David L.

We purchased a Groupon for an oil change from YourMechanic. Their representative, Wesley, came to our home to change the oil on our 2007 Honda Odyssey. After he performed the service, which took just over 2 hours to perform, he came to the door and said the job was finished and everything "looked great," and that there were just a couple "little things" that we might want to address that he would email to us. Later that day I discovered a large puddle of oil on the driveway underneath the car. Since I had been told that the job had been completed and everything "looked great," I assumed Wesley had simply spilled the oil. I was disappointed that he hadn't mentioned it, as it had defaced our driveway. Unfortunately, I did not realize what a problem it really was, especially since he never sent the promised email or communicated with us in any way.

A week later the car began to stall, refusing to drive more than 10 miles an hour and showing a VSA sensor code error. Thinking we had a sensor problem, we took the car to a reputable service center who discovered that the engine only had a half quart of oil left. Had we kept driving, it was less than a week away from engine seizure. It turned out the large puddle of oil left on our driveway came from stripped threads in the oil pan (i. E., the bolt was screwed in cross threaded).

The service center said it was clear that Wesley from YourMechanic had tried to cram the bolt into the oil pan, damaging it and causing most of the oil to leak out of the car. The service center installed an oil pan fix kit for a cost of $200, which makes this the most expensive oil change we've ever had. We contacted YourMechanic and Ms. Watts (phone representative) said that she understood the situation and she would take care of it. She asked us to send her the receipts and photos from the repair, which we did. Then she never contacted us as promised so we called her. As she didn't answer, we left a voice mail and were called by her supervisor, Manny at 10:20am on 9/11/2015. He informed us that his mechanic Wesley told him we already had an oil leak and that there were already oil stains on the driveway when he arrived. This is not true. We have never had an oil leak with the car. There have never been any oil stains on our driveway until after Wesley changed the oil. This is clearly evident in the pictures we sent as there are no "old" oil stains in the driveway where we park the van. The Supervisor also said he showed our photos to a "Honda expert" who said the bolt wasn't a Honda bolt. We have no reason to believe it is anything other than a Honda bolt since we have never changed it.

Regardless, Wesley never said there was a problem and in fact said everything "looked great" and did not alert us to any potential issues with the oil pan in person or by email. Since YourMechanic is a full service company, it is clear that if we had a problem with the oil pan/bolt Wesley should have told us up front what the problem was and that it would need to be fixed instead of telling us everything was great and leaving us with a car that was leaking bad enough to create an oil slick under it and causing us to nearly lose the engine. Why not tell us the situation unless he himself was the cause of it and felt a need to hide it from us? It is common industry practice that if there is an observed issue, the shop will immediately let the customer know in order to prevent such situations as this has created. Case in point, I had another car (Acura Integra) that I took in for an oil change just a week earlier to a Jiffy Lube and was told about the need to replace a rocker arm cover gasket as it was leaking oil. That information enabled me to make a conscious decision about risks and issues currently present and the associated proposed solution. Unfortunately, Wesley stripped the threads so bad that even the oil pan fix kit was insufficient to eliminate the oil leak. As a result, we are going to need to install a new oil pan at an estimated cost of $400. That makes the total cost of YourMechanic's mistake to being over $600 in addition to the original cost of the oil change. We are unclear to the reasoning that YourMechanic is not willing to stand behind their errors. This is poor business practice.

Finally, we made a complaint to the BBB... Your Mechanic never responded. I seriously suggest you do all you can to avoid this service as they don't stand behind their work.