a tale of two dealers

[perryair]

so last sunday i washed my car and discovered that my left taillight housing was cracked all the way through. there was no damage to anything, nothing even resembling an impact mark, nothing. so i take it in to my closest dealer, the one i bought my car from and i talked to their advisor and said that this car has a history with lens issues, that they were welcome to examine the car to make sure that it wasnt hit or anything..

I explain the history, show them the tsbs from subaru and toyota and ask them to just look at it. then their advisor gets their useless service manager who proceeds to tell me:
- that the crack was an impact mark. where is the impact point? i said
- that someone must have backed into it. where is any damage to the car other than the highly recessed taillight area?
- and that, this is my favorite, someone could have walked through my parking carport and punched my taillight. yes, instead of keying it or breaking anything but again, where is the impact point?

then says flatout that he wont fix it under warranty, then says he will call 'corporate', proceeds to disappear for 15 minutes, doesnt have the decency to come back and say anything to my face, sends his lackey back for him who says that they would "never" get reimbursed for that warranty work but i was welcome to call subaru of america.

so i called subaru of america and in 5 minutes the super nice advisor they had explained that if they could get a price quote they could likely comp it as a courtesy. she calls the dealer for me to get the quote and gets no call back for a day and a half and therefore im still stuck.

then i venture down to the other dealer in my area, and explain that i had a big crack in it but there was no impact damage from anything, service advisor looks at it for two minutes, tells me they have the part in stock, gets me in and an hour later im on the road with a new taillight.

and because of that, im not going to go back to dealer #1 because, people skills and just not treating your customers like an a$$#@\€.

rant over.

[humfrz]

Well, now you know where to take your car to be serviced and where to buy your next car......


humfrz

[Ammunition]

Glad you got it taken care of. I drive out of my way, across town through some of the worst stretches of highway commuting (in terms of traffic - usually can expect a 60 - 90 minute round trip) to get my car serviced, as well as any other needs (parts ordered, etc) taken care of at a particular dealership because their service versus that of every other dealership I've been to (including the one just 4 miles from my house) is night and day.

[BRZnut]

you should write a letter to Subaru of America praising the great service from the second dealer compared to the first. The second dealer will be your friend for life.

[grinerizer]

Fill out your surveys. Service Advisors get a healthy chunk of bonus money from Subaru for high scores. SURVEYS REALLY DO HAVE AN IMPACT!

Happy with your service, give 'em 10's and let Subaru pay them for the job well done.
Unhappy? Hit 'em low and the lesson should have an impact.

[evomike]

i am going to be honest, i would deny a crack to a tail lamp lens as well.

[Tcoat]

I truly expected this thread to start with:


It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

[perryair]

Originally Posted by evomike

i am going to be honest, i would deny a crack to a tail lamp lens as well.

seeing as how you have a 2013 frs, and there is an actual toyota tsb that has pictures of cracked taillight lenses as a factory issue, im pretty sure youd change your tune if you walked outside one morning and saw your taillight cracked from the inside and absolutely no impact damage looking exactly like described in the tsb. but hey, its a free country and you can say anything you want on the internet i suppose.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by grinerizer

Fill out your surveys. Service Advisors get a healthy chunk of bonus money from Subaru for high scores. SURVEYS REALLY DO HAVE AN IMPACT!

Happy with your service, give 'em 10's and let Subaru pay them for the job well done.
Unhappy? Hit 'em low and the lesson should have an impact.

Funny enough, my service department is also junk, yet since they're conveniently located for me (less than 5 minutes from my house) I continue to go there.

So far, I had to wait 10 months or so to get a TSB thing dealt with, I absolutely trashed every single person I dealt with during that one to Toyota Corporate, gave them awful scores on the surveys and now I'm just counting down my free oil changes.

Would go to another dealer, but that's a 30 minute drive. If my life didn't get so hectic during the summer, I'd gladly make that drive. But, c'est la vie.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by perryair

seeing as how you have a 2013 frs, and there is an actual toyota tsb that has pictures of cracked taillight lenses as a factory issue, im pretty sure youd change your tune if you walked outside one morning and saw your taillight cracked from the inside and absolutely no impact damage looking exactly like described in the tsb. but hey, its a free country and you can say anything you want on the internet i suppose.

Hey Perr do you have this TSB for cracked lenses? I know there is one for gasket leaks but the one for cracked lenses shows as an invalid link on the TSB thread. I could not find it anyplace else and it is worth replacing if you happen to have it.

[df.dima]

Originally Posted by Cole

Funny enough, my service department is also junk, yet since they're conveniently located for me (less than 5 minutes from my house) I continue to go there.

So far, I had to wait 10 months or so to get a TSB thing dealt with, I absolutely trashed every single person I dealt with during that one to Toyota Corporate, gave them awful scores on the surveys and now I'm just counting down my free oil changes.

Would go to another dealer, but that's a 30 minute drive. If my life didn't get so hectic during the summer, I'd gladly make that drive. But, c'est la vie.

I am assuming you mean Guelph Toyota/Scion? We had a few members share their good experience a while ago, I thought they are ok.
Do you really think Heffner is that much better (Unless Forbes just can change oil, they wont do much with Scion)? I had condensation in my tail light, SA told me to come back when it actually happens, although I had pictures, that makes it a little bit inconvenient but ok, I did come on the day that I had it. They booked me a few days later, I thought there it is, great service. Well, they managed to put tiny scratches on the new tail light (looked like it was dragged on dustry garage floor), I complained to SA, but he made a BS excuse that their manager is on vacation and will get back to me later. Never happened. I just gave up, its like talking to a wall.
I won't even go into detail how they delivered my wife's new RX and there was a scuff on armrest corner, they agreed to replace it first, my wife took it in later, but they refused on the spot, because "all of their cars" are like that and its the way it wrapped with materials... Obviously BS, I had pictures from other owners with a panel and no scuffs.
We are sort of screwed for dealer services withink 100kms in our area, either Toyota/Subaru.


