Valvoline Instant Oil Change — Attraction in San Antonio

After 6 months, no email, no calling, no message even. What an attitude of the whole company!

Up till now, I can only give 1 star. I replaced my car's battery at Valvoline NW Military Way on Oct, 2023. I couldn't start my car on 07/18/2024 in my garage. Then I requested a road assistant to jump start my car. The boy printed out a test report saying 7% health of this battery. I called Valvoline customer service to make sure that this battery is still under warranty. She said yes, because the battery from Valvoline has 3-year warranty. All stores or locations of Valvoline guarantee the battery warranty. After my car was jumped start on 07/18, I drove to Valvoline Stone Oak Parkway in order to replace the bad battery. I didn't go to NW military location because it's closer to my son's school but not my home. Since now it's summer break and all Valvoline locations guarantee the 3-year warranty, I chose the Stone Oak Parkway location of Valvoline. When the technician at Valvoline Stone Oak Parkway used whatever machine to check my battery, he showed me a report from their tablet and said that their machine showed my battery was healthy. I was shocked and told him the 7% health test result from the road assistant. But he told me he only trusted their machine and he couldn't replace my battery for free by the warranty. For the moment, I could turn on and off my car. No choice, I drove back home and parked my car in the garage. After 3 hours, I had to pick my son from the camp. I couldn't start my car again. I called another road assistant on the next day, 07/19.

Regarding of my previous experience at Valvoline store, I thought the car might have more serious issue and decided to send my car to Dealers' Custom service. The result is that only my battery is warning, and Dealers Service only replaced the battery. All problems are solved.

THEN I called back to Valvoline Customer Service to request reimbursement of the payment I paid to Dealer for the replacement of the battery and the second jump-start. Then I got a claim number on 07/19. Then I got a calling from Valvoline NW Military location. They told me that since I sent my car to the dealer and replace the battery with them, the warranty is void. I argued that the reason I sent my car to dealer and let them replace for me is because your store made mistaken diagnosis. The employees told me that I didn't give chance to NW Military location to inspect on battery so it's my fault. I couldn't believe what they said. When I replaced battery, they told me that all locations of Valvoline guarantee the battery warranty. To me, it means that each location must have equal authorization to diagnose the battery and decide if the warranty covers or not. Now when I wanted to reimbursement because of their faulty diagnosis, they told me their locations work independently.

At present, I'm still waiting for their area manager's response because their locations couldn't handle this...

*Update March 2023: Mateo at the NWMilitary location helped me understand how to accurately gauge the oil level. Turns out I only needed the indicator reset on my dash but these folks are honest and caring. Thank you! * 10 Gold Stars! I should have come here so much sooner. I will not waste time or money going anywhere else. Cam is the manager and he and his crew work hard to make your visit an affordable and positive experience. Everything I needed done in one visit at a great price. Inspection, oil change, new battery, filters...and great car care advice too! I've already told my family and friends. Thank you! *Update: June 2022 - new manager Quinton and specialist Ethan helped me with more than just windshield wiper fluid and oil check..they went out of their way to help me learn how to reset my dash indicator lights. The full service center I recently had service my vehicle forgot to do this after fixing my car, and it had me thinking that the issues (ABS and VSC) weren't fixed afterall..they explained everything and also noticed that one of my brake lights was burnt out. They took care of it quickly and gave me a great deal with a $15.00 off coupon. Also, they could have insisted that my filters needed replacing like all the other places do. But, no, instead they showed them to me and told me they are in good shape. This Valvoline station is a...

I rarely leave reviews and then try to only leave positive ones. After being shuffled from one line to another and having 3 people who arrived after me have their cars serviced before me, they overfilled my oil and had to pump some out. As I was waiting I watched as they scrambled to try to get an F250 started next to me. They had done something to his battery and couldn't get his truck to consistently start after that. Apparently they sold him a battery and messed up the terminals connectors when trying to install it. When I asked why at least 2 other cars (in addition to the one that went before me when they assigned me to a line that was supposed to get me done before even one additional car) had been put in line ahead of me when I was told I would be next, the guy said "I don't know what goes on back there." That guy had spent 5-10 minutes gabbing with a guy "back there" taking to him about his old Nissan 240SX. He sure did spend a lot of time "back there" to not know what goes on "back there." Finally they charged me over $20 what I pay at my regular Valvoline IOC in Waco. Clearly there are competence issues at...