Sears Auto Center

I’ve had good luck with Diehard’s in the past, so I figured I’d make an easy trip to Sears to just replace the battery. NOT Again!!! This has got to be the worst place in town for customer service, forget about getting any sort of sale/​discount. After dancing around with the CSR and manager for more than 30 minutes, (they were afraid to get sued– ha!) they finally said…‘no prorated returns on bad batteries like in the past– only 3 years’- which turned out to be more expensive and less of a return policy than Interstate at any of the other auto repair ‘chains’.
On top of that, they tried to sell me a battery charger– what for?- I just bought a brand new battery! They charged $ 20 to basically just drop the battery on the tray and tighten the screws!
Absolutely rude treatment from start to finish…‘sorry we have no appointments available ‘(turned out not to be true), I came in on time for my 1 pm appointment, but they said there were 4 people in front of me, I would have to wait. They would call me in 45 minutes with the diagnosis. I waited 1 ½ hours, and decided to called them. ‘what about my call’?
The diagnosis was finished a while ago!
I had to come in again to sign the paper for the ‘work’ to be done (just install the battery). When I asked what they do with people who drop the cars off in the morning, they said, they just call in approval. WTF?
When I arrived, manager started raising his voice and not letting me speak, when I calmly said, let me say my word, he then interrupted me and starting bullying me around
once more.
I know this is a large ‘chain’ store, and you don’t get ‘hometown’ people really concerned about your situation, but these guys speak another language. Been to Sears in many times in many towns– this has got to be the cream of the crop of bad CSR and rude treatment.
(beware of any place where the mechanics and manager make a commission).
You are there just to pay them! They bully you and control the situation to make you feel like you don’t know anything, when, truth is, none of these people know anything. They once put my brakes in backwards! another visit, the CSR told me they were expert on lawn equipment– ‘how long have you worked in the field’- oh, 2 weeks!
Do yourself a favor, save the headache, you ain’t getting nothing at Sears that you can’t get somewhere else, and at a less price and with a lot less stress. Sears and specifically Sears Auto Gainesville… What a HEADACHE!!!

The man at the front desk is so rude and really doesn’t care. I have tried getting my car serviced there twice without luck. The first time I wanted tires changes. I didn’t make an appointment and he couldn’t fit me in. I was trying to work with him and he was just rude like I should’ve made an appt. I ended up changing my tires in the Tampa location since I was there for the weekend. Okay fine. I gave Gainesville another shot. I called to get a quote for tire rods because the Tampa location had already given me a quote over the summer and I misplaced it. I wanted him to pull up the info so I can get them changed at the Gainesville location. He said he couldn’t pull it up. So I asked if he could just quote me on changing all of them. He said «That’s too much work and I have people here. Just bring the car in.» I said okay and hung up. Won’t ever try them again. Two strikes and they are out. Their front desk employee is ruining their business by being rude and not caring about customers. Sorry that it’s «too much work» for you to look up a price in the computer. That’s what «work» is.

Customer service is AWEFUL. The person at the counter greeted me with how overwhelmed he was and that today is friend and family day!!! Then he mentioned that it was after 1pm and disappeared into the garage area. A 1pm appt. came in at 1:10pm and he said «I have to attend to her because she has an appointment».

Poor service experience overall. I agree with the posts below, they are definitely not customer oriented.
Made an appointment for Saturday at 2pm, received a call that they are full but they were able to reschedule to Sunday at 1pm. I arrived Sunday at 12:50pm and was told upon checking in that they won’t be able to take my car in until 1:30pm the latest because they took in two walk-​in customers (which is fine, I didn’t expect them to service me right when I arrived). After wondering around the mall for 2 hours, I did not receive a call that my car was ready so I decided to stop by again to check on my car. I noticed it was still parked outside where I had left it. Since the representative was with another customer, I waited my turn. Instead of addressing me after he was done he started helping out another customer that came in behind me. I waited about 20 minutes until he came to speak with me and another 10 minutes to know that I would have to wait another 1 hour until it will be my turn. The manager offered me a free oil change and told me to book an appointment online for tomorrow (Monday) because he will have 3 really great mechanics. Wasn’t able to make an appointment so I called in but, unsurprisingly, they were full and unable to service me.
What is the point of making an appointment if you will take walk-​ins and put them in first priority over someone that set aside their time ahead of time? I am starting to think that I was put on such low priority because I was there for an oil-​change ($ 29.99) and nothing else whereas the two walk-​ins they accepted prior to my arrival needed much more work. Also, why doesn’t the online appointment service reflect the real time availability of the auto store selected?
The upside from this experience, I found another local auto shop and they are 100x better. Customer oriented, clean, directed me to a very comfortable waiting area, I can’t think of any reason why I would go back to Sears Auto. Auto ER of Gainesville, thank you!

