In April of 2014, my wife was rear-ended while on her way to pick up our son from school. The guy came over and asked if she was okay, but while she was checking to see if our daughter was, he left the scene. The person, we would later learn, was running parts for O'Reilly Auto Parts from the Nuckol's crossing location in Austin, Texas.
Now truthfully, this was a minor hit. Still, leaving a mother and child on the side of the highway without even knowing if they were okay is pretty bad. Something in the accident caused my wife's 2009 Mazda 6 to throw a "check engine light." This is the little light that warns you something is wrong and that you should avoid driving the car in this condition.
So I left work, picked up our son and went to meet my wife and, eventually, the police to try and get the O'Reilly people back on the right track for what should be done in the event of an accident. The damage to the back bumper was relatively minor, but the engine light was of an immediate concern. Perhaps I am old fashioned, but this seems to me to be exactly the kind of problem O'Reilly would be happy to address, especially under these circumstances. I mean, they sort of know people who do this professionally, right? We were being reasonable, and no one was claiming injury, and this could have been an easy job for them.
Instead, we get the number to Sarah at Casualty National Safety Insurance. As this number is in the same city in Missouri as O'Reilly headquarters, I am guessing she works for O'Reilly in some capacity of self-insurance. 'Working' is something of a relative term, in this case. She doesn't answer the phone in a half-dozen or so attempts to get in touch with her during this first week, and she doesn't return calls either.
Well, we needed the car, so we took it to Mazda South in Austin. As a side note, these guys were very helpful working with us through this process, and I cannot say enough good about them. The car was dropped off on the 18th of April and stayed with them until the 24th. Still nothing from Sarah the insurance agent indicating she was even aware that she had a job to do. There is no directory to climb or phone menu to navigate. There is just her number and she doesn't answer it.
So we juggled with one car as much as we could, and rented one during one day of this mess. The total bill for us, not including the bumper, was just a few hundred dollars. My wife calls and leaves another voice mail for the never present Sarah, saying this is the bill, and it is a pretty good deal for a hit and run. Pay us, and we can put the whole sordid affair behind us. Well miracle of miracles, Sarah finally checks her voice mail and returns our call. Now she wants diagnostic information faxed over, this that and the other to 'prove' these expenses are owed by O'Reilly.
Seriously? A large, faceless corporation rear-ends and leaves a woman and sick child on the side of the highway, and you get the chance to write the whole thing off for less than $500 and you don't jump at it? Fine.
Now I have an estimate from the body shop and cleaning up the paint on the bumper is more than double that. I am totaling up every last nickel of inconvenience and sending her a bill because this is flat ridiculous. O'Reilly Auto had an accident, and those do happen. What bothers me is that at every chance they have had to do the right thing and fix this with reasonable people, they have chosen to do the exact opposite. From fleeing the scene in the first place to not answering calls to not being willing to pay for the damage they caused, they have willfully and steadfastly chosen to do what is clearly and obviously wrong.
I have shopped for the occasional parts and supplies with them since they were HiLo Auto in these parts, but this is not the kind of people I want to find myself counting on to back-up the warranty on a part they sold me. If it were just the driver, I could write him off as a bad apple, but NO ONE at O'Reilly Auto seems interested in fixing what should be a simple problem.
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