Blain's Farm & Fleet - Decatur, Illinois — Local services in Decatur

I have been going to Blaine’s farm and fleet for oil changes and minor service for years. Over the past couple years the service has completely went down hill. The service manager isn’t even competent enough to change oil in a vehicle let along do anything else. Then when he makes mistakes he is too much of a coward to directly face the customer instead he has the kids working at the service desk deal with the customers. On two occasions they have messed up oil changes in my vehicles. The first was on my truck the service manager was actually the person completing the oil change at first everything was fine after about a month later I pulled into my driveway and found oil pouring out of my truck upon further inspection I found that the oil filter was loose and had never been tightened up. This is completely unacceptable for a normal technician literally simple basics of an oil change but even worse when it’s the service manager running the department that fails to tighten up the oil filter. The service manager the whole time relied on the kids at the tire desk to explain things to me to avoid conflict. The second vehicle I brought in for a routine oil change and once again for about two weeks everything was fine until all the sudden the car started to leak oil and started to throw a electronic throttle body error code. Upon investigating found that the car had been overfilled with oil and that appeared to have cause the pan gasket to leak. The car was overfilled with enough oil. I called farm and fleet and talked with the store manager as this isn’t the first time I’ve had issues with the automotive service department. He took down my information then had the same incompetent service manager that can’t tighten oil filters call me. He asked me to bring the car in so they could inspect it. I took pictures of the dip before going in as I had a bad feeling about dealing with the same person again. The service manager went out to get my car took him about 15 mins to finally pull the car into the shop. He put it on the lift they assured me they would check it out. He then sent one of the tire desk associates to get me and all the sudden the car is not overfilled with oil anymore and he informed me that the pan gasket was leaking. At that point I realized nothing was going to get done not to mention I wouldn’t trust them to make the repairs so I opted to just complete the repairs myself. Upon making the repair I pulled the throttle body and found an excessive amount of oil causing it to gum up another result of the incompetence from the service department. The service at the Decatur Farm and Fleet automotive department is absolutely atrocious. The service manager is completely incompetent and too much of a coward to deal with customers. It’s absolutely sad to see how bad things have got in the automotive department they are in need of new management! I definitely will not go in for service at the Decatur Farm and Fleet until they fix the obvious deficiencies...

At Blain’s Farm & Fleet, I arrived seeking only tires, four simple circles of rubber to keep my vehicle tethered to the crumbling asphalt of modern existence. Yet even here, in a store devoted to the most practical needs of earthly life, bureaucracy rose like a smiling predator. I had stated, clearly and with hope unbecoming of someone who ought to know better, that I did not want the additional tire warranty. A small request. A humble plea. But hope is a fragile currency, and at the auto counter it buys you nothing.

They added it anyway.

What followed was a ritual humiliation masquerading as retail procedure. A refund receipt was printed as though by divine shrug, and I stood at the register for ten long minutes watching a cashier wrestle with the computerized serpent that guards the gates of every big-box store. Time pooled around me like stagnant water. A manager arrived, not a hero, but merely another exhausted soul, and eventually the system relented. Brief victory. Hollow relief.

Then, like a cruel echo in an indifferent universe, the phone call came the next day: The payment was wrong. You must return. You must repeat the ordeal. The message delivered not with apology, but with the inevitability of gravity.

This place does not simply sell tires. It sells the lesson that no task is too small to be ruined, no moment too mundane to be complicated by human error wrapped in corporate procedure. A place where competence goes to wander, confused and barefoot, through the fluorescent wasteland of customer service.

Two stars: one for eventually fixing the payment the first time, one for the unintentional philosophical clarity they provided. Some institutions don’t just fail; they remind you that order is an illusion, and we are all just waiting in line for someone...

Went to local Farm and Fleet to get struts for my car. 2 months later...thats how long i was without my car, they had to take it to the local Ford dealership to fix what they tore up. In the end they had to replace transmission!! Thats how bad they tore up my car. I called customer service ..several times..got 1 call back and no action. Never got any good answer. Then i felt threatened when they told me i wasnt to contact them again. Who do i contact about customer services customer service?? I did not contact a lawyer or anything. Farm and Fleet did have to turn into insurance because the cost was so high and finally got me a rental for most of the time i didnt have my own car. At one point they had an insurance guy give an estimate after he GOOGLED about my car. I didnt get a total refund on this experience either. My car still does not run correctly and now has a transmission fluid leak that im now...