Dealer Service BS experience

So yesterday I take my 2006 DCSB PreRunner with 81K miles to this dealer to get the tires rotated. After about 40 minutes I look out the window into the service area and I see the hood on my truck up, Hmm, what is he doing I think.

20 minutes later the service guy comes over to talk to me. He says that all my seals need to be replaced (verbally). Then he says it will take 22 hours and would cost $3,650.00!

Bit my tongue and said no thanks and left, being pissed off of what just happened. My truck is not leaking anything that I can see, I do work on it myself for normal maintenance. And it runs great so I did not expect this.

I went online to check reviews on this dealer and there were many one stars that said they are a ripoff. I moved down to Columbia, SC 1.5 years ago. My 2nd time there. First was for TPMS reset.

Stay away from Dick Dyer Toyota.

Anybody go thru this type of BS?

thank,
Mike

 

That's about as a generic of explanation as it gets......
He didn't even a hint to what seals?

 

Dick Dyer and a good number of other dealers in the U. S. engage in this practice. Go to another dealer and you may very well see the same thing. Find a good independent repair shop. Talk to people in your area. They may be able to help you find one.

 

No he didn't. After I left I thought I should have had him write it up so I had the details of the job.

 

Should have asked him if that includes a free blinker fluid top off

 

Thanks, I will look into a good independent repair shop in my area. My previous dealer, Toyota of North Charlotte was very good to me. Guess times have changed...

 

LOL - good catch!

 

I find a lot of these dealer reviews very informative — your review included, OP. I wouldn’t guess as to what percentage of us have experienced this sort of behavior, but it would have to be a sizable number. It makes me empathize with the average Joe Blow who wanders into a dealership defenseless to these shenanigans.

 

You made a huge mistake by not getting them replaced. As you can see from this photo, seals can start leaking moisture without warning. Better reconsider and call them back to schedule a full replacement.

 

I’ve got one about fort bend Toyota in Texas.
A few months ago my brother totaled his 2008 Scion tC in Texas. Me being in Colorado I found a replacement for him since my mother and my brother know absolutely nothing about cars. I found a beautiful 2012 tC with less than 50k miles on it and shipped it to Texas. Fast forward a little and my mom calls me and says the brakes are squeaking when backing out of the driveway, I said it probably just needs a hang and turn (shop slang for replace pads, cut rotors). Told her to take it to the shop I left when I moved to Colorado since I trust the guys there. She doesn’t listen and takes it to fort bend Toyota because it’s only 3 miles from the house. She calls me hysterical because they told her the car is fucked and it needs 5500 dollars worth of work. They told her the control arms, struts, and frame were all missing. And the calipers are gone. I called the service manager and after leaving 5 messages I get a call back. And I said politely, let’s go throw this estimate together. He said well first of all it needs control arms. I asked what’s wrong with them? He said I don’t know. I said well are they bent, bad ball joint, bad bushing? What? Then he said the struts are bad, I asked how? Are they leaking? Bent? Bad mounts? And then he said the frame was missing pieces, i said it’s a unibody car, I highly doubt that, then he said if you want to know what is wrong with the control arms the. You need to pay 3 hours of labor for me to tell you. I told him put the car together and put it outside and get fucked.

The next day I had a buddy back in Texas do the brakes for 150 on the side with brand new pads and rotors.

 

Think about it. They're this bad with guys. Just think what they do with females? I've fielded calls from female friends with sheer horror stories about what dealers tell them. 99.9% of the time it's a total rip off.

 

I feel ya, I hate dishonest dealerships.

We had bought a high mileage, one owner, BMW X3 for cheap ($5,000) for the fiance (I'm a BMW enthusiast, so I knew what I was getting into). The winter after we bought it, it started having a slight drivetrain vibration. Being dead of winter and being busy at work, I asked the concerned lady friend to take it into the dealer for a oil change and see if they could look at it while it was in and give us an idea of what was causing it.

I get a call from her, crying, saying they came back and said the AWD transfer case needed replaced and it'd be $4,800 to replace...then "retest". Um...ok, seems like a solid diagnosis. Finally got my cold arse under there and found a $30 rubber drive shaft bushing (BMW calls the "guibo") that was deteriorated and torn (and was easily visible to inspect in the drive shaft, so hard to miss during a simple once over inspection). Replaced it, