Firelands Chevrolet Vermilion — Attraction in Vermilion Township

TL;DR: Wow, what a change in experience! In case you don't want to read all the way through, it took SEVEN HOURS to do an oil change and mount tires. Per the sassy shop advisor, they are not properly trained to install tires unless they are their own. So if you're part of the 15% of people who buy tires at a dealership, they can take care of you.

I was so excited about this place last time I came here. Even though it took three hours to do an oil change, I didn't think much of it and let it go. Oh, how experiences can vary.

I made a 1000 appointment for an oil change, tire install, and alignment. If you've ever done any of this before, an oil change takes a half hour or so. Tire mounting and install should be a half hour or so. Alignment, less than a half hour. I rounded all this up to an hour each. Figured at the VERY LATEST, it would take three hours. So say 1300, right? Well I arrived at 0900 and they offered to give me a lift home. Odd, it shouldn't take too long, but whatever, I'll hang out at home. When I asked about the time frame, they said it should be a little bit. No real estimate. Mark signed me up for text message updates, and told me he would call when the tires were installed regarding the alignment.

So I'm doing stuff around the house, and realize, it has been HOURS and no update. No text message, no call, nothing. So I tried to call Mark back, and the receptionist said he is not at the desk, but will call me back as soon as he returns. This was at 1430, FOUR and a half hours after my appointment, five and a half hours after I dropped my car off. Another hour and a half goes by, no calls, no text message updates. So I call again, and wait for someone to answer and give me an update- at 1600, this was SIX hours after my appointment, SEVEN hours after I dropped it off. For an oil change and tire mount!

So I wait for them to pick me up, and the guy who is driving said they were finally starting the alignment when he left, and it should be done by time we get there. I asked him about why it could take so long, and he said he had no clue. He did say he was wondering why it was sitting around the shop and no one was doing anything with it.

We get there, and apparently they just got done with it. 1741, they ring me up. They didn't do an alignment and said it was fine. So from my appointment time to checkout, it took SEVEN HOURS AND FORTY ONE MINUTES to do an oil change and tire mount. Of course I was polite and didn't take out my frustration on the tech and receptionist. They had no clue how it could take so long, and left it at "Sorry it took so long."

As I went to the car, the four boys standing around looking at the car giggled away, and said "it was a beautiful day to have the car out driving." I found that a bit snide, and couldn't help but respond with "If my car wasn't here for seven hours to get an oil change, I'd have been able to drive it today." In came the sassy shop advisor. He seemed to be very offended that I wasn't pleased with the wait. Apparently this is par for the course, and I should be grateful to have waited. He then went on about how he was generous to let me bring in my own tires, and he is risking liability by installing tires not sourced by him. He has "never heard of someone bringing in tires" and said "we can't do that." Obviously that's a load of garbage, 17 million tires a year are bought online and installed. Tirerack actually has 18 recommended places to install them in Vermillion, though none of them are Pat O Brien. I guess when I ordered tires POB sells and recommends for my car, I shouldn't have taken them to POB. They were polite enough to take the receipt off of the tires and staple it to my invoice.

But I get why. Had I bought the tires from POB, they would have been $470 more. In case you're looking for tire services, Kasper Toyota and Porsche of North Olmsted are authorized by Tirerack to service...

2023 Chevy Bolt EV 1LT with power/heated seats/steering wheel package and cloth seats. Purchased in 2024. Lorain, Ohio. I had been shopping Bolts for almost two years and finally all variables fell into place to get the best price with the least hassle. Except now there were only three Bolts fitting my requirements within 200 miles. After initially limiting myself to either White or Bright Blue Metallic, and after placing a deposit with another dealership (that did not have their IRS rebate papers approved yet and thus would return my down payment) I decided to give the much closer Firelands Chevrolet a call on their in-stock Gray Ghost Metallic Bolt (it matches the few gray hairs I now have). Speaking with Shawn Kipp on the phone and explaining my situation with the other dealership, he agreed to match their price and took a $500 credit card down payment to hold the car. Several days later, working with Brady Christopher and Heather Boggs, after about one hour of paperwork, I wrote a check for the remainder of the Bolt, and my wife and I drove out with only the second new car I have ever purchased. Days later I sold my Nissan Leaf to a private owner, thus completing another obligatory new car purchase transaction. The GM stoppage of Bolt production and the 2024 upfront IRS EV Tax Credit motivated me to overcome my love-hate relationship with dealerships and finally make this purchase. As well as the fine reviews written/videoed about the Bolt EV. I am very satisfied with the buying experience I had with Firelands Chevrolet of Vermilion! It was a nice touch having the car parked out front with my name on a SOLD sticker hanging from the inside mirror. Brady also sent me a short, personalized video of the car immediately after I first spoke with Shawn, having not even seen the car in person, just internet photos. Another nice touch! (I gave both Shawn and Brady grief several times over not removing the $75 cargo net that I had no use for. And, once again here! However, they treated me fairly, didn't dance around with pricing and other silly mark-ups and add-ons, so I was not put into a mood to walk out over $75. And, believe me, I can be quite stubborn about this stuff. Oh well, maybe I can use it on my sailboat.) Probably the last car I will...

My 2017 Spark air conditioning freezes up and no cold air blows out after running and driving it for 15+ min. I took it in to be serviced in March and explained the issue stating you had to be driving the car for the issue to happen. They never drove it, left it running in service stall for an hour and said it couldn’t be recreated and that it was due to the ambient temperature.

Summer is here and it happens every time we use the air conditioner, so I made an appt, drove it to the dealership with the issue happening and kept the car running so they could see what I meant. They didn’t get the tech and said “ok” we’ll look at it. I didn’t have a good feeling when I left at 9:30 am. We finally got a call at 5:30 pm and they said the cabin filter was really dirty and they think that’s the issue.

We paid them $190 which didn’t include the $77 filter because we said we would take care of that at Autozone.

The next day I drove it and it happened again, so I called and they asked me to bring it over right then. 3 technicians got in the car talked and did whatever and after about 20 min they said it was the fan motor and it would be another $380 dollars to replace it.

We asked what the $190 was for the day before. The said “diagnostics” which they obviously didn’t diagnose correctly the first time. The service manager even claimed he gave us a “deal” on the diagnostics. He didn’t seem to grasp that the problem was never diagnosed properly (I.e. cabin filter). We felt they were just guessing!

They were rude and indignant and we were pretty sure it was another guess because all 4 of the fan speeds work fine. In my fifty years of driving, I have never been treated so rudely by a service manager.

We will never go back to them nor will we every buy...