Autozone Ripoff Doesn't honor the warranty on their batteries Aberdeen Maryland
I bought a duralast gold battery there a few months ago, it was the top of the line that they offered for my specific vehicle. It has failed me now 3 times, so tired of getting a jump I decided to actually use the warranty and get a replacement. Not so! The manager informs me that first he needs to charge it so he can see if it will hold a charge. Naturally it will hold a charge RIGHT AFTER REMOVING IT FROM THE CHARGER! I could have told him that. Lets see after 3-5 days? So instead, I couldn't wait the HOUR my battery to charge so here i am with a dead battery and 0 satisfaction. Here is an excerpt from the warranty on the battery "AutoZone warrants that it will replace the battery at no charge to you if it fails during the free replacement term shown on your receipt." No hidden meanings, huh?
Jeff
Havre de Grace, Maryland
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Gabe
Cape Girardeau,Missouri,
U.S.A.
What the manager told you was correct
#4UPDATE Employee
Thu, June 01, 2006
What the manager told you was correct, a battery that is not fully charged cannot be accurately tested. The test is not to see if it will "hold a charge" the test moniters the current drawn from the battery to determine if the battery has enough power to start your car. He was at fault to tell you that the battery was not your problem, a component of the charging system was faulty. Autozone does honor their battery warrenties, I typically swap about 5 batteries under warrenty in a day at AZ.
Gabe
Cape Girardeau,Missouri,
U.S.A.
What the manager told you was correct
#4UPDATE Employee
Thu, June 01, 2006
What the manager told you was correct, a battery that is not fully charged cannot be accurately tested. The test is not to see if it will "hold a charge" the test moniters the current drawn from the battery to determine if the battery has enough power to start your car. He was at fault to tell you that the battery was not your problem, a component of the charging system was faulty. Autozone does honor their battery warrenties, I typically swap about 5 batteries under warrenty in a day at AZ.
Randy
Joliet,Illinois,
U.S.A.
some answers for jeff
#4UPDATE Employee
Thu, June 01, 2006
Hello jeff I wanted to give you some information that may help you understand the proceedures you experienced with your battery. First of all a vehicle battery can loose its charge from many different reasons, A bad alternator, a bad connection or cable or the vehicle may be experiencing what they call a voltage draw,that's when a failed electrical item in a car continues to draw power even after you have turned the car off.
If you bring your car to autozone we can test alternators, batteries and starters for you, that way if you have a charging problem we can find out what the real problem is.
Secondly all warrentees go the same forwards or backwards, when we warrentee a battery for a customer the maker of the battery warrentees their product for us. If we do a warrentee on a battery and it turns out to be a good battery we won't get credit for the 69.99 battery we will only be credited for a ten dollar core. That's why we need to make sure the battery is in fact bad.
Charging and testing the battery helps prevent us from losing money and it also helps you find out if that is the real problem,If you had let them test it and it turned out bad they would have warrenteed it. I have worked for 3 parts chains and autozone has the most customer friendly warrentee program I've ever seen.
We track all our warrentees in our database and if you lose your receipt we still have your warrentee information, where else can you have your warrentees honored without a receipt?
I hope this will help you understand the business side a little more and why we must test first.
If you look in consumers report our duralast battery is ranked #2 in the usa. Higher than many other name brands.
I hope you will give autozone another try and if
you have starting, charging or battery problems in the future remember let us test your car and it may save you quite a bit.
Thanks for your time Jeff