Info from Ashburn Virginia Tire & Auto (Goodyear Stores)

This message is from Marty Kelliher, Managing Partner of both Virginia Tire & Auto locations in Ashburn (Goodyear dealerships).

A customer recently made us aware of some unhappy postings about our business on this website. I have read the postings and wanted to offer some information. Hopefully, it is helpful to the many current and potential customers in Broadlands and beyond.

It is always disappointing to have even one dissatisfied customer. We work very hard to give every customer a great experience. Unfortunately, we do not always succeed. There can be many reasons. Sometimes, we have made errors. We are human and despite good intentions, we can make mistakes. Sometimes, customers misunderstand or make incorrect assumptions. Often, it is a combination of several factors.

Some of the postings state or imply that we have dishonest intentions. This is not true. Our only goal is to be of great value to the communities we serve. Nothing is more important to us than our reputation in our communities.

Some of the postings state or imply that we are an impersonal, indifferent “big business.” This is also incorrect. I am an owner of the business with my Partner Myron Boncarosky. Our group currently owns seven Virginia Tire & Auto locations in the area. We are a marquee dealer for Goodyear. Goodyear has no ownership of the businesses. Myron and I both live locally. My office is in the location next to the ice rink in Ashburn. I am normally on-site six days per week. You can learn more about our businesses at www.vatireandauto.com. Please contact me anytime there is a concern.

One of the most common problems is customer doubt about a diagnosis or recommendation. We are 100% focused on providing the most correct information possible. All of our policies, processes, training, and incentives are built around this goal. If a customer will inform us of a concern, we will double check all information. We want our customers involved in the investigation so that all questions can be resolved with full confidence. Frequently, people that give us a chance to respond become our most loyal and valued customers.

As far as we know, we do much more training of our people than anyone in our industry. We strive to have a fully trained and experienced person serve every need for every customer. Unfortunately, sometimes well-meaning junior people get in over their heads. This can contribute to a disappointing experience. If customers will alert us, we can both get a more experienced person involved and use the opportunity to train our junior people and improve our processes.

Regardless of potential causes, we ask anyone that has any concern to please contact us so that we can address it with them. We highly value every relationship and customers are often surprised by our efforts to show it.

To our many and growing loyal and happy customers, thank you for the business and please help us by providing your input to these postings.

Best regards,

Marty Kelliher,
Managing Partner
Virginia Tire & Auto
703-858-5100 (office)
703-201-3368 (mobile)

 

edit: n/m

I take my car there when its not too busy. I made an appointment once and dropped it off about half hour before the appointment. The guy I made the appointment with called and left me a pissy voice mail. When i returned his call and told him my car was already there he had nothing but attitude.

 

My family and I have been customers of the Goodyear facility at the Parkhurst Plaza location for many years and have been pleased with the work and the service. When mistakes were made, management made them right. I will continue to utilize their services as long as they continue to provide the reliable work and excellent customer service which they have in the past.

 

My husband and I take our cars there. Service is great- waiting area is clean and great for kids.

 

We utilize the Parkhurst Plaza location also. We've been customers since moving to Ashburn, and have always been very pleased with the service.

I did go to the Ice House location once to try the express oil change line as it was quite short while driving by. All I wanted was a quick oil change and was turned off by the sales pitch I received. That was a turn-off, but we'll continue to go to Parkhurst Plaza for maintenance and service work.

 

Marty, good idea to post and I applaud you for taking the time and effort. I am certainly one of the dissatisfied customers and have been around as a car owner long enough to experience my fair share of car repair places. You get high marks from me at the Icehouse location for cleanliness and amenities. Beyond that, my experiences have been so inconsistent it has been hard to know what to expect.

I will not go through all my experience here one by one... but I do think that it is more of a factor if certain employees and managers following a course of action and approach that is not always as you describe. There was enough of a negative pattern in my experiences to question the service I was receiving (all around).

You have lost me as a customer at that location. I may use them for an oil change in the future but that is about it. If someone asks me, I share my experiences. I told this to management before and let them know. And I certainly was someone who expressed concern over their service and told the manager about the Broadlands site.... so part of me is encouraged that you looked. Perhaps I was not the only one. My neighbor has had a very similar experience so I know I am not alone.

And I guess one of the examples I will mention is the practice of doing a tire rotation while performing and express oil change. Some people will just pay for it because it sounded like a good idea... but the point is, you should never perform a service on a customers car without prior authorization or agreement. That is my opinion of course but a good business practice.

