PolyFM_TC

So I take my car in today to get a few warranty things done to it (seat cover, door trim piece replaced, hatch struts, pull to the right, sunroof deflector recall). The service writer explains that it is going to have to stay overnight. I say fine, where do I pick up my rental? Which to he replies, you dont have rental coverage for your vehicle. After 20 minutes of explaining to him that I bought the extended warranty with rental coverage, and after he makes two phone calls, he finally breaks down and gives me a voucher for enterprise. I then proceed to walk next door to enterprise and check out a 2006 Chevy Aveo POS rental car. While the rental girl and I were doing a walk around of the rental car in the parking lot I hear another car come flying out of the dealership parking lot and onto the road RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. The driver roasts the tires through first, chirps second, hammers third, and then attempts to grab fourth gear...except that he misses fourth gear and throws it back into 2nd gear while already at about 6000 rpm. The noise that came from the car was atrocious! The rev limiter kicked in immediately but he still revved the motor to what I would imagine was almost 8-9000 rpm's. The sound startled the girl doing the walk around and she looks at me and says "what was that?" To which I replied MY CAR!

AT THIS POINT I AM ____ED OFF!!! I get into the rental car, drive back over to the dealership and walk right up to the service writer and explained to him what I had just witnessed. He assured me that that was not my car but probably some punk kid in another tC and told me my car was around back in the service parking lot. What a load of BS! I got back into the rental, made two laps around their service yard and my car was nowhere to be found. I parked right in front of their drive in service dept bay, jumped out, and demanded to speak with the service manager. I go into this guys office and tell him what has been going on...the porter hammering the poop out of my car, the service writer LYING to cover up for him, and now I half to deal with this service manager who knows that I was right the whole time and had first handedly witnessed one of their employees abusing my vehicle.

The service manager took straight to kissing my ___ right off the get go. He admitted that the service writer had come into his office while I was driving around their service lot and explained what had happened to his manager. Evidently, the manager had already called the porter on his cell phone and told him to get back to the dealership immediately. I then called him on trying to cover up what he knew had taken place and he was pretty much speechless. He gave me free one free oil change and tire rotation (like i care?) to try and diffuse the situation. He assured me that he would personally be the only one driving my vehicle while it was being serviced (the porter was driving it to the upholstery shop to have the new seat cover installed), and he must have appologized fifty times. Since I was still pretty PO'd I decided I would leave before the porter came back with my car and I had to beat his a$$.

While driving in my rental car back home I explained the situation to my father and he told me to call the dealership back and demand that they put the situation in writing so that if anything were to mechanically happen to my car in the future, the dealership could not blame the failure on me beating the hell out of my car. So I called him back and he reluctanlty agreed to have the paper waiting for me when I pick up my car tomorrow.

After talking with my uncle, a Toyota Master Tech, about the situation he instructed me to demand that I get a leak down test performed by the dealership before I take possesion of the vehicle again. Evidently 9000 rpm can be detremental to an engine designed for under 6300 rpm.

So that is it. I am pretty much coming on here to share my experience (yes I know this prob should be in the dealer experience forum but not everybody knows it exists) and to vent to my friends of the scionlife community. Any comments and/ or suggestions on how I should handle this situation tomorrow when I go back to pick up my car would be very appriciated. I just couldn't believe that a Dealership, would allow something like this to happen and then tryi to cover it up by lying to me! Bad form Toyota of San Luis Obispo!

StatuSCheckA

iTrader: (1)

OMG!!...I read the whole thing!

J/P
That was a good story man, for real,

I'd feel so F'ing violated. Someone else redlining my car, my veins would be boiling.

But cant you tell immediately if a car was yours, you sound'ed like you were doubting yourself for a min, I woulda been ____ed off to man, i feel ya.

I got the Extended warranty, i dont know what all was included, but that extra $1000 will come in handy even if i just have to replace one thing.

I hope everything is well with your car. Probly some punk ***** kid they told to bring it to the shop.

I just say, good job on pointing it out right to there face. Some people dont have the ***** to go back and forth to the Service Manager.

They treat us Scion Owners as "Kids". Well, they made a car targeted strait towards us, now they need to deal with it!! And not treat us like ish every time we pull up the the Service Department Garage.!!

tunerZine_tC

File with the BBB

This happened to a friend of mine with another dealership (but it was a Subaru) and they gave him a $500.00 ATM card kinda deal that was basically cash in hand. Anytime something like that happens just go straight to the BBB and you'll be surprised how quickly any company crumbles and does anything you demand.

taek

what dealer is this again???

thisis why i dont trust anybody else with my car lol

-taek

jay_jay_n

omg that really sucks.. that really scares the hell out of me to get my car serviced... sorry to hear that man i hope u get reimbursed for what happened.

ricexizxgood

iTrader: (1)

Yea that does suck.
Which dealer was this?

PolyFM_TC

Yes I could tell it was my car, that is what made me look at it pulling out. With my Injen intake and AW header my car sounds a lot different than most tC's in my area. I was just in disbelief that that was really MY car being treated like that.

