Midas

On 11÷10÷15, my car overheated while on business travel in Austin and Midas @ 4001 Guadalupe Street was the closest automotive repair shop.
In summary, this facility explained that the problem was the thermostat and that they would replace it. On 11÷11÷15, I received a phone call from the manager, John, stating that they thermostat housing was accidentally broken during the repair but they would make it right by me on the final bill. When I arrived at the facility to get my car, he showed me the thermostat housing and explained that the piece that had broken off was the reason for the car overheating in the first place. He went to great lengths to show me that the broken piece from the thermostat had fallen into the housing which prevented the unit from opening and closing as normal and that replacing the housing would fix the issue. This made no sense to me since his technicians were the ones that broke the housing when trying to remove it. But, I was desperate to get it repaired and went along with the story.
$ 761.45 dollars later, I left their facility and the car overheated again only 5 minutes down the road. I called John to explain what had happened and that I was taking the car to another dealership for repair. He asked me to call him back after the repair was complete to let him know about the diagnosis. I managed to make to a hotel where I spent an additional $ 199 on a room because I had to book it so late in the afternoon — no other rooms were available nearby.
I contacted my roadside repair company and had the car towed to another dealership the following morning, ¹¹⁄₁₂. Later that day, this dealership called to say that the problem was the water pump had malfunctioned. They went on to explain that when a water pump malfunctions, it is obvious (if you know what you are doing) because water is dripping from the unit. My car was repaired under warranty for no charge.
As instructed, I called John @ Midas to explain what I had found out. He said that he and/​or his manager, or both, would contact me to discuss our next steps. I never received that phone call.
I disputed the charge with my credit card company but my dispute was denied after they received a letter from John stating that 1) I called them from San Antonio the following day after the repair stating that the car had broken down again — FALSE! 2) that I told them the radiator had broken resulting in the car leaking coolant — FALSE! This is a perfect example of scam artists at their worst!
While I am certainly not done fighting this, I wanted to alert the public to the risk you take if you use Midas @ 4001 Guadalupe Street in Austin. If you want your tires replaced or your oil changed, maybe these are your guys.
Anything repair outside of that — BUYER BEWARE! John and his crew are used car salesmen and don’t have your best interest at heart.

Came in for a vehicle inspection last week. Found out I needed new front tires. They quoted me over $ 400! I went to Daves Ultimate and got them installed for $ 280! Now I’m held hostage here on my only day off waiting for the inspector. He wasn’t here yesterday. I don’t have time for this shit! This place sucks! If Daves Ultimate was open, I would go get it re inspected there, it would be worth the $ 7.00!

Avoid this place at all costs! The customer service is terrible, they kept telling me my car would be on the lift in 15 minutes and kept me waiting. I had to go back and both time I waited almost an hour each time for any sort of communication.
I know enough about cars that I know what needed to be done and was assured that it would all be covered under warranty. After waiting an hour for them to look at it and tell me what’s going on, I had to leave to catch the bus and make it to work. Within 15 minutes of leaving, they called to tell me they needed to replace more parts because they were rusted (which is understandable because the car is originally from New England) and it was going to be $ 400. The worst part was that Scott couldn’t even explain exactly what they had to do. He just kept saying they needed to replace a pipe I asked which pipe, because the resonator pipe as well as the tail pipe were under warranty. He just said, uh, the pipe needs to be replaced. Then, he tried to say they had to order a dual pipe and that would take a day to arrive. This is when I knew he was jerking me around because there is no need for a dual exhaust on my vehicle and it didn’t have one to begin with. I declined to have service done, called the local mechanic and got a quote for a ¹⁄₃ of the price.
To top it all off, when I picked up my car, the estimate papers just said «exhaust pipe», which confirmed my suspicion he was lying to me about the parts being under warranty. Also, I looked under the car and could hardly see any rust.
Clearly he didn’t want to provide the warranty work that this corporation offers. What a bunch of thieves.

They are super speedy and give me great recommendations for my baby «Samantha» each time I come in before my 1,000 mile trips to and from college!

