This review is specifically for the Auto Service Center, as my experience in the store itself has been unremarkable. (Though the return policy is pretty bad.)
My husband and I moved up to BC last month and were told we needed to get a provincial inspection. The person we talked to said they knew a lot of people went to Canadian Tire, so recommended we do the same. Not knowing any better, we took their advice. HUGE mistake.
A while after I dropped off the car, I got a call that listed off some items and prices to bring the car into compliance, and I asked them to email me the estimate so I could go over it with my husband before we signed off. I repeated the address and spelled it out at least 4 times with the person on the phone and they assured me they had it and would email me ‘right away’. I never received that email. When I called the store to ask if they had sent it and check that it went to the right address, they told me that the person who had sent the email was ‘out’ and nobody else knew anything about the car or the email. I was told I’d have to wait for them to come back and that they’d call me back as soon as they came in. They never did. Eventually, I just called my husband and told him what I remembered from the conversation on the phone, and we agreed to go ahead with the repairs. I gave Canadian tire the OK at 1 pm Friday. I was told the car would have to stay overnight, and they’d call me in the morning to update me on if it was finished or when it would be ready. Again, not knowing any better, I said ‘fine’ and assumed, reasonably enough, that it would in fact, be ready the next day, since nothing I needed was all that complex. As it turned out, I would not actually get my car back until the following Tuesday at 4pm. After that first call regarding the initial inspection, I never once heard from Canadian Tire unless I called them myself. They didn’t email, didn’t call back, and didn’t make any effort to keep me updated. And the timeline kept changing. First it was overnight, then when I called at noon because they hadn’t contacted me it was Saturday afternoon, then when I followed up Saturday evening after hearing nothing, I was told everybody who knew what was going on with my car had already gone home (their words) and my ‘best chance’ to find out what was happening would be to call the next morning between 9 and 10 am. When I did that, I was told they had just ordered a part for my car window, but it being Sunday, it wouldn’t arrive until Monday afternoon. When I called back Monday afternoon, I was kept on hold for over 30 minutes, then told it would be Tuesday morning. When I called Tuesday afternoon, I was told that they were ‘just finishing up’ and that I would be called back very soon to let me know the car was ready for pickup. Two hours later, when I called again, I was on hold for 17 minutes, then I was told it would be another hour. Not once did anyone answer the phone with anything more than ‘please hold’ and I was constantly given wrong or conflicting information, when I was given information at all. And to make a bad experience even worse: when we got home, I discovered that my trunk latch was broken. The screws are sheered off cleanly where the mechanism attaches, implying that for some inexplicable reason, they tried to force my trunk open despite having both the key with a button that pops the latch and a lever right inside the door to do the same. The trunk was in perfect working order when I dropped the car off, and now the mechanism is dangling. No one said a word to me about this, which makes me think they broke it and just tried to hide the evidence. Or worse, were hoping I’d bring it back and they could charge me to ‘fix it’. Either way, I am never setting foot in the Auto Service Center here again, and I would strongly recommend steering clear unless you’re looking to set some money on fire and stress yourself out.
It's a Canadian tire and let's be real whether it has good reviews or not you're still probably going to go.
It does what Canadian tire sets out to do, be a man's 1 stop shop to get all the amazing things we never knew we needed. The place we came to buy a screw and left with a grand worth of fishing gear and tools. 🤷♂️
