AC
Alexandra Cuozzo
Jul 12, 2026
1 star. A battery swap turned into an 8+ hour ordeal, and every step of it was on Tire Auto Choice.
I bought a used 2023-24 Jeep Compass with 24k miles ten days ago. Yesterday at 3:45 pm, the engine wouldn't start. It threw a hot engine warning along with ABS and parking brake sensor alerts on a car I hadn't even registered yet. I called my warranty company, SilverRock, who booked the closest shop, Tire Auto Choice, for a 9 am appointment the next morning. I then arranged a tow, which took about two hours in rush hour traffic, and the car sat at the shop overnight.
9:09 am: The shop calls, asks a few questions, and says they'll run diagnostics and update me.
1:09 pm: I call for a status update. I'm told it's just the battery, which is a relief, so I ask when I can pick up. I'm told they're waiting on SilverRock to approve the claim. I ask how long that usually takes, and I'm told a few hours. I ask when it was submitted and get a vague answer, so I ask directly if there's anything I can do on my end to speed it up. I'm told no.
So I call SilverRock myself. They pull up my account and tell me they have no record of any claim. I give them the shop's info, they call over, and the shop confirms they're submitting it right then, while I'm on the phone with the warranty company I was trying to pressure to speed up for us BOTH.
3:29 pm: the shop calls back to tell me the first claim was denied because they never submitted the diagnostic report SilverRock requires, and a second claim is now pending. SilverRock is closed for the day by this point, and closed again the next day since they run Eastern time and don't work weekends. I ask what it would cost to just pay out of pocket. I'm quoted $250. Two minutes later I get a callback: $250 is the SilverRock rate, but paying cash makes it $365, for the same battery, on the same car, an hour apart. Make it make sense.
At that point I called Carvana directly. Their team was visibly upset, escalated it within three minutes, and confirmed in writing by email, while I was still on the phone, that they'd cover the difference SilverRock wouldn't.
I arrived in person at 4:38 pm with my mom and my two young kids to get copies of both claim submissions, the diagnostic report, and an itemized receipt. The technician, James, (just now learning is the MANAGER, by seeing other comments below) whom I'd spoken to all day, walked past me to move another car and didn't come back for nine minutes. The shop was not busy. Not one other customer was there. When I asked if a battery swap normally takes this long, he said, "It was a busy day," and I said, "I could understand that, but I had an appointment... at 9 am." Then, "we did the best we could." No apology, no urgency, no acknowledgment of the day, not even a faux-commiseration comment about "warranty companies," or any sliver of an attempt to de-escalate or turn around the dynamic.
There are **seven** other repair shops within two miles of this one. Use any of them instead.