Toyota/Scion of San Luis Obispo, CA

I am going to push the issue of them performing a complete leak down and compression check tomorrow before I pick up the car. I am still so ____ed you have no idea. My mother heard about it and called me and told me to get a statement from the girl at the rental place too, just in case it ever becomes a really big issue down the line.

dmxsoulja3

Reason number one I never leave my car anywhere with anyone, if they can't do it right then I tell them I will come back when they can.

Tomas

Good advice in some of these posts already.

DO get a written statement from the gal at the rental office. DO get a written statement from the dealership, from at least the Service manager's level, if not higher. DO have them do the testing before you accept the vehicle. DO contact the BBB, and include copies of the two letters if the BBB wants them. DO contact Scion Corporate, explain the problem, and offer up copies of the letters to them, too.

This is unacceptable behavior from ANY dealer, and needs to make them uncomfortable enough that they DON'T want it to happen again.

(Yeah, this probably should be in 'dealer experience' but for right now it needs to be out here where it can be discussed.)

I don't know about that dealership, but if it were me I'd consider getting togetner with the dealership general manager or owner after I got everything in writing, and asking if this is accepted treatment of the customer's property. Ask what they plan to do to prevent the same thing happening to others who bring their cars in for service?

After all, it ws only dumb luck that the owner of that car was still close by when the PFY took off like that in the car.

Don't believe "that's never happened before." Yeah, sure...

It is HIGHLY unlikely that he just happened to get caught the very first time he ever did that...

Good Luck!

apexjr

It would be in your interest to stand next to your car as they do the leak down and compression test. The obviously abused the car, tried to cover it up and when they realized they couldn't kissed yer ___. So, treat it like someone who has a hidden agenda, and watch them the whole way through. And be damn sure never to take it back there unless that person has been fired.

mr2death

I seriously have to commend you for not seriously kicking someones ___ i know that would be the irrational thing to do but om my god if someone did that to my car i would be on the verge of crying and shooting somone.

bubblemyster

wow. speechless.

amanda776

That is just horrible, please keep us posted on what happens with this.

mikee1680

I had a similar experience, but, with valet parking. They abused the hell out of my mustang. Didn't really know what to do in that situation.

fearturtle44

That really sucks. I would take your master tech relative while the leak down was performed.

Also inform the BBB and also write a "letter to the editor" to your local paper. Once that is published I can guarantee you that this service center will LOSE business which is the only thing that will get their attention.

Kevin

oldmanatee

I'd forget dealing with the Service Mgr. Have the new car mgr. or the owner meet you when you go to pick up your car and DEMAND that all parties involved have a 'Come to Jesus' meeting.

In my selfish way, I'd have already asked for at least 2 firings. The service writer and the service mgr.! The punk kid is easily replaceable and what he did was very wrong, but the other 2 lied to you and were very ready to cover for each other. That is worse that what the kid did.

A free oil change and tire rotation are an insult. Ask the owner if he will let you go test drive a brand new car the same way yours was driven. I'm betting he will decline.
Friend, you are OWED! Lighting up the tires does more than just burn off a 64th of the tire, who knows what damage to the driveline was done? Let's not even go into what missed shifts and banging off the rev limiter will do, not can do.
This entire saga is unacceptable! And the BBB, Toyota Corprate,the 6 o'clock news and everyone in three counties needs to be aware of it.

Thanks for clueing us in on it. And thanks mods for leaving it in the main forum for a while.

djct_watt

There is a reason why Toyota dealers are ranked NEAR THE BOTTOM in terms of satisfaction. I love Toyota Motor Co., but unfortunately existing company policies make it difficult to control dealers.

It's so bad, that I refuse to buy Toyota cars so that I don't have to deal with the dealers (no haggle with Scion makes it worth it). Lexus dealers are great too. . . but Toyota sucks (and sorry to those few RESPECTABLE dealers). This also reminds me that the service department is PART of Toyota, and that I'm kinda shot in the foot there. :-/

I would put as much publicity on this as possible. Personally, I wouldn't let up until I got a new car (which would probably never happen). Driving like a monkey is bad enough, but mis-shifting and over-revving. . . they might as well have made bowel movements on your seat. Sure, they could clean it, but you wouldn't want to sit in the same seat again. . . unless you did it. And I know that's gross, but it's a very similar analogy.

Stu_Gotti

Wow! I thought I had it bad... sorry to hear that man.

atodak

Screw the tests I'd just demand a new ride. Tests won't tell you what what will happen in the long term and there WILL be long term damage.

engifineer

Good job on handling it the right way. With your car and the dealer in the balance that is how you should do it.... now if I caught a valet doing that as mentioned above, he WOULD get dragged out the car and beat like a red-headed step child!

Make sure they take care of this no matter what! The lack of any knowledge or skill by many of the dealer techs today coupled with nonsense like this is why no one wants to take thier car to the dealer. The guy driving your car SHOULD lose his job immediately, and I can tell you if he worked for me he would already be job hunting. The service writer would be right beside him simply for lying to a customer... but I believe in being honest with the customer, so dont expect that out of many dealerships. I know they arent all bad... but start reading some Motors books or talk to any number of customers or thier private mechanics who now have thier business and you see how bad the situation is.

Sorry for this happening!