Yeah, can you bring your car back in?
 

So, I haven't ever had a vehicle serviced by the dealership before...as i hit 4k miles I wanted my first dealership oil change...not only were they rude when I brought the car in, but it took 45 minutes (maybe this seems normal, but keep reading). I was talking to one of the employees in the parts department about TRD parts and the woman who took my keys and car in for the oil change (the rude one) was upset with me and asked 'excuse me, but where is the lock for your wheels' - I explained I only wanted an oil change, please don't rotate my tires as I just put my snow tires on like 50 miles ago...she rolled her eyes and left. Fast forward a few days, to today. 'Hi, can you bring your car back in, I don't think we changed the actual oil'


Are you kidding me? How is that possible? If this service wasn't free, I would never, ever bring the car back. Heck, I would go to Jiffy Lube and have much more faith in them.

FYI - this is Toyota of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) where I had a decent buying experience...so far, no great with the service team.

FYI #2 - talking to the service guy, if you want TRD springs installed, install time is 10 hours because, 'this is a sports car'

You need to find a new service department. Fast.

A lot of times what happens is that, since you haven't hit 7500 miles yet, your oil doesn't get changed. A service writer should have confirmed that you were willing to use one of your three free oil changes early. If they did, then the techs just got too lazy to read the writeup. Unfortunately, happens a lot. (this is from my experience talking with someone who works scheduling appts at a dealership, and then has to deal with the customer anger when techs/advisors screw stuff up).

If they still can't get it straight, run away from that dealership and find another. Don't look back.

That's ridiculous and you should write a review on yelp or at least bring it up w/ management. i had a similarly disappointing experience at my 1st service appointment aswell. Although not as incompetent as your experience but it convinced me to not bring my car at the dealership after the free "scion boost" maintenance plan runs out.

Here's the copy/pasted review from yelp that I wrote...

"This is a long read but i feel customers should be informed about my experience with the service department.

**Short version: only go to service department to take advantage of 2 years free maintenance plan. After that get routine maintainable done at your trusty local mechanic**

Had my first service done here for my '14 Scion FRS. We considered this dealership when we were shopping for the FRS and liked the non pushy sales approach. We dealt with the salesman Greg. No complains there. Now on to the service department...

Let me preface the review by saying that the only reason I brought the FRS to the dealership for service vs my trusty local mechanic is to maintain the manufacturers warranty (& because it's FREE for 2yrs/36 k miles). I made an appointment a week prior to coming in for the sole reason of avoiding long wait times. I didn't appreciate the fact that Keith casually strolled in 9 minutes after the appointment time with no apology or anything. Not a deal breaker but not a good first impression. There was a constant resistance from our service advisor, Keith Mitchell with every issue that I brought up with my car.He never took my claims of problems seriously and his usual response was "don't go looking for issues " , "just because there is a tsb (technical service bulletin) doesn't mean every FRS has the problem " or "i have never had someone complain about that" or "we don't do that". He never openly without judgment listened to my concerns. Younger owners beware of this treatment (for context I'm 24). If you are familiar with the FRS you know there is a annoying chirping/cricket noise that comes from the fuel pump(fix? replace HPFP), window weather striping makes a loud squeaky noise when window is opened in wet conditions(fix? replace driver/passenger rubber weather stripping), and a rough idle issue(fix? ECU flash). These issues are well documented and Toyota already has issued tsb's for these. On forums and from the tri-state GT86 owners club, these issues are fixed without any hiccups. It was frustrating to convince Keith that I wasn't simply mentioning these problems out of thin air or just because I read about them online; it was because I was EXPERIENCING them.

He was unable to reproduce the window squeak and refused to watch a video of the symptom (recorded ~45 minutes before my appointment). Any questions were met with an agitated look and honestly he seemed inconvenienced to even be there. Initially he refused to replace the HPFP (high pressure fuel pump) saying "we are not doing that right now" followed by some excuse of how toyota is in process of coming up with a new design. But somehow he changed his mind 2 hours into my appointment (1st service entails oil change, tire rotation & multi point inspection). I didn't even bother mentioning the rough idle issue to Keith b/c honestly I didn't want to agitate him further and risk not getting my fuel pump issue replaced.

