Avoid Toyota/Scion Hollywood
 

It's that time of year again. My car is due for another oil change, just past 16k miles. Before I begin, I should say I am lowered on Coils, and just recently I swapped out the stock exhaust for a catback. My past two oil changes have been at Toyota/Scion of Hollywood (both of which my car was lowered). I called in for a 12 noon appt. yesterday since it was my day off. They told me it would be about an hour and a half wait. It's pretty upsetting when it shouldn't realistically take more than 20 minutes, but I understand there are other cars there so I said okay and then took my car in and parked it. A solid hour passed, and I heard my engine start around the corner thanks to my newly installed exhaust. I walked around to catch a glimpse, and as the mechanic drove my car over, he revved it several times and I saw his buddies in the corner laughing. At this point I was extremely EXTREMELY pissed at how they let these SOB's receive a paycheck. I tried to stay covered as I didn't want them to spot me looking at what they were doing. He then drove the car up closer, then proceeded by tuning off the engine prematurely before driving all the way in. A little backstory: The past two times I've gone they've told me that they couldn't raise the car without getting it on some wood blocks first. I've gone beyond my ways to tip the gentlemen who service it both times. I usually deal with Mike up front (good guy) but this time I forgot to mention his name when going in for service and unfortunately got placed with some clowns for mechanics. After he turned the engine off, I felt like they had given up already. There was 4 guys around my car, not that it may matter but 2 of which were quite obese. These guys seemed lazy to me, and so I can hear them talking amongst themselves, one of em turned around and spotted me looking around the corner. The guy just gave me this death stare and wouldn't look away, and I'm not one to ever back down from a stare challenge. After our awkward exchange, I saw one of the mechanics start walking towards me. One hour and twenty minutes have now gone by. He told me that they're unable to lift the car. I told him I've been here twice already without this ever being an issue. He just looked at me, shrugged his head and stayed silent. I replied, I was watching you and your guys from around the corner, you didn't even attempt to raise the vehicle. I should also note, my car is lowered, but is not stupid slammed. It still has all of it's function with the exception of scrape every now and then. Anyways, I noticed the other two lard's in the back cracking jokes and walking off like, "sorry, we tried.." There was no effort involved here. Not the slightest bit. What's upsetting is on my last oil change they spilled oil all around the engine bay and didn't even bother cleaning it. I've also asked them NOT to wash the car last time, in which they returned it a soaking mess. I had a LOT of water in the interior, around the door panels, etc.. So, anyways I just sat in my car and drove right off the lot furious without saying a word. I stopped a block down at a red light, noticed it was a bit chilly as both of my windows were down. I rolled them up and to my surprise they were both soaked wet..

Moral of the story, don't take your car to Toyota/Scion of Hollywood because they're garbage. Oh, and change your own oil. I will be doing so this weekend myself and wish I followed this advice sooner from you fine folks here at the forums.

..While on this topic, I was hoping somebody can tell me which brand/type of oil is considered "best" to run?

Thanks. :sigh:

Only reason i used to go to the dealer for my oil changes is for the service records...now that my car is out of warranty i will be doing my own!

As for oil i just use whatever the manual says which is mobil 1 5w-30 (i dont have a frs/brz) so your car may be different but brand wise its up to you!

Mobil 1 Castrol Torco Royal Purple etc

Go to Toyota of Pasadena! My buddy works on my car every visit and will take car of your car(:
My girlfriends mom also works there and I get a bunch of stuff for free

You shouldn't have to know someone or mention someones name to get good service. Should always be apart of a companies policy.

our cars take 0w-20
you can just buy it everything from toyota or subaru.
if you want good oil look into motul, enos , royal purple etc etc.
i use motul 300v 5w-30
i would recommend the motul eco lite

That's funny, I actually got my car from Toyota of Pasadena! They do seem much more friendly, overall the dealership looks much more quality than here in Hollywood. I actually changed the oil myself and found it to be an incredibly easy job, the only part that's really time consuming is jacking the car up since I'm on coils. Letting the oil drain also, but there's nothing you can really do about that. Thanks for your help though, but it looks like no more dealer for me. :)

Yeah it's hard for me to jack up my car too, I'm slammed lol. My buddy puts my car on wood and then jacks it up to do a oil change lol

No problem! You should come down to the eagle rock 86 meet when your free, not sure how far it is from you

I've met a few people on the road from the valley meets always invited me (haven't had time to attend yet). I have a lot of parts sitting on the floor that I haven't gone around to installing yet :( but one day when she's ready I'll probably start attending meets occassionally. Thank you for the invite though :)