A Take 5 customer says she regrets her decision to have her oil changed at the popular quick service shop. She claims an employee at the business removed her car’s air filter, unprompted, in an attempt to sell her additional services.
In a recent TikTok, Jozy Johnson (@jozyaj) alleges that the employee then re-installed the engine air filter incorrectly. She says this caused damage to her vehicle.
She may not be the only one who has beef with Take 5. People who replied to Johnson’s video said that they, too, have had vehicular issues after taking their cars to Take 5.
What happened at Take 5?
“This is your public service announcement to not go get an oil change at a Take 5 … location,” Johnson says.
She says she went to Take 5 for an overdue oil change. She normally goes to Pep Boys, which she says never did her wrong. The Pep Boys she usually frequents was booked solid with appointments.
Not wanting to delay her oil change any longer, she headed to a Take 5. Right from the jump, she says that employees attempted to upsell her other services. It didn’t seem to matter, she says, that she’d already told them she only wanted her oil changed.
During the oil change, Johnson says a worker removed her car’s engine air filter in an attempt to sell her a new one. Johnson maintained that all she wanted was an oil change, prompting the employee to re-insert the filter.
Unfortunately, Johnson claims, they put the filter back incorrectly. Which she says caused debris to damage her mass airflow sensor. Johnson says she first learned something could be wrong with her car after its check engine light came on the next day. “That’s weird, because it wasn’t on before,” she said.
Back to Take 5
Johnson said she immediately went back to the Take 5 location. She explained to an employee what had happened.
Johnson says the employee effectively told her there was nothing they could do without a diagnostic. So she headed to an auto parts store for diagnostics. Sure enough, an error code popped up, per Johnson’s retelling.
Then she decided to go to Pep Boys for further inspection. Johnson says that’s how she learned about the damage done to her car’s engine air filter. As Pep Boys purportedly wrote in its own diagnostic, the filter was placed incorrectly in her vehicle. This allowed sediment to enter her engine. Thus, the mass flow sensor broke.
With the documentation in hand, Johnson said she called Take 5 to tell them what happened. That’s because she says Take 5 required her to get any work pre-approved to get reimbursed.
Getting Take 5 to pay
Initially, Johnson says she was told a manager would need to address the matter. But one wasn’t there. So Johnson got them to give her the supervisor’s contact info, she says.
According to Johnson, the supervisor was not pleased to be contacted on the weekend. But Johnson was determined to get the matter resolved quickly. “Your worker … damaged my air filter. She put it in incorrectly. And that led to the damages now that resulted in my checking engine light coming on,” she recalls telling the supervisor.
The supervisor purportedly relented and told her to get the repairs done and to bring the receipts to the shop on Monday for reimbursement. Johnson says she agreed.
Next she told Pep Boys to proceed with the repair.
On Monday, she says she called the shop and spoke to the same supervisor. Johnson says he assured her he’d filed the claim.
Then she didn’t hear anything else from Take 5 that day, she says. On Tuesday, she called them again. No one answered, Johnson claims, and the mailbox was full.
So she drove to the Take 5. Then she says she spoke with a regional manager, who told her to send him her documentation in order to resolve the issue.
Delays upon delays
Johnson claims she sent everything he asked for that very day. Then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday passed by, she says.
That Saturday, she followed-up with the regional manager to inform him that she’d filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General of Illinois.
Johnson claims that Take 5 replied on the very day. Which she calls “interesting” due to the radio silence she says she experienced previously. “Clearly you do know how to respond to an email,” she said of the regional manager.
She was highly displeased by the response. Johnson claims Take 5 attempted to skirt responsibility for the damaged air filter and denied her came. She says they told her camera footage pertaining to her repairs didn’t indicate there was damage to her car’s sensors.
Johnson says she told them that this explanation had nothing to do with her claim. She insisted that the diagnostics proved there was damage to her air filters, which she says was caused by a Take 5 employee removing it without authorization. Then putting it back in improperly.
In the same email, Johnson says Take 5 accused her of not following company policy. She disagreed, noting that she received authorization from a manager before diagnosis and repair.
Towards the end of her clip, Johnson says when she initially called Take 5 about her problem, she heard that four other customers at the location had similar grievances.
Is Take 5 a safe place to get work done?
Now Johnson is urging people to stay away from Take 5 and only trust mechanics with a demonstrable history of customer satisfaction. “Don’t go get your oil changed by Take 5 because there may just be an Abby working in the mix. Who don’t know how to put an air filter in correctly,” she says.
Many people responded to share their own alleged experiences with Take 5. One said an employee texted her after she came in for service. She claims they tried to flirt with her, despite the fact that she was 16-17 years old.
Another said their vehicle was destroyed after taking it to a Take 5. “Take 5 totaled my car during a routine oil change,” they alleged. Someone else remarked, “I changed my oil there one time and can you believe there was no oil in my car? And my whole radiator went out … seeing this now, I’m so irritated!”
Yet another wrote, “Girl they left my oil cap open one time and my car was smoking before I got halfway down the street. I almost started a fire.”
Is it worth going to court?
For many Americans, extending the life of a paid-off vehicle isn’t just a way to accrue savings — it’s an absolute fiscal necessity. So what should you do if an auto shop damages your vehicle?
One law firm maintains that lawsuits can indeed be levied against automotive shops. But it says proof is paramount.
Then there’s the matter of whether a lawyer will even take your case. Claims of this nature are usually handled on contingency, meaning lawyers only get paid if they win, and then only a portion of the damages. If you’re asking for a few thousand dollars, it’s probably not worth a lawyer’s time.
You can, of course, represent yourself.
Subplot News has reached out to Take 5 and Johnson via email for further comment.
