The truth is that using the Wal-Mart Auto Center in Corydon has its perks. First, Wal-Mart is just about the cheapest place in the Louisville area to get new tires or to have your oil changed. Second, you don’t have to make an appointment, and you can have your car serviced in the evening when most auto shops are closed. However, these perks pale in comparison to the extreme incompetence of everyone you come in contact with at the Wal-Mart Auto Center in Corydon.
Dropping My Car Off
I decided to take my car to the Wal-Mart Auto Center in Corydon more out of convenience than any confidence in their mechanical ability – I needed two new tires and an oil change, and I knew that taking it to Wal-Mart would save me from having to go to two different places. I hadn’t had good experiences with this particular Wal-Mart Auto Center in the past, but I figured that this was something they couldn’t possibly mess up. I figured wrong.
I dropped my car off with the mechanics at 1 p.m. and headed to Louisville. When they were taking my information, I gave them my phone number and told them I was heading to Louisville and to call me if there were any problems. When I headed back toward Corydon at 5 p.m. and hadn’t received a call from Wal-Mart, I assumed my car would have new tires when I returned.
First Trip Back
As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed that my old tires were still on my car. When I went in to find out what the problem was, they explained that one of my tires was missing a lug nut, and they couldn’t change them without a full set of lug nuts. That was fine; I wasn’t going to question their protocol. However, I couldn’t help but ask why they hadn’t called me and told me about the problem four hours ago. “Well, we paged you over the intercom, but you didn’t come,” he said.
“I wasn’t here – I told them to call me if there was a problem because I was leaving town for a few hours,” I told him. “Well, the man working on it didn’t know that,” was his response. This was an unacceptable response to me because the first thing they do when you drop your car off is ask for your phone number. “Isn’t it common sense to call someone when they don’t come within four hours of you paging them in the store?” I received no response to this.
What I needed to do, he told me, was drive over to Auto Zone, buy a lug nut, put it on the car, and bring the car back. Then they could change my tires. It seemed ridiculous that a place that changed tires wouldn’t have lug nuts in stock, but I put a lug nut on the car either way and took it back at around 5:30 p.m. They said they would get to it shortly.
Second Trip Back
I returned to Wal-Mart for the second time at 7:30 that evening. At this point, my car had been there for six and a half hours, and there still weren’t any tires on my car. Infuriated, I went back in and asked what the problem was this time. Their response was that I had lost my place in line when I didn’t return after they paged me the first time around. I told them that was unacceptable – my car had been there all day, and it wasn’t my problem that they hadn’t called me like I’d asked them to if for some reason they couldn’t change the tires.
I asked for my keys back and told them I would just take the car somewhere else. Rather than offering an apology or even an incentive for all of my trouble, they just handed me the keys back and attempted to make more excuses. I had wasted a whole day trying to get tires and still didn’t have any. At that point, every other store was closed or getting ready to close, so I’d have to spend another day trying to do the same thing.
To Top It All Off
As though it couldn’t get any worse, when I got to my car it wouldn’t start. One of the mechanics had left the interior light on in my car at some point in the day, and the battery was dead. They sent someone out to jump the car after I informed the "manager" of the problem. Needless to say, I will never return to the Corydon Wal-Mart Auto Center for so much as an oil change.
Pros
- It’s cheap, but you get what you pay for
- Convenient if you don’t plan on leaving the store
Cons
- Everything else – employees are completely incompetent and unapologetic
