Weary of Mears Volvo in Lubbock, TX

[S40Tex]

Not that I imagine that a ton of people will come across this dealer; but, if you every happen to find yourself in Lubbock, TX than make note not to take your car into Mears Volvo. I have had several bad experiences with them. I can only remember a few of the ridiculous 'problems' that they found with my car, but if I think of any more i'll make sure to post them.

• 1: I took my car in to get the oil drain plug loosened. I was going to change my oil at home but after i took off the skid plate underneath i noticed that i could not get the drain plug off since apparently the hulk changed my oil at the dealer last time. They were at least nice enough to take my car and loosen it for free. However when they gave me my keys back they told me that i had a crack in my oil pan, it was leaking oil, and it needed to be replaced. It should only cost, i think, $700. There was no crack in my oil pan. In fact, it was impossible for oil to even be leaking out from the drain plug since it was on so tight, so i'told them that there was no crack and in fact, i had looked at the oil pan just a few hours ago. The guy gave me a 'oh, you know that we're giving you a BS story' look and gave me my keys back
  
  2: Another time it seemed that I had a CD get stuck in the CD player. The screen said it was ejecting, but of course the CD got stuck somehow and no matter what i tried to do it wouldn't come out. I took it to the dealer to see if they could just take the CD out. I explained the situation to the guy at the front desk, and without even looking at my car he said that they would have to replace the whole CD unit. Seriously? At least give me the courtesy of looking like you might be able to fix it. He said it would cost, i think, $350 for a new one, without labor. Needless to say i didn't go for it. I listened to the radio for another week before i decided to take a paper clip and a pair of needle nose pliers and take the CD out myself. It works just fine now.
  
  3: Lastly, one more time after all of this I took my car to firestone of all places to have my spark plugs changed (i didn't trust the dealer anymore and there aren't any import auto shops in lubbock). They could do it, and they did. While driving home my car ran extremely rough. So, i reluctantly took my car to the dealer to see if they could figure out what was wrong. They told me that firestone put in the wrong spark plugs and that they would HAVE to replace them with volvo plugs. After the fact i talked to firestone a few times and it turns out that the spark plugs they put in were the right ones, they just had the wrong gapping. The only thing volvo had to do was change the gapping and put them back in. After this i went from having one shop that i would never take my car to, to two shops.

These weren't the only problems that I had with this dealer, just the ones that popped into mind while i was writing this.

[jimmy57]

I'm only presenting known scenarios, not defenses.
The oil pan may have some scars that the tech knows have been in areas where the pans crack. P1's oil pans and compressors are very vulnerable.
CD players can have CD's retrieved on some occasions. If they tried and the CD player was not salvageable then many customers immediately place blame on dealer for breaking it. When you stick your hand on a stove top and get burned you often are very wary of stove tops....
P1's , P2 R's and other late model 5's use longer reach plugs. DO you know if the plugs in your car now are longer thread versions or did the tire store put in the earlier shorter thread plugs?

[S40Tex]

That could be the case with the oil pan. But that was over 20,000 miles ago on my car and i still have yet to have anyone tell me that my oil pan is cracked, and i have taken it to the dealer here in houston and other various shops.

I guess you have a point there. However, as i see it, people take their cars in all the time to have parts looked at. Most of the time the part may actually be broken and need to be replaced. Some of the time though, it could just be a simple fix. You won't know until you look at it. I can't see a repair shop making it in the business if they simply just tell everyone whatever the problem is needs to be replaced, without even so much as glancing at the car.

The car that i took in to get the plugs fixed was my sister's 01 s40. I can't remember what kind of plugs it takes, it was a while ago. But i looked up the plugs that volvo took out after the fact and they are the right type for that car.