Took my vehicle in for a battery change. Shop worker ended up running it into one of their trucks while moving it into the stall, heavily damaging the rear bumper. This was disappointing, but accidents happen and as long as they offer to cover damages I can understand. However, shop manager was unconcerned about the whole circumstance and still tried to charge me for the work. I resisted and he relented, but made like he was doing me a huge favor by zeroing out the charge. I’m currently still dealing with getting the bumper repaired and working with Midas’ insurance company, who said the manager should have made an offer to cover the repairs on the spot.

I went to the Guadalupe location to have the work done at the Ben White location rechecked. Turns out, Ben White did the job correctly, but of course, as has been the case with Midas, left with a $ 500 estimate for more work to get done on my car.
I’d like to point out that the gentlemen I dealt with were superb in their Customer Service skills. Mark, the manager, was a bit stand offish, but I can let that slide ’cause he looked busy. He did close the entire transaction.
The estimates I’ve gotten at Midas, initially $ 2000 for three separate jobs (at the Ben White location) I was able to complete for $ 500. I’m sure this new estimate, I can get done for $ 100, parts included. I agree that gouging might be a business practice.

What a joke of a business. I brought my car in to have them look at the struts. They swore the struts were perfect, but I’ll need new rotors and brake pads for all 4 wheels… A steal at $ 1300. Thank god I got a second opinion– at the Midas in Georgetown no less– because my struts were actually totally shot and my rotors needed no work at all. This garage is exactly the kind of garage that gives the industry a bad name. Stay away… So far away.

I went in for an oil change and I had expected a quick turn around. There was a delay but the management was very friendly and generous. The manager also showed me that my tire’s tread was cracked and suggested that I replace the tire. I thanked him but did not feel pressured into buying the tire from Midas. I found their customer service very professional and would return. Thanks

I came in this morning with a flat tire after swinging by 3 gas stations with broken air stations. The guys here filled up my flat and checked each tire for me within 2 minutes of me pulling up and didn’t charge me a dime.
Thanks for making my morning that much better — many good karma points guys

I took my 2013 Honda Fit in for an oil change (the first oil change I have had on it). Anyway, the guy at the counter said he suspects that the new Honda Fit requires synthetic oil.
When I got home I checked the manual, and it says it recommends non-​synthetic oil, so I was upset and called and chewed the guy out a bit. He pushed back and said that the oil cap says 0W-​20 (which I checked and it does) and that it had to be synthetic. I did some reading online, and it appears that there are few to no 0W-​20 oils that are not synthetic, so the guy ended up being correct.
I had a good (but limited) experience here.

Update: The manager was very kind and offered to refund the full price of labour and shop fee (~300 dollars). He was very polite and courteous and did everything he could to take care of my car, including overseeing my service himself. My car is now ready and I will be picking it up soon.

Scheduled an appointment for 11:30am which was confirmed via email, arrived and was informed there was no appointment because it did not «click through». Listened to two employees yell at one another about getting off their personal cell phones. Was informed I needed a new catalytic converter, $ 1300 quote… took it elsewhere, turns out the sensor is bad and just needed to be replaced. I will never, ever return to a Midas location. I also contacted Midas Corporate to share my experience.

Like others have said below, I feel Midas tries to take advantage of customers who do not know much about cars.
I live down the street from these guys and would love to give them business as it’s very convenient for me to drop by car off and have work done on it here. But after my last visit, I will not come here again.
I’ve gone to Midas twice. The first was December 2013. I needed some routine car work done, but at this time what was really worrying me was that my TPS light kept coming on and I had to make a 10-​hour car trip soon for the holidays. When I dropped off my car, I asked them to please take a good look at the tires. I was told the tires were probably changing pressure due to change in weather. Despite this, I asked them to please just double check.
Hours later when I got the call to pick up my car, I asked if they had noticed anything wrong with the tires. They told me they hadn’t checked but would and give me a call. When I did get the final call, Midas told me there was nothing wrong with the tires but they put air in it out of courtesy. My TPS light was still on when I got the car. The next week, I drove my 10-​hour trip to visit my parents, growing increasingly concerned about the TPS light. My car felt weird to drive as well. When I arrived, my dad looked at my tires. It took him a minute to find a hole in the front tire. My tire pressure was 11, and it should have been 32. We patched the tire.
Fast forward to this November. Although I was still a little upset at Midas for not noticing the hole or attempting to take the extra time to fix it (and possibly fibbing that they did look at the tires), I took my car to them again out of desperation. I wanted to give Midas a second chance. Once again, my TPS light was on. Once again, I was told nothing was wrong with my tires. However, I was told that I needed struts for my tires so the TPS light would stop coming on. The total would be $ 1,400.00. I said I’d consider it (and wanted to get a second opinion).
When I got home, I decided to look at my tires. Guess what? I found a screw in my front tire in less than a minute. I patched the tire. TPS Light is off.
I feel Midas doesn’t take my requests seriously because I’m a small, young female. It’s as if they are exploiting the fact that I do not know much about cars and come to them for help. Alas, I will not be giving them ANY more of my business. I’ll go the extra few blocks to Jiffy Lube instead.

Don’t go to this Midas. One of the employees stole my credit card number and ordered over $ 700 in soccer jerseys. This was only on the heels of having to take my car back a second time to make sure the alignment was correct. As a UT employee, I went here for convienence. Instead, i was met with a financial hassle. Two swipes of the card: one to steal your number and another for the payment.

I don’t know a lot about cars and these guys saw that and tried to take advantage of it! They wanted to charge me $ 1,900 to replace my air compressor claiming the labour would cost around $ 700 and the part $ 1,200. Turns out they plucked these numbers completely out of the air because later I found out the part would cost around $ 150. Got a mobile mechanic to install it in an afternoon so it all cost only a couple hundred dollars. Ask around for different prices and avoid places like these!

They are so not honest. My tires were noisy so I decided to go there, they told me I need to change it, for $ 200 since I was not able to pay this, I wait 3 weeks and went to a friend store in Dallas who told me, he just a little bit dirty, nothing to change.
Another day, they told me my AC belt was about the brake down and it could damage the whole engine… it was 6 months ago, I drove 4 months with this AC belt and it was good, when I changed it to another store in Austin, they told me it was time to change it but it could work longer…

FYI: As a heads up, we did not get any car service here. However, the worker that we spoke to was extremely courteous and offered us some useful advice! We were not ripped off.
Back-​story: My friends brake light was out, so we decided to go to Midas to get a quote on how much it would cost to fix it. We went in and were greeted immediately. After asking for a quote, the serviceman said we should check out O’Reillys – which was about a mile away – and simply buy the bulb since otherwise we would have to wait 45 minutes. He also mentioned that they might even fix it for free for us! In the end, he said it was a cheaper option then getting it fixed at Midas. We took his advice and saved $ 25. Thank you, Midas!

Have been here four times and have never had a bad experience. Yes, they will try to sell you on things that your car may not actually need. But they are not super pushy about it. Every person I’ve worked with has been extremely pleasant. If you make an appointment or come on a weekday, the service is very quick. If I had needed specialty services, I would go to Yost, but for an oil change or other simple service, this place will do just fine.

I’ll keep this rant short. These people are either very inept, or they have a store policy in place to rip customers off!
I had used them in the past for a couple of minor repairs to my Tundra, because I have the ability to walk home from their store. Somehow the original quotes always had the ability to almost double, but like I said, they were minor repairs so not too painful.
I brought it in yesterday to have them diagnose my «check engine» light. They called 30 min later with a quote for $ 950 for a part they said would fix the problem and would take about an hour or so to install. I called Toyota dealer to check the price of the part, and they said about $ 350. So help me with the math, folks? If it only takes about an hour to install, and the part is $ 350…you see where I’m going…$ 600 for labor?
The finale: I brought my vehicle to Yost, and they found and repaired a small leak in the emission system for $ 96. wow

Classic rip-​off garage, especially if you are female
I bought a great used car for my son, only had 60K miles. The car is running fine but it’s time for the 60K service so I brought it to Midas for transmission fluid and oil change.
The Midas guy called me up and said the car needed $ 1800 worth of work, including stuff like a new thermostat and a new distributor cap. He also decided I needed 4 new tires and added that to the bill.
On the phone with Midas I said «do NOT do any work on this car». I immediately went to Midas to get the car and take it somewhere else. When I got there the car was up on a lift and a mechanic was taking parts off of the bottom of the car. Turns out he had already drained the oil out, despite my explicit instructions on the phone to not do any work.
Midas is a shady operation, strongly recommend AGAINST going here.