Oil Time Inc

The customer approached us on September 23rd about a malfunction of her car's cooling system. She reported to us that, two weeks after having an oil change performed at our shop, she was driving on the highway and saw smoke/steam coming from her car (an indication to us that the coolant was suddenly...

leaving the system at once) and the car was losing power and decelerating. She stated that she pulled the car over and called for a tow. Her car was towed to a repair shop where she was told that all of the coolant had left the cooling system. After notifying us of the situation, the customer told us that she was seeking compensation in the full amount of the repairs required to repair her car. We told her that we would look into the situation further before any decision was made. During all Full Service Oil Changes, our techs perform a visual check of the fluids under a car's hood and top them off when necessary, and the techs fill out a checklist that can be seen on the customer's invoice to see what was done during the service. The tech that worked on the customer's car visually checked the coolant level in the transparent plastic reservoir and the level was full, so no coolant was added. As we researched the situation further, we noticed the 8,000-9,000 mile intervals between oil changes using only conventional motor oil, which is never recommended by us. The customer claimed that her car had been serviced several times between her visits here, however an analysis of her [redacted] report showed no other entries since her first visit at our shop with the exception of a visit to the dealer for a recall on a sensor in her steering column. While this does not play an immediate part in the situation, it does show some neglect in regards to the car's maintenance. We did in fact contact the repair shop where her car was taken and spoke to the manager, who informed us that the car had been driven over 1,200 miles in the two weeks between being serviced in our shop and ending up in theirs. Given these details, we informed the customer that, given the circumstances, we felt that we could not be held liable for the unfortunate mishap with her car. OilTime is dedicated to giving the best customer service possible. With this being said, I would like to make it clear that in any event where we would be liable for damage to a customer's car, we would always make the situation right for them and make things as easy and comfortable as possible for them in the process.

The [redacted] Rewards program is a great way for customers to save money on premium [redacted] oil changes or [redacted] Professional Series services.  Unfortunately, it requires installers (such as OilTime) to redeem coupons as a hard copy and submit them back to [redacted] to be processed along...

with a corresponding invoice number for the customer's service.  These requirements do unfortunately make us look like the bad guy in situations where the customer does not have the hard copy of their coupon.  The employee who helped this specific customer did allow the customer to log in to her email on our computer and print the coupon for redemption, however she was unable to get it printed for a reason unknown to me. I would like to contact and apologize to the customer for the way that her situation turned out.