Today I stood in the service department of a Toyota dealership and listened to someone say, “I’m not sure we have anyone here right now who can work on a Toyota.”
I ended up in this service department because my friend cut her hand at work. I took her to Walgreen’s in Laurel for bandages. When we came out of the store, my car wouldn’t start. My friend called her husband who came and gave my car a jump start. They went home. I went down the road to the Toyota dealership because I live alone, and I didn’t want to go home in a car I wasn’t sure would start the next morning.
I sort of objected to the idea that they might not be able to work on my Toyota at the Toyota dealership. Maybe I objected in a loud and cranky voice. The end result of this was that I waited around for an hour for someone to stick a new battery in my car. They charged me $150 for the battery. They didn’t bother to check my car out to determine what was wrong or what it might need. They just stuck a battery in, which I probably did need, but this was my first encounter with a dealership that didn’t bother to give the car a general checkup as matter of course. This didn’t exactly ease my state of crankiness.
The credit card machine wasn’t working. I had to write a check I wasn’t sure I could afford.
The drink machine took my money and didn’t give me a drink.
The person at the register stood there playing with a baby while a line of people waited to be helped.
I won’t go back there again. I’ll take my car to Walmart before I take it there to be serviced. I certainly won’t buy a car there. And not because everything they did was annoying when I was already stressed out over my car not starting. They lost me at “I’m not sure we have anyone here right now who can work on a Toyota.”
If you work for a Toyota dealership, this is not a sentence that should pass through your lips. It does not inspire confidence. If you own a Toyota dealership, and you hope to grow your customer base, you might want to consider keeping some Toyota certified mechanics on hand. Just a thought…
Regardless, my car does seem to be cranking now. It may take me some time yet to become uncranked.
Don’t go to Walmart! Dang! I went and got an oil change because of problems with the Toyota Dealership and now my maintenance light will not go OFF! @#$**O*@&$@ It took 1 hour and 45 minutes for them to change the oil. I started timing them after the hood was raised.
Since you’re my baby sister, I’ll keep my comments to myself, but you know what you should do……lol….
Um…let me guess. Your opinion is that I should trade my old Toyota in for a new car from a dealership I can trust. 🙂
This is the same Toyota dealership that tried to charge me 90.00 for an oil change. I was atypically loud and obnoxious in my response, and they had to honor their original price of 39.00. NOTHING makes me angrier than being “little ladied’ by a car dealership. I would re-name the place if I were Kim……