Midas

Well… I was scheduled for a 7:30 appointment on a Saturday. And it was 8:10 and the shop was still not open. However they did open eventually, apologized and performed the job for free. Faith restored.

I don’t know why this place has such bad reviews. I needed a new muffler and shopped around and this place gave me the best price by far. The staff was professional and even helped me find a coupon to lower the price further by $ 30. They were able to order the part and replace my muffler all within 2 hours! I am giving this place 5 stars and would definitely trust them with any other maintenance needed for my car!

I very rarely give out one-​star ratings, but for this Midas location I wish there was a 0-​star option. Having visited many a Midas location across the country where I have received great service, I decided it would be a good place for an oil change here in DC, since I recently moved here. WRONG. Upon dropping off my car, I was quoted $ 24.99 by the manager for a standard oil change and tire rotation. When I went to pick up the car, I was actually charged $ 56 because they put a more expensive oil in the car than was necessary. I was never contacted to approve of this increase in price. After begrudgingly paying to get my car (since the manager decided he should leave extra early that day and no one could approve lowering the price) I made a call to the manager the following day to request a refund of the extra money I was charged, during which I was assured it would be no problem as soon as it was cleared by his boss. This was followed by several phone calls back where I was placed on hold and never helped and even one phone call where the owner of the store tried to belittle me, convince me I was wrong, and yell at me in an extremely unprofessional fashion. The owner’s final solution was for me to come back in with the car so he could personally drain all the oil and process a refund. Needless to say, I will never be back to this Midas ever again… and I would suggest no one else take their business there either.

I thought i’d give this place a try after they reopened with new management (before I had excellent service here and then the worst so I wrote it off entirely). Yesterday I brought my car in to fix the driver side mirror which someone dinged and broke the mirror. The price they quoted me was $ 386 and that was WITH a ‘coupon’. I laughed and told them that was insane and no. The guy on the phone asked ‘do you want me to see if i can find a cheaper part?’ and i said yes considering I could buy the entire thing for $ 86 and do it myself. They called back with a new estimate in less than 10 minutes with a new price of $ 176.
When I got to my car, it looked fine and worked fine. It did bother me that they clearly used the old top half of the mirror casing and the plastic was scratched and gouged where it looks like they pried it apart. Won’t be going back.

This location reopened in June 2015 with new management and new staff. I found the place by accident, during their very first week. The manager came out, introduced himself to me, and personally promised that he would fix my problem quickly and for a great price.
I showed up the next day at the time he suggested, and he 100% lived up to his promises. The car was actually ready earlier than he originally estimated. When we went down the street to get coffee, the office manager called us on the phone to let us know the car was ready.
The office staff was incredibly friendly and helpful… even helped amuse my three-​month-​old while we waited. (:
I knew I also needed one new tire. The mechanics checked my other three tires and told me I DID NOT NEED to replace them. So, bonus points for valuing honesty over profit.
The business is still new and still working out some kinks (voicemail not working right… office chairs in the waiting area instead of couches or comfortable seating… no changing table in the bathroom…) but I will definitely be back.
I’m grateful for car repair people who seem like they actually care about helping customers and who I feel I can trust, even though I know nothing about cars.

Thank goodness for this place! I took my car somewhere else for brake work and almost fell over when they quoted me the price. I quickly picked it up and went over to Midas where they did the same work and MORE for $ 350 LESS than what the other place quoted me. Saved me a ton of money and I’m happy with the work.

I need to get a part for my truck, got there about 9, they didn’t get my truck in to look at until 10:30, then it took another hour before my part came. Then, they have to put the part in. Let say, I was there until 12:40. They do great work, and the manager was pretty on top of keeping me abreast of the situation, but I feel it shouldn’t take that long.
If you do need to get work done, make sure you take it on a weekend, and make sure someone goes with you, so you don’t have to wait. That’s what I’m doing next time.

DO NOT go to this place. These people are a bunch of crooks who do not know what they are doing. I had my brakes done at this location in September 2013. They were making a noise that I didn’t have before I and didn’t even make it home before I turned back around. They told me the brakes needed to «fuse» because the pads were new. In January, my brakes started squeaking. I finally went back and it turns out they installed the brake pads incorrectly which caused my rotor to become damaged and they did not want to acknowledge any wrong doing or even try to fix the problem, but wanted to blame it all on the dealer. I have only had the car for a year and its a certified car and they were the only ones that touched the brakes since I got it. I had to replace both rotors and brakes at the dealer. They cannot be trusted, they have bad attitudes and they try to create more problems and they could care less.

