Pep Boys Auto Parts & Service

I went in today to pick up an online order I made the night before. Having compared their prices to other stores within the area, I felt the saving would be worth the travel considering I live in Great Bridge. I chose to pick up my merchandise at this location because when I used to live in VA Beach, this was the place I went for parts… over 20 years ago. Anyhow as i approached the counter, two store associates where engaged in conversation when one of them asked if I needed help. I handed him a printout of my order to which he asked «What is this?» The other associate then replied that it was an online order and without even looking at the information printed on the sheet, asked me what my name was. Dude, its printed on the sheet… As I answered his question, the other associate resumed his conversation of having to get his cell phone repaired and about the drama his wife/​girlfriend or whatever was giving him. Through out their conversation, the one associate who was typing in my order into the computer would repeatedly ask me what my name was as with other information he was clearly not listening for. Possible due to being distracted by the conversation he was having with his coworker. Look man, all I wanted to do was just pickup my parts and go but I guess this employee felt that his troubles needed to be shared with everyone, including the customers. At this point is when I decided to pick up my phone and check-​in to Unilocal right in front of them to see if it would stir something up… it didn’t. They proceeded yapping out their drama and have me wait. Just to give you some insight as to what I was thinking at that time, when I visited a Pep Boys in Connecticut a few years ago awaiting an oil change in the waiting room, a newly hired employee was watching a training video on ‘customer service’. It explained how much more important it was now than it was in the past due to the advent of the internet and how online reviews can really hurt a business. Now I am assuming they might have watched this video but if not, management needs to make it happen and if so, they may need some refresher training because these employees obviously forgot. Anyhow, after a few minutes of listening to the one associate’s drama, the other associate heads to the back to retrieve my merchandise. When he returns, he hands me my parts without so much looking at me and or even a response. Well then, I apologize for interrupting your ‘bro-​ment’ but If this is how this location conducts business, I’ll be sure to let others know, and recommend they either go to the Norfolk location or if it is parts they need, to just order it through Amazon and save themselves gas, time and extremely rude/​horrible service. One last thing for Joe D., don’t bother asking me to reach out to anyone, I am not here to do your job for you. Maybe if you did your job, this location would’t have so many issues.

I’m shocked at some of the bad reviews regarding this Pep Boys service. I’ve been purchasing my tires (SUV) from this Pep Boys for 15+ years. I’ve had various services done throughout the years and only one problem that I can think of. I had a nail in my tire a few years ago — and since I purchased the tires from PB, they fixed the tire at no charge. However, later that day (or the next day) I noticed the tire was going flat again. Took it back and they actually found the nail and took it out — fixed the tire. Again, no charge. My most recent experience was yesterday. My 68 month old Die Hard battery finally ‘died’ … time to get a new one. I’ve always purchased Die Hard batteries from Sears — and called them for a new one and an appointment. The woman on the phone (Angelia) told me she’d call me back because she was with another customer. Within 20 minutes she called back. After giving her my SUV information, she told me a battery would cost $ 250!!! I about fell over. I told her the last time I purchased a battery from Sears it was $ 120. She began to tell me, «But that was in 2009, this is 2015!» THANK YOU for telling me what I already know, but I refuse to spend $ 250 on a battery. I called Pep Boys — spoke with Mark, he was very helpful and quoted the battery, tax, install, etc for $ 145. Sounds great. Made an 8:30am appointment for Friday. I showed up at 8:15am for my appointment. Al (manager) informed the lady assisting me (Markham A Tanner is what the receipt has on it) to «Have Dean put her battery in.» Once the paper work was filled out — I heard her tell Dean to take care of the battery. Approximately 8:30 my truck was in the service bay. About 30 minutes later, I was informed the battery that Mark had quoted me wasn’t going to fit and the new battery would be $ 10 higher. No biggie — still beats Sears. The time on my receipt is 9:18am. All-​in-​all — as usual (for me) my experience at this Pep Boys was excellent. I TRULY appreciate Al’s outstanding customer service each and every time. He’s all about business — and is straight forward with what needs to be done/​costs/​etc. I would highly recommend this Pep Boys — Al and his service team.

Took my truck in to get 4 new tires, and the front end aligned and while the staff was very friendly, the quality of work was substandard. As I drove off, my truck was pulling to the right worse than when I took it in, no big deal, called them, they gladly re-​aligned it the next week, and wouldn’t you know it, still pulling to the right. I decided to take my truck to the dealership, told them the story and they said it was incorrectly aligned and my valve stem on one of my new tires had a tear or rip in it from poor installation. Luckily the dealership replaced my valve stem for free and charged me half for the alignment after they heard my story and I showed them my reciept from pep boys of the work they did the previous week. I will never take any vehicle of mine their ever again nor do I advise anyone else to either.