Whats good about this place?
I gave 1 star for partly fixing my issues (fuel pump replacement) and a 2nd star for their very convenient shuttle service that drops you off AND picks you back up if your appointment is running longer. btw total appointment time was ~ 6 hours. Also, their wait room is very nice aswell. They have a Keurig coffee machine which I happily enjoyed. My shuttle driver was great as well and it was a pleasant convenience to be dropped off and picked up when my car was finally done.

I have 2-3 (i believe 15k and 25k miles) more service appointments under my free toyota maintenance plan and after that I will NEVER return to this service location. This is really unfortunate and honestly the opposite of our initial impressions when we were price matching our FRS with this dealership. I still remember how Greg (original salesmen) introduced us to the service department and they helped answer all my concerns about the car [interestingly the service tech even mentioned how toyota has undergone 4 revisions of the fuel pump]. Which offcourse Keith Mitchell (current tech) didn't have any clue about. Anyone in management reading this, please educate your service "advisers" on the current developments of the vehicles you are selling. We were initially impressed with Holman's upfront and knowledgeable staff (namely our salesman Greg). Unfortunately this did not hold true in my most recent experience.

Also I don't recommend dealing with Keith Mitchell if you value your time and expect to be treated fairly.

Special shout out to salesman David Rebstock who educated me on some options on how to get out of my lease early. I will definitely be contact him when my lease is up and if I decide to go for another Toyota/Scion."

Great idea, I will post on Yelp.

I agree.

I think 7500mi is the magic number here.

Like a child, I had called service several times after I hit 5000mi, hoping for a different answer. Each time I called though, I had the sense that I would annoy someone if I insisted on an early first oil change. Finally at 6500mi I had a service guy say: "Oh yeah, bring that thing down and we'll get you taken car of."

My oil still looked like new honey at 6500mi. :-)

Yeah, they never even asked for the mileage until I got there....however they didn't mention anything AND they did put the new oil change sticker on my car. Absurd.

Could be worse. They could be your surgical team. "Uhhh, could you come back in? I think we left a scalpel in there..."

Took mine it at 7542 miles and got reamed by the Service Advisor for being late!!!!!

The examples above are the exact opposite experience I have had at my Subaru Dealer in Longmont CO (Valley Subaru)
They have done absolutely everything I have asked them to do without questions.
They even left my car UNWASHED after I asked them to GASP!!!
They give me a loaner car instead of a shuttle service.

I went in one day after a service call for my Drv side CV joint replacement and asked them how much a gallon of coolant was because my overflow was a little low.
The guy at the desk just handed me a brand new gallon free of charge (normally like $35)

Remember, it's not just the magical 7,500 mile # that counts. The other is time. At the 6 month mark, my dealership actually called me to schedule my first oil change. They were shocked when I brought it in and only had 3,000 miles on the clock. I had to explain to them that I have (I should say had) 3 vehicles and that the FR-S was my "fun" vehicle. They did the complete 7,500 mile/6 month service on it and the service manager even "reminded" me to not worry about the miles since I wasn't driving the vehicle much. He said "just make sure you bring it in every 6 months so we can do the full service on it that way you get all your FREE services before you hit the 2 year free service window". This is why I have bought 3 vehicles from them.

Yes, and I should clarify that when I took mine in for service at 7542 miles I had owned it for just under 2 months! So I am at the opposite end of the mileage spectrum.

That's awesome man, wish I had a dealership like that around here.

OP: I would have brought your concerns to the service manager. 45 minutes does not seem out of the ordinary. Sounds like you caught someone struggling with a monthly hormonal issue (shouldn't be an excuse though). She definately effed up.

Maybe I've been lucky, but my free oil changes have been perfect. No issues whatsoever.

As for yelp reviews: I don't agree with the concept. A poor yelp review will potentially hurt the ENTIRE business thereby hurting all the GOOD employees. Again ... the issues are ONE bad employee. Talk to the service manager.