what could cause my avg mpg to drop .3 in 2 miles?? dealer screwing me over?

[chulooz]

Originally Posted by SVTSHC

Also, I don't mean to offend anyone with what I'm about to say so please don't take this the wrong way.


But it kills me how people would sooner accept the random baseless assumptions and opinions of anonymous internet forum members over the trained professionals that are trying their hardest to please them.

I hear what you are saying, but never put it past the techs to do something stupid... you have heard of the M5 dealership crash right?

[SVTSHC]

Originally Posted by chulooz

I hear what you are saying, but never put it past the techs to do something stupid... you have heard of the M5 dealership crash right?

I mean I fully understand your concerns and why you'd be suspicious; especially after hearing things like that. Though I haven't heard of the M5 crash I've heard and even seen some rediculous things happen in the dealership. The problem is those cases are few and far between but because they DO happen every so often (mostly due to individuals with less than 5 functioning brain cells that through some miracle manage to button their pants and lace their shoes) it sets a poor stereotype for the industry that it seems everyone not involved in the industry believes 100% happens all the time. Bad news travels fast, a hell of a lot faster than good news and the media will report something like that 40 times over before they report a sentence like "X dealer has been doing great and got center of excellence for 2012". A journalist friend once told me "good news doesn't make good news, bad news does." Not to mention people that do stupid things like that tend to lose their jobs, fast. Tech work is VERY cut throat, people lose their jobs for stupid acts, stupid mistakes and complete accidents all the time; the level of job security is actually pretty sad.

Personal example that I almost got fired for when I was a technician at Ford, I was working on a 06 Taurus and the advisor was on my back about getting the car done because the customer was in a rush and ETA was about 20 minutes. So I started rushing to get everything back together and didn't "click" one side of the fuel filter. Needless to say it had a slow drip from the side that wasn't completely fastened. Fast-forward 2 days and the customer calls back PISSED because the fuel that was dripping out DESTROYED the asphault in his driveway. I went to dudes house and personally replaced the asphault in his driveway while getting berrated by the dude. It was a stupid mistake caused by rushed work and up until then I had a flawless track record but the customer saw that as malicious, saying I did it on purpose so we could get more money out of him.

There will always be crooked individuals from celebrities to politicians to retail employees. The important thing to remember is not everyone is a self-serving bad apple.

I'm sorry if I'm constantly ranting, this is kind of a passionate subject for me because I'm so tied into it =/.

[fluffy-reindeer-slayer]

i have read this entire thread and would like to say thanks for the imput from everyone, @ svtshc. thank you the most, I have worked for toyota motor manufacturing for the last 6 years and over that time I have been held to the highest of standards for the job that I do, being said. when I buy a toyota vehicle I expect nothing but exelence and perfection in my product, my experience whith this dealer has been nothing but a downward spiral since purchasing the car. I let my anger take over not just because of the question at hand, but the lack of communication and neglect on there part to inform me of what was going on with my vehicle.i called probably 20 times durring the week just simply wanting updates on my car and never once got a call back, my car was passed arround by 3 service advisors, it took a week to get wheels and tires put on my vehicle and none of the multiple issues were solved,so at that point I had enough.I already bust my butt for toyota for 12 hours a day the last thing i want to be doing is dealing with people who just wont keep me in the loop. btw I have driven the car 100 miles sice pick up and avg mpg has not moved from 32.9 at all.

[sierra]

It's easy to get the impression from reading the emotional posts from svtshc that problems at the workshop during repair and servicing are extremely rare. From my own experience with many different workshops over the years, I'm impressed if they do it right but usually something is messed up.
I have a technical background and have run my own automotive workshop where mistakes were extremely rare and when they happened we made sure the customer understood it was very rare and apologised profusely.

So in my experience the standard of servicing has been dismal over a wide range of dealers and yes, I much prefer to do it myself so that it's done properly and to the book.

When I get good service I make sure I thank them for doing a good job, which in reality is just what I paid for in the first place but it seems special not to have a balls up as per usual.