Sorry for hijacking ur thread perryair, I feel your pain and am happy that you were able to sort things out immediately with other dealer. Timely resolution and avoiding dragging crap along is very important.

[evomike]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Hey Perr do you have this TSB for cracked lenses? I know there is one for gasket leaks but the one for cracked lenses shows as an invalid link on the TSB thread. I could not find it anyplace else and it is worth replacing if you happen to have it.

would also be interested in this only issues with cracking i know of is because of vinyl overlays.

[Cole]

Originally Posted by df.dima

I am assuming you mean Guelph Toyota/Scion? We had a few members share their good experience a while ago, I thought they are ok.
Do you really think Heffner is that much better (Unless Forbes just can change oil, they wont do much with Scion)? I had condensation in my tail light, SA told me to come back when it actually happens, although I had pictures, that makes it a little bit inconvenient but ok, I did come on the day that I had it. They booked me a few days later, I thought there it is, great service. Well, they managed to put tiny scratches on the new tail light (looked like it was dragged on dustry garage floor), I complained to SA, but he made a BS excuse that their manager is on vacation and will get back to me later. Never happened. I just gave up, its like talking to a wall.
I won't even go into detail how they delivered my wife's new RX and there was a scuff on armrest corner, they agreed to replace it first, my wife took it in later, but they refused on the spot, because "all of their cars" are like that and its the way it wrapped with materials... Obviously BS, I had pictures from other owners with a panel and no scuffs.
We are sort of screwed for dealer services withink 100kms in our area, either Toyota/Subaru.


Sorry for hijacking ur thread perryair, I feel your pain and am happy that you were able to sort things out immediately with other dealer. Timely resolution and avoiding dragging crap along is very important.

I had an awful experience with them. Have gone into great depth on it before in another thread. Short of the long, I had an issue with my transmission (There's a TSB for it) brought the TSB in, had video of it happening, took a tech on a test drive, etc. Had all my shit together for it. They blamed it on me driving the car improperly as well as the mods on my car (cat back, coils and wheels) They refused to work on my car because the mods were causing the problem (Even though I had gotten a brand new, bone stock car on the lot to do the exact same thing). I got in touch with Corporate, took me a long, long time. And ultimately, they caved.

I was treated like absolute shit by the service manager there. Probably due to my attitude of "There's a problem here, it's wide spread, I fall within the VIN range and there's a valid TSB. I'm not going to stop bugging you until you flash the new TCM logic for me". I wasted a lot of time during that process, and it genuinely made me want to get rid of the car. Thank you very much for that, Guelph Toyota, I'll always remember that, and in the future, when friends and family of mine want to go to you to buy their new car, or get their service done, I'll be sure to steer them somewhere else. Not to mention the one tech I dealt with during the diagnostic drive flat out said "You don't know how to drive the car". You're also an idiot who knew so very little about the car, it took all I could do to not let you know that.

Then, it took them almost 2.5 hours to do an oil change and a recall thing for me. I had already rectified the recall on my own, so really, all the had to do was check to see if one plug was connected, then do whatever paperwork there was to do and send me on my way.

Sorry, guess I'm still very bitter about that experience.

I don't know if Heffner is better, but they're not Guelph, so that's good enough for me. I suppose Cambridge may be a bit closer for me, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Cole

I had an awful experience with them. Have gone into great depth on it before in another thread. Short of the long, I had an issue with my transmission (There's a TSB for it) brought the TSB in, had video of it happening, took a tech on a test drive, etc. Had all my shit together for it. They blamed it on me driving the car improperly as well as the mods on my car (cat back, coils and wheels) They refused to work on my car because the mods were causing the problem (Even though I had gotten a brand new, bone stock car on the lot to do the exact same thing). I got in touch with Corporate, took me a long, long time. And ultimately, they caved.

I was treated like absolute shit by the service manager there. Probably due to my attitude of "There's a problem here, it's wide spread, I fall within the VIN range and there's a valid TSB. I'm not going to stop bugging you until you flash the new TCM logic for me". I wasted a lot of time during that process, and it genuinely made me want to get rid of the car. Thank you very much for that, Guelph Toyota, I'll always remember that, and in the future, when friends and family of mine want to go to you to buy their new car, or get their service done, I'll be sure to steer them somewhere else. Not to mention the one tech I dealt with during the diagnostic drive flat out said "You don't know how to drive the car". You're also an idiot who knew so very little about the car, it took all I could do to not let you know that.

Then, it took them almost 2.5 hours to do an oil change and a recall thing for me. I had already rectified the recall on my own, so really, all the had to do was check to see if one plug was connected, then do whatever paperwork there was to do and send me on my way.

Sorry, guess I'm still very bitter about that experience.

I don't know if Heffner is better, but they're not Guelph, so that's good enough for me. I suppose Cambridge may be a bit closer for me, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Flip side in London:
Took my car in in September and showed them the TSB for the window freezing and door stripping issues. My vin was included in the TSBs and I told them I understood that it was not a recall but would like to have it done before it started freezing outside. They said no problem and ordered the parts. Two weeks latter they called and said the parts were in and I could bring it around any time. Dropped by a couple of days later and 45 minutes later drove away with al new window stripping, guides and switches. They also filled my windshield washer tank and checked all the fluid levels for no charge.
All Service Departments are not created equal!