I went into the Pep Boys #100 on lynnhaven parkway in Virginia Beach, on 08/​19/​2014 for a new battery. I had ordered it online and made arrangements to be picked up by a friend so I didn’t have to wait there. I paid for the battery installation pack that was $ 9.99. Everything went fine and I picked up my car later that day. Well I got an oil change last Thursday 10/​02/​2014 at a local autoshop and the mechanic there informed me that my negative battery terminal was corroding. I told him I had just had a new battery installed and they should have cleaned it then. He told me it looked as if none of that was done. There were no felt washers and there was a mound of corrotion on my NEW battery. I was not too happy. Brought it back in to Pep Boys on10/​06/​2014 and though they were quick to get it fixed they did not bother to apologize (not a single person apologized) or offer any sort of compensation for my wasted time, and I’m pretty sure I talked to the manager for a brief moment when he happened to walk in. I told him I was there because I got a battery replaced and paid for the extra service and it was not done. He kind of just shrugged it off and said «oh so and so must be going to go get the stuff to do it». Did not show any concern that I had paid for a service that was not done on my vehicle. I am your typical don’t know a whole lot about cars woman and am so sad and angry that I can not trust that the services I pay for will be DONE the FIRST time. I would not have even thought that I would have to check and see if the battery terminals were serviced. I guess what really gets me is the lack of accountablity or surprise from the staff that a service was not completed on my vehicle. I will NOT be taking my vehicle back to that location and it has definitely put a bad taste in my mouth for Pep Boys.

Manager contacted me to find out what happened and apologized. I’m updating the review to reflect the call.

Today, Pep Boys was a total bust.
I had an appointment for 5pm on a Saturday, simply for a new car battery. I called, priced my battery out, and made an appointment.
Staff was very friendly, I do give them that.
BUT we waited close to 2 hours, only to find out that they could not replace it — that my battery sockets are reversed, and that they do not have my type of battery in stock, and could not replace my battery. We waited forever.
My only fault is that I didn’t approach the desk earlier, like maybe an hour into it, to check on the status. I think it would have been realized earlier (maybe even 10 mins of working on it), that it could not be done. My mom said that maybe they didn’t even get to it til close to 2 hours later, even after the appointment.
I wish I could write a positive review on the experience, but can not.

Time to service the car and I wanted a national chain in case there were any problems. So I made an appointment online, printed a 10% off coupon and headed over first thing in the morning.
The service manager who wrote up my order was friendly and efficient. He asked me a few questions, confirmed what I wanted done, and told me that my car would be ready in a little while.
A little while later, my car was ready. No more wobble at 70mph (I asked for the tires to be rotated and balanced)! I also had them replace the belt that a previous service person had said needed to be replaced. And somehow, I’ve driven 3000 miles in the last two months, so we did an oil change too.
With the 10% off coupon, it came to $ 201. Most of that was the serpentine belt.
Only one small complaint — I asked them to check the brakes but only now I’m remembering that they never told me about them.

We brought our car in for an alignment after calling and they told us to come in at 6pm. We came, and left the car for an hour and a half (the amount of time they told us) we came back to find out there was a problem when they tried to do it and to bring it back tomorrow at 9. The next day I brought it back 15mins prior to the scheduled appointment. I had to wait over two hours before it was even brought onto the lift. And another hour for it to be finished. We will never be taking our business here again. There is a reasons appointments are made!

This Pepboys location is top notch. Skilled mechanics with degrees. I brought in my 2002 BMW 530i. I was very nervous because I am visiting out of town. Radiator hose leak and power steering hose leak
The mechanic assured me of his experience and qualifications. They ordered the parts from BMW and the quote reasonable.
The evening shift (after 5) is the crew you want to see. I would go back if I’m in town.

We only came here to pick up some adhesive and typically it would just be a grab and go situation but it wasn’t. We got what we needed and it took more than 5 minutes before someone came to the register to check us out. Other than that, we found what we needed with no problem.