Getting your car fixed is a lot more complicated than it used to be. You can’t just drive your car into a shop and ask them to fix what’s broken. That’s like giving them a blank check — and they WILL take advantage of it. This place is as bad as any.
I needed to get new tires. I researched the prices and then called the shop to make an appointment. When I showed up for the appointment, I found that the appointment ticket included new tires, plus road hazard, and a 4 whl alignment. That’s a problem because I don’t want road hazard (extended warranty = waste of money) and I really don’t think I need an alignment because I just got one four months ago. The sales rep said they he couldn’t take the road hazard off the ticket because the ‘computer won’t let him’ do that. And he said his mechanics are honest people and they would only do the alignment ‘if it needs it.” I was skeptical about both of these claims, but the sales rep said, «Have I ever lied to you?» (Since I had just met the guy, technically the answer was no.)
Well of course they did the alignment anyway. And of course they stuck me with the road hazard — so they added about $ 160 to the tire install. Oh, and by the way, after the car was on the lift they ‘discovered’ that the front brakes were thin, so they recommended a brake ‘checkout’ package for $ 175. «Ok,» I said, «go ahead and check out the brakes.» But when I came back to pick up the car a couple hours later they had gone way beyond the ‘checkout’ and had done a full $ 300 brake job on the car which I hadn’t approved. I still don’t know how that happened.
The bottom line is that they lure you in the door with a low price offer, and then they just start piling stuff onto the ticket. You might go in for an oil change, but next thing you know you’ve spent four hours waiting in the mall and you’re paying for $ 1000 worth of shop work. And of course they never told me about the waiting room (like the other reviewer here). If you go to a place like this you have to just say NO to any add-​on work. Even if they say your brakes are about to disintegrate you’ve got to demand a written quote and then shop it around before you come back.

Pretty much what I expected. These guys aren’t your hometown family mechanics, they work for a large company and honestly I don’t expect them to try to be my friend. (I’m there to get an oil change not get my feet rubbed). What bothered me most is that I’ve been coming here for 2 years and no one has even told me that they have a waiting area. I always wondered but never asked and I shouldn’t have to. That should just be standard procedure.

One of the hardest things about living in Gainesville is finding a good place to take your car in for service and repairs. It seems that many rely on the college-​town atmosphere, where there’s no need for attracting customer loyalty as the population turnover is so high they can always count on conning or being rude to new customers. Sears Auto Center had spotty service that causes me to put it somewhere in that unenviable valley where I can’t really recommend the place, but then again it’s better than most in town.
When people complain about these sorts of places, it’s almost always about poor customer service. An oil change is an oil change, but when it drags on or the people are unfriendly, that’s what people complain about. At Sears, I had both good and not-​so-​good service for the same job. What was initially supposed to be a quick oil change turned into a few other small check-​up type repairs (air filter, etc) that they recommended. Throughout the folks were nice, but the job dragged on as they had to bring some parts in that weren’t available, and initial estimates became much longer estimates. The saving grace is that being attached to the Oaks Mall, you have numerous options for killing time. When everything was finally (a couple hours late) done, it took a good 10 minutes or so to get a person to ring me up at the register. It seemed to be a combination of being understaffed and also of having a slow computer system. At this point I told them about a sale price that their online website mentions (go to Sears dot com and navigate to their automotive center department, then schedule a service to see a listing of prices and deals). They were surprised and hadn’t heard about it, but they were more than willing to go to the website, investigate it themselves, and then honor the price with absolutely no fuss, which I felt was very refreshing.
If you’ve read my other postings, you’ll know that I recommend Gatorland Toyota as the place I take my car in for repairs or service, and after going to Sears I see no reason to change that opinion. You may get a cheaper deal at Sears if you quote their online price, but the customer service is slow, although somewhat friendly. If you look thoroughly online at other reviews, you’ll see that the reviews for Sears is absolutely dismal, however. Hopefully as more reviews pop up on Unilocal for this place a clearer picture of the overall experience can be acquired.