Melrose Driving School, Los Angeles | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

It saddens me to write this review. Have been giving this place good word of mouth reviews for years. Had no issues with the first kid, none with the second, but my they have changed. First, when I initially called to schedule appointments I reminded them that I had a bunch of unused lessons with my second child that I wanted to apply to my third, as I was told I could. They then clarified that the lessons expired after 6 months or maybe a year (can’t recall), but regardless since my kids are 2+ years apart in age, they were long expired. I was a surprised they didn’t mention that when I bought the package for child two and discussed it with them, but blamed myself for not asking, and went ahead and bought a package of three lessons and the in-class.

Problem number two was scheduling. Nothing was ever available, so I booked the first two appointments I could get which were weeks in the future. I then asked to be put on a waitlist for cancels. To their credit, cancellations did come in and they called. When we booked that first one, nothing was discussed about the original appointments because I just assumed they were cancelling it, and their system didn’t show an issue since I had a total of three to book. But when they called me a week or so later with another waitlist opening, it did come up because they said they couldn’t book the appointment if I didn’t buy another slot. At that point it became clear that they were not cancelling my original appointments, so I once again clarified that I was only doing two lessons at this point, and keeping one credit to use just before her test in August. They said they understood, and the booking went through for the waitlist appointment.

A few weeks later there was a knock on my door. A Melrose Driving School instructor was there to pick up my daughter for one of those two original bookings. I explained that 1) she wasn’t here and 2) that we had cancelled this appointment when it was replaced with the waitlist appointment. The driver said okay and left. I never heard from anyone.

Just now I called to book her last lesson and was told we were charged for a same day cancellation. The manager there is completely obtuse. No matter what I said, she just kept saying “you aren’t listening, you don’t have any appointments.” She should at least acknowledge that there was some mixup, even if she isn’t willing to take the blame (it was 100% their fault, by the way).

I’m done recommending this place. There are other nicer and less expensive schools to deal with. Beverly Driving School in KTown has been really responsive on the phone. Try them.

Melrose Driving School doesn’t even deserve the one star that I was prompted to give in order to write this review. To be clear, the drivers are excellent so please do not let this review reflect their level of their experience.

We left a message to cancel a lesson 45 minutes past the 24 hour cancellation period and were told, “We will charge you and we don’t care what the excuse was as this is our policy and you have to pay.” I asked to be connected to the Manager as I was shocked from this response and was hoping the manager was going to be more reasonable however, Ana, the manager was just as dismissive and disrespectful. They are in the customer service business working with parents and children in a PANDEMIC and cannot offer any type of flexibility when a child gets sick and has to cancel or reschedule due to a last minute scheduling conflict. Mind you, we only cancelled 45 minutes after the designated 24 hour cancellation period. I wasn’t even asking for a refund but was hoping we could roll over the cost of this lesson to the next lesson as we have 12 more lessons booked. I shared my disappointment with Ana and was told, “this is our policy and too bad.” and to call Jessie the owner who is only available Friday’s from 8-12 (shocking I know). As a business owner myself, in the hospitality space, I would have expected some level of flexibility and kindness, none of which i received. What a disappointing experience.

I paid for a package of 6 hours, 2 hours a day, my bad experience was the first 2 hours with an instructor named Francisco Gonzalez, horrible instructor, he does not give you confidence, he scolds, he is bad-tempered, he is terrible at teaching, he does not guide you, he makes you more nervous than usual when you start driving, he made me enter private property safely, and I didn’t know what to do in that situation, then I passed a red light and I about to pass him because I was already nervous, super nervous and he didn’t he braked for me, but he did it at the last minute, he never taught me how to handle the steering wheel, he never taught me how to handle the brake and he saved me that I was already going with a mental teaching that I could do, really this instructor did not even choose him as you instructor, my 4 more hours of classes helped me Yimmy Perez a very young boy, but very kind, very patient, very detailed, very good instructor, very explained all the mistakes I made, very explained all the signs on the street really He gets 100% I recommend them with all confidence….. in the schools, office very good attention, very good service. only that my bad experience was with my first class the most difficult because you arrive without knowing anything unfortunately I had this bad experience…..