bad. I asked if we could take the lid off (which takes 2 mins) to get the real number from the battery and run an accurate test. He said that was too much work for this test (literally said that). Another employee started to do it though.

A minute later the manager came out screaming (not exaggerating) “Stop the work! Stop the work!” And told me “buddy we don’t do that work here unless you’re buying a battery”. I explained his elderly employee made up the numbers for the test and I couldn’t just buy a battery based on that. But he kept yelling at me and told me to buy a battery if I wanted the lid off. I ended up just buying it, and when they took the lid off, they immediately tried to install the new battery. But I asked them to “stop the work” lol and run the test again with the right numbers. Sure enough, the battery had been good all along and only needed to be recharged (see pic).

The manager then avoided me after that. Didn’t make any eye contact or apologized. Except when I tried to return the new battery (that he made me buy in order to remove the lid), then he got involved, asking his employee if the warranty allows me to return a functional battery, even tho the new battery was still sitting on the counter untouched. Almost like he wanted to find a way for me to not be able to return it, like it became personal for him when he was shown to be in the wrong, but that was just my impression.

I just ended up keeping the new battery to get out of there and bc the one helpful employee told me a new battery would reveal if it was truly the battery or the alternator being bad. He recommended I buy a new alternator in Sandusky bc they didn’t have one and gave me the contact info of a mechanic in the area.

They installed the new battery and I drove to the Sandusky autozone, where they first tested the new battery. This time my experience was just like at any other autozone. The manager was so nice and when I showed him the picture of the test they ran in my old battery, he told me I probably just needed to have driven my car longer to recharge the old battery. I still bought an alternator trusting that one employee, but when I talked to the mechanic, not only did he say the same thing about the old battery, but that I didn’t need a new alternator at all either. I basically spent $500+ and several hours dealing with this, when I didn’t have to. Luckily I was able to return the alternator but not the new battery ($150).

My advice, avoid the Port Clinton autozone completely. And to AutoZone… your manager...

I live in SC and spent the day at Put in Bay. After returning to Port Clinton, my car wouldn’t start. My 4 year old battery was dead. It’s a travelers worst nightmare- car breaks down out of state and auto parts stores are closing in an hour. I called AutoZone and spoke to Jim - he had such a positive and can do attitude, said he’d take care of it. So I got a jump and took it to Autozone in Port Clinton. Jim greeted me, sold me a new battery, and installed it. It wasn’t an easy job - one of the terminal connectors was badly corroded, so Jim put on a new connector for free. He did everything right - took his time, was very pleasant to talk to. We were on our way back to Cleveland within an hour. Jim’s customer service skills and positive attitude have made me a Autozone...

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