Have never visited this location before but stopped in to find some leather care and something to try to get some scratches out of my car’s console plastic.
This location is fairly clean with a large parking lot and a large area on the side for tires.
When you first enter you can go to the right for the service area (there was a HUGE line) and this is where the single bathroom was located which I used because I was going to pee myself… it’s a his/​her and it wasn’t filthy but it was fairly simple and manly which is to be expected in a place like this… greasy clean I call it.
Anyway, I wandered around a bit and looked at the mostly car items located inside. They have wipers, car items like license plate holders, seat covers, batteries, headlight parts, paint correctors and a HUGE cleaning section with wax, wash solution, metal shine stuff, tire cleaner and leather care.
I finally picked a few items and paid and the gal up front was friendly and helpful, I signed up for a rewards card where I think you get one point for every $ 1 you spend… I doubt I’ll accrue that much since I’ve never been here in seven years but why not, I’ll add it to my never ending collection in the bottom of my purse! I’ll dig it out in 10 years and get another $ 20 points!
All in all — standard and it did the job for me.

I went to this place the other day and left extremely dissatisfied with the service. Oh, and did I mention nothing got done? I went in to have my check engine light decoded — a service that is prominently advertised on their website as being free. When I explained what I was there for, the man behind the counter told me it would be 48 dollars. I said I thought it was free, and he told me that the decoding was free but the diagnostic was not. Now, I’ll be the first to admit I know next to nothing about cars, but I thought that was odd. I asked him what the difference was. He told me the decode would give me a code, yes, but the diagnostic would tell me what was wrong with the car and what I’d need to do to fix it.
Now here’s where the experience got bad. Like I said, I’m a bit of a car dunce. So I called my dad for advice. He looked up on the website that the decode was, indeed, a free service, and that if I got the code, I could google it to see what was wrong with my car. So I reiterated to the man helping me that I just wanted the code read, not the diagnostic. (Keep in mind that I’m a student — I’m trying to pinch pennies here.)
At this point, another man behind the counter who had been on the phone slammed his handset down, turned around and raised his voice at me, asking me what I was doing here if all I wanted was the code read. I said, «well, you all offer the service for free, so I came, but I admit I don’t know much about cars or repairs or anything, could you explain to me again what the diagnostic is?» The man who had just yelled at me got even more aggressive towards me, coming up to the counter, slamming his hands down, and basically getting in my face. Raising his voice even more, he said «he just explained it to you! What more do you need to know? If you just wanted a code read, you shouldn’t have come here!» I said «But it is a service you offer.»
He continued to get aggressive with me but at this point I decided to leave. I asked for my keys back, and he angrily yelled into the garage, went in and slammed the door behind him. I’d done nothing to warrant the aggression but ask for a service that is advertised on their website. When I got my keys, I left and took my business somewhere else. If this is how Pep Boys treats their customers, they’ve lost my business forever, and I wanted to warn others that they may experience this treatment if they come to this place of business. Please consider going somewhere else for your auto repair needs.

By far the WORST experience that I have had with an auto shop. I wasted two weekends there trying to get my vehicle inspected. After the first weekend, and all day wait I was informed that the vehicle didn’t pass inspection. They quoted me $ 900 for the work, but I went to advanced auto and got all the parts and did it myself for $ 120. I took it back the next weekend and dropped it off at 9AM. Nobody called me all day, I had to call them. By 5PM I got frustrated that it hadn’t even been looked at yet. The first call I got was from the manager at 8:30PM after they closed, after multiple calls and waiting for Dynell to figure out where there could possibly be a manager. He told his manager that they had contacted me a few times, but that was incorrect. Also, Dynell had the nerve to say that «we’ll have to figure out who is telling the truth». They have a serious lack of communication in this shop, and they are scam artists. They had zero sense of urgency, because they weren’t getting my money. I ended up having to leave it there overnight. I show up Sunday at 11AM and my car is still on the rack! So now I had to wait until they took it off again. Aside from their lack of communication and urgency, they damaged the front mudflap while lifting the vehicle. Their excuse? «It pops back after awhile», but there is obvious stress fractures in this hard plastic. BEWARE OF THESE PEOPLE!

Hubby went here today to exchange a couple of car parts. He thought there might be a problem since he didn’t have his original receipt, but the Parts Mgr., Lisa, was very helpful. She gladly exchanged the 2 parts for what we needed, no hassle — (thankfully, since the parts were around 60 dollars… no need to be spending any extra $ this time of year!)
If you fix your vehicle yourself, stop here. Their prices are competitive and they often offer rebates.
I would recommend this store based on the smooth experience of today. And the store wasn’t busy on a Saturday afternoon either.