 

...and one other choice example I will share. I bring a car in for technical assessment, get an estimate to repair/replace the entire exhaust system for around $500. And was told that inspection would fail. So, I go for about 10 months, and then go get a second opinion/estimate and am told that the exhaust system is fine... ok, I go back to Goodyear, say nothing and get the inspection. No mention whatsoever about the exhaust. The exhaust is not mentioned at all. So when this was explained to management - there was not much that could be said, other than "we are not sure what happened". This is just one more sample of the type of "service" I received. When something like that happens, combined with the other issues I experienced, I have to question the ability of the business to deliver quality service.

 

I just go to Ashburn Service Center in the Ashburn Village Giant parking lot. Been going there for over 8 years and have had no complaints.

 

I see the Chantilly location (Metrotech dr) is one of yours. We have had nothing but wonderful experiences there. It's close to work and they don't push ANYTHING on us. We were just there this week. We quit going to the original one in Ashburn several years ago after getting constant sales pitches and attitude. There seems to be a real disconnect between stores.

 

I have had mixed experiences.....

Whenever I take my car for regular maintenance, I had to spend at least $500....sometimes it has gone upto $1500....... When my car is serviced regularly, why would i need to spend so much on every service....either my car is totally messed up or .....

once when i did change timing belt, the service person told me that he would check with the dealer (leesburg honda) about the price/availability.....After service was all done, i wanted to check if original honda parts was used, the service person told me 'no, its not original honda parts, its after market parts'.

If I had known this earlier, I wouldn't have agreed for the service either for the price they quoted or parts they used.....

In spite of all these, i still take my car to the same service center....

 

Today I visited the Virginia Tire and Auto in Cascades to have my A/C recharged, my tires rotated and a allignment. After waiting 3 hours, the service mgr. came out and told me that my A/C compressor would need replacement quote "it is noisy", and that some "bearing" was cracked or split on my left front tire to a tune of about $1500.00. I told him to forget all of the additional mark ups and just complete the A/C service. He then came back out with a new price quote for just the A/C service and then told me I would have to come back tomorrow. The new A/C hose would not be avaialble until then. I had a previous quote from another service in my pocket and called them after I got my car. They completed the work within 2 hours and told me my compressor was fine and they could not see anything wrong with "both" of my front tires and bearings. They have lost me as a customer. I am also a Chamber member with many contacts in both the Loudoun and Dulles Rregional Chambers and will let all know my expierence.

 

I took 4 tires to get mounted and balanced. They charged me for mounting and balancing, and get this, a fee for "resetting" the TPS sensor. Hmmm, the TPS sensor resets itself automatically, I argued with the service person, he stated that the charge could not be circumvented. Since I had my ride follow me up there, I went ahead and gave my money to these cons. I've also heard friends who took their cars there to get a VA inspection and were quoted hundreds of dollars in repairs to comply. They simple rejected took it somewhere else and that was that.

 

Sorry for the novel, but if this might help someone else avoid a disaster with this company it's worth it.



I’m not one to hold grudges against a businesses due to one bad experience, but I'll share my two encounters with this company and why they’ll never get anymore business from me or anyone I talk to (I’ve convinced everyone I know to avoid them):

Two years ago I took a car there to have the Air Conditioning looked at. The car was old and I made it very clear that I was selling the vehicle (it was June) and just wanted to see if I could have the AC fixed. I figured that it would only sell for $4,500-5,000 without the AC and if I could get it running I might be able to sell it for more like $6,000. So my budget was to spend no more than $500. I told them this. I also mentioned that in a previous diagnosis of the car, there was an indication of a problem with the computer in the car and I wondered if that had anything to do with the AC failure. A code popped up during a previous inspection saying the computer was having problems when the check engine light was on (it had since turned off). I pushed for him to check it multiple times.

Completely ignoring my advice to check the computer, the shop started with a diagnostic test (about $79) and told me it was a simple fix and all I would need is more Freon. The guy said “9 out of 10 times it is just low Freon”. So they put freon in and then called the next day to tell me that a tube/seal had ruptured while doing so and needed to be replaced so it would not leak. They informed me it would just be another $50 for the tub and 2.5 hours for the labor. I was disappointed because that brought the bill up to about $550, but I told them just to go ahead with it so I could have the whole thing fixed.

The next day I came by to pick up the car and they told me that when they were running more tests they found a faulty wire that was preventing the AC from working properly. Basically they had replaced these parts, but the AC was still not working and they thought it was electrical (really…because I remember saying to check the computer). The guy reassured me that I just needed another $75 diagnostic and then he said "99 out of 100 times it is just a single crossed wire and there won't be any labor. We can check the computer after this." So they did this diagnostic and of course it wasn't just a wire (another $75 down the drain + 1 hour of labor). They had now racked up $700 in charges and the only thing I got out of it was freon that the car couldn't even use.