This Midas and the old one that was on NY Ave (closed late 2013) are owned by the same person. I received service at the NY Ave location, but the owner is still operating a Midas business and responding to NY Ave complaints; therefore, I wanted to put this review out so no one makes the same awful mistake I did.
I went to Midas in Nov. 2013 for what should have been a simple oil change. After the oil change, my brakes failed. They went completely to the floor and I almost got into an accident. Thank goodness I was in the city and not on a highway or I might’ve died. I had the car towed to a reputable mechanic who showed me evidence that someone had put an oily substance in the brake fluid, which had permeated the brake system and destroyed my master brake cylinder. $ 500 bucks to replace it and two additional visits (and two more near-​accidents) to flush out all of the offending liquid. I called the main Midas HQ number — they basically said all they can do is pass on the complaint to this owner, which they did, but they cannot really do anything else.
The owner’s office manager contacted me and basically said since I have no evidence, I can’t prove it was Midas’ fault, so they won’t do anything. I indicated I had saved the brake fluid/​oily substance mixture and the master cylinder, but that didn’t make a difference to her. Since I bought my car (new), I have gotten the required oil changes and I have never had a problem with the brake system until now. It has maybe 45k miles on it, so it should not have any master cylinder problems (I called the car manufacturer to check.) I don’t touch anything under the hood and no one else did after Midas. Please do not risk your life and safety by saving a couple bucks on an oil change with these guys — go somewhere else.

Under no circumstances should you ever do business here unless you want to be physically threatened by a frighteningly angry, dispicably rude, and an unprecedentedly lazy «manager» who clearly has issues with being at work early on saturdays (let alone work in general).
If you call customer service to make a complaint — don’t expect better customer service. They will call you a liar and astonishingly defend the physically threatening behavior. It is the tell-​all sign that they are used to the complaints about this location and especially this charlatan.
There are many many many other auto care business in the area with far better customer service and cheaper rates. And best of all, they do much better work. So just spare yourself the hassle of going to Midas on Rhode Island Ave. It is simply appalling.

I had purchased a Midas tire warranty for my tires at the beginning of May 2013. I was told by the store owner at the 1620 Rhode Island Ave NE location that he was a privately owned Midas dealership and would NOT be honoring any tire warranties from any other Midas location. He was very rude to both me and other waiting customers. I would *strongly* recommend NOT having services at this location.

BEWARE! I came here to get an oil change and he told me my total was 21 dollars and some change. After they drained the oil out if my car, the manager Keith told me I had to pay 79.99 plus tax for a synthetic blend. When I told him about the price we agreed on that I signed for, he said he wasn’t a psychic and how was he supposed to know what kind of oil I needed. I had already been they for 2 hours and They pulled my car to be worked on as soon as I walked in the door. Then as I am talking to another customer about writing a review on Unilocal,who was also complaining, the manager, Keith, came out and confronted me because I said I was going to go on Unilocal and write a review. Although the mechanic Gregory was very informative and nice they will never receive my service again. I felt very uncomfortable as a women and will NEVER take my car to get service here EVER again.

Took a little while, but brakes usually do. This place could use a good cleaning, a TV that works, and a new paint job.

I visited the Midas at 1620 Rhode Island Ave location in NE DC. My intent was to find out what the noise was under my right passenger side of the car. The owner of the shop, Mr. Alistaire drove the car, identified the noise, and proceeded to put the car on the lift. Once on the lift the culprit was a disengaged brake plate. The story gets better. Mr. Alistaire noticed immediately that the gear box had been leaking oil and upon further investigation, it had less than a quart of oil. Mr. Alistaire’s observation saved me at least $ 2,000.00 (the cost of a rear end). He had his techs make the repair to the brake plate and the leaking rear-​end and the cost was very reasonable.
I am very pleased with this shop and I will now be a recurring customer for all of my maintenance issues.
Thank you again!

It was a pretty good experience for me, especially considering I always feel foolish when I take my car anywhere because I know nothing about cars. Just went for an oil change, they took my car right away. The man let me know having too many things on my keys was not good for the ignition. Got something to eat, came back and he let me know something about my brakes. I appreciated it because it was helpful and he gave my suggestions but was not pushy about getting it done then. I’ll be back…

I had a good experience here. For $ 25, I got an oil change, tire rotation, and a full service check. I was a little wary that I’d be told I needed a huge amount done, but the only recommendation was a very sensible fuel injection service. Didn’t get that done (no time) but it seemed a reasonable conclusion. Had to wait about a half hour til my car was looked at, but all in all, I thought the mechanics were friendly and the work acceptable. Not bad at all for a chain.

Went to Midas to get two new tires/​tire rotation. When I left I noticed that my tire air pressure sensor was on. I asked one of the mechanics and he told me that it would turn off on its own and that it was on because the tire had just been changed.
After the sensor did not turn off for a couple days I inspected the tires and discovered that on the right side the valve stems had never been replaced and the tires were 5 PSI low. I decided to check the tires that did have valve stems and they were 5 PSI high. Will not be going to this location again for service.

I’ve taken my jeep several times to midas and my classic car once. Frankly, they seem very expensive. I work on my cars myself alot so I usually only take it to them to diagnose problem issues or work on brakes. I’ve been increasingly annoyed at the pattern of what i think is severe overcharging. In addition, minor issue but I when i last went to get my brakes diagnosed, they tried to charge me a ton for brakes and they didnt even look inside the rear drums. Also, they use an impact hammer to tighten everything, which is frankly dangerous on many parts. I wont be going back.