Trickle's Tires & Automotive

I am a 3rd generation costumer of Trickle’s Tire & Automotive and I have never been disappointed. Every time I enter this family owned shop, I am greeted with a friendly smile and helpful employees. Trickle’s is incredibly honest, dependable, and sincere. There is no upselling, no pressure, just real advice you can trust. They always take the time to explain everything very clearly and make sure I am well taken care of. Their customer service goes above and beyond. The work is done in a timely manner, prices are fair and the owners take pride in treating people right. We are lucky to have a family owned business in Ames for generations. I can’t stress enough the importance of shopping local and checking this shop out. Trickle’s is a true gem with absolutely outstanding service! I will recommend them to everyone I know!

I used to have Trickle's Auto as my main mechanic for all my needs when I was living in Ames, for the past three years. But the only thing that they did right without any issues was changing my car's oil. Every time I would ask them to rotate my winter tires/all weather tires, the tires would always end up leaking. The other issue is that no matter how many times I told the people at Trickle's to make sure a TPMS tire valve was put in, they never would do it. And it would cause problems for me, since I would have to go out and manually check the tire before every trip. My SVC sensor would at least give me a heads up that the air pressure was getting lower, so I could at least drive to Trickles and get it redone. And sadly, there were a few times where I went out to my garage and one or more tires were flat. When I would finally get the car back to them and told them about it, they would always say that there was no issue with the the tires, and to "Go to Casey's and fill up the tire with air". They would not even look at the tires until I would force them to do so. Then I would always get the "Oh yeah.. uhh, the tire(s) were leaking, but they should be good now" speech. Whenever I brought up the TPMS tire valves (because my car has a functioning SVC system), I always got the deer in headlights look. But even with all of this going on, I was fiercely devoted to them. My old coworkers heavily referred them, so I kept giving them breaks. My last visit and service I had with them, I asked them to swap my all-weather tires with my winter tires, and if my break pads needed to be changed, for them to change them. I assumed that if deeper work needed to be done, they would call me to let me know and I would agree/disagree with the service. They never called me. After they finished, the overall bill came up to almost $700. When I looked at the bill, it only had the tire swaps and the brake pad changes; all for almost $700. The person behind the desk just automatically cleared everything to be done without contacting me on what the end price would be. I was expecting a much cheaper bill, but nope. When I talked to that man, in person, he had no care in the world. Perfect salesman tone, get me in and get me out while deflecting my questions. He did everything in his power to get me out before I could freak out. I immediately made a scathing review about Trickle's and I put it on google reviews. Within 15 minutes, I was promptly called by the owner. The owner, who actually was the salesman I just spoke too, tried to do a bunch of different tactics to try to get me to remove my original review. I brought up what was mentioned on the receipt, and he tried to swing a story how they dismantled the breaks and rebuilt them, to which I later determined it to be a lie. After talking and arguing with the owner for almost a hour, I finally decided to remove the review it and let it go. I just couldn't take it anymore. He wasn't taking no for a answer, and would not give up until I removed the review. During that time, the bill hit me very hard because I was unemployed and my father passed away a few months before. I was going back home to a broken family over the holidays, and I only had a little bit of money on me before the Trickle's service. His bill tapped me out completely, to the point where I had to borrow money from family for the way back home. When I brought that up to the owner, especially with how he put me in a very bad position, financially, I got the vibe that he truly didn't care and just wanted my review gone. But I have been thinking about this event ever since I removed the review, and I feel that my story should really be known. It's an old story, but it shouldn't be swept under the rug. I felt very manipulated long-after that conversation and by removing the review I was rewarding him. There are several 1 star reviews that share similar stories of how they went in for a oil change, tire rotation and ended up getting a massive bill. This time, I am not going to remove the review, so don't bother calling me.