The guy (manager on staff at this point) proceeded to tell me that they had dismantled the entire dash in order to check for the faulty wires (I never authorized it, he said it would be just 1 hour to check for wires) and that they would wave the labor on that, but that they needed to charge me for the labor to put it back together (another 2.5 hours and $200). The guy said he found the problem to be the on board computer and I just needed to get it replaced (duh). He then said, "I know you're spending a lot here, but for just another $600 this will be all fixed". I told him I had had enough and I just wanted to car back. I was furious because I told them from the start to check the computer to see if that was the problem. He pressured me saying: “we're already going to charge you another $250 to put the car back together, so you might as well spend $600 to get the computer replaced.”

They ended up replacing the computer and giving us a final bill of $1,800 despite the last verbal figure I had received saying it would be $1,250 after the computer was replaced. I even double checked asking again “are you sure this won’t cost more than $1250 total?” and got a “Yes, Sir.” I was so outraged that I refused to pay, stating we never agreed to the 10+ hours they claim it took to do all this work. After a week the manager agreed to drop the price to $1500 (I was still looking for the $1,250 they promised it wouldn’t go above) and apologized for my extremely unpleasant experience with them.

The worst part looking back is noticing how at each stage they conned me into thinking just another $200 would fix everything. Instead of staying within my budget, they pushed me to spend small chucks more probably knowing all along they were building up towards a very large bill.

As I said, I’m not one to hold a grudge against a business – so I gave them a second chance about 6 months later on another vehicle of mine. I took it there for a routine Safety Inspection. Figured I’d be in an out quickly since this car was in prefect condition. They told me I had failed the test and needed an elbow joint replaced in the wheel… suspicious of them already I paid the inspection bill and asked for the keys because I wanted to get a second opinion up the street from a competitor. They refused to give me the keys and said that I could not drive the car anymore because it had failed the inspection. After about 20 minutes of arguing they finally released the car to be with a huge red sticker on the front saying “FAILED”… I took it up the street and Merchants said there was absolutely nothing wrong with this joint they were referring to and the car was running perfectly. In Fact, it’s now 2.5 years later and still no problem with that joint.

I think this shop is extremely unethical. I think they prey on people for business. If there isn’t a problem, they’ll make one up. For those who simply drop off a car and get it back ‘fixed’ you might want to check if they in fact even did any work on the car.

 

this is exactly what they told me from the end of my post above. When I went in for an inspection they said it was a bearing cracked in the elbow joint of the wheel (something to that effect)... and another shop told me there was no such problem. I am really convinced that this Goodyear is making up these problems to charge work they don't even do on cars.

I'm seriously considering filing a report to the BBB...

 

We've had a few negative experiences with them as well (Ice Rink location). I've found their team to be very high pressure - you go in for a simple oil change or inspection, and they want to pressure you into all sorts of work. My wife refuses to go there anymore even for an oil change because she doesn't want the high pressure sales tactics. With the economy being what it is, these have even increased (I recently went there for an inspection and had to "run the gauntlet"). I had my car serviced at the Volvo dealer a couple of weeks back, and they asked what I thought of Goodyear since they (Volvo Dealer) don't do inspections, and wanted a place they can refer their customers to for inspections - I told them to find another inspection place to refer to, because of the high pressure tactics.

I can't comment on their capabilities because we haven't had much work done there. But if their owner is still reading these posts, I would urge him to counsel his staff to provide a bit more balance between informing their customers on their qualifications; and pressuring them with sales pitches when the customer just wants specific work (I guarantee you, if I have a great experience with easy work like oil change and inspections, I will absolutely consider you for more extensive work - let your work and the customer experience do the selling for you - high pressure tactics will just turn people off).

S

 

Is this the one next to ice rink on Waxpool/farmwell?

 

It is the one on Ashburn Farm just down the street from Broad Run.

I've been extremely happy with the Merchants Tire Center like a mile up the road from there. I took one of our older cars in there once and asked to have the timing belt replaced - a pretty costly expense. The guy said "honestly, unless you're planning on keeping this car for another 50,000 miles or more I wouldn't bother." (I had mentioned to him I was on the fence about replacing it since we'd probably be getting a new car in a couple years). He actually turned down a potential $1,000+ in work because he realized it wasn't something I really needed in a car that old that I didn't plan to drive for more than another year or two.

It's really too bad more shops don't work like that. I can tell you a simple gesture like that has sealed my business for life.

 

i use Merchant's in Centreville across from where i work and they have been ACES on every visit for the past two years. wouldn't consider changing.

 

Fallon Automotive - You will NOT be disappointed.

 

CoachCal-
I hope you paid by check, then stopped payment on the check. I would have been happy to go to court and have them explain all this to a judge to get their money.

I have been a big supporter of Fallon Automotive. I had one place fail my car due to the front tires. I didn't believe them and took the car to Fallon. Not only did he pass the car, he showed me the specific regulation that proved that the car could not be failed for what I was told.