I stopped by Power Toyota Irvine yesterday and test drove a 08 Scion XB because I need a second car. Their sales dept is surprisingly decent and professional and considering I bought my 06 Tacoma from them, I decided to go back to them. At the same time, I decided after 4 months of ownership, to finally get the customization for the door locks. Obviously, I have a RCSB so can not do it myself through the display menu, so kill two birds with one stone.
So after the XB test drive, made an appt for this morning to take care of the Tundra. Brought the Tundra in today and went through all the paperwork thinking it is going to be covered under warranty and then the service advisor says: "Oh, yeah, this is not free, was never free and we have to charge you labor because it is so involved and our tech needs to go in manually and reprogram your Tundra."
WTF?! Manually? You mean because he actually needs to pull out a handheld scanner and spend all of 5 minutes to change a damn door locking setting?
All new news to me, especially since this is my 4th Toyota product that I purchased new from a dealer. Other Toyota's being: 01 IS300, 05 RX330, 06 Tacoma TRD Sport Doublecab, and this 07 Tundra. Even more shocking because I've had my 05 RX330 customized 2 times all free of charge from the Lexus dealer. In fact, I did not even need to make an appt, just showed up and the service advisor grabbed his tech and did on the spot.
Wow, did not think the quality of service disparity would be so huge. I asked to speak to the service manager and some guy who looks like Newman from Seinfeld, shows up and right off the bat is abrasive and pretty defensive and tries to argue how no one gets this "service" done for free.
Then the line he adds, which I thought was really special:
Newman-clone: "Why don't you go back to the dealer where you bought the Tundra and have them do it for free."
(The only reason I bought this Tundra at another dealer is because they did not have the color and options I wanted. I gave them first dibbs for a sale but they did not have the inventory. Nevermind the fact that I bought the 06 Tacoma from them.)
Me: "So are you saying that if I bought this Tundra here at Power Irvine, you would provide this service as a courtesy and it would be free?"
Newman-clone: "No, it would not be free."
Me: "So why would Mossy Toyota provide this for free?"
Newman-clone: "I don't know, just our answer is No. I already talked to my DPSM and they will not assist."
Me: "Why would you bother your factory rep. with something so petty, and amazing that you were in contact with your DPSM within 2 minutes. You are telling me you have absolutely no goodwill budget of your own to handle something that should be a warranty claim?"
Newman-clone: "The answer is no. Go back to your dealer."
Me: "So hypothetically, if I bought my Tundra in Texas and moved to California, I would still need to go back to the dealer in Texas to get the doorlock reprogrammed?"
Newman-clone: "That's up to you, but we can't do it for free."
So obviously, Newman at this point had circled the wagons and wasn't going to budge. I called customer service dept for Toyota in Torrance and they refer me back to the CR rep at the dealer. Who I left a message with, but have yet to hear back from. In the meantime, the salesman and sales manager call back wondering when I am going to buy a Scion from them. Wow, they really make you feel special and loved as a loyal customer don't they?
I might have to call Toyota in Japan and let them know how F'd up the customer service is. I actually did this when I had the IS300 and the Toyota Japanese customer service dept contacted the Torrance office and they were apologizing profusely and goodwilled all sorts of stuff. Amazing that it will have to go to that to make a local dealer more responsive.
Anybody know of a dealer in so cal that is decent and won't pull this type of BS? This really, maybe my last Toyota product. I haven't dealt with this type of BS at the dealership level in a while. It kind of caught me off guard. What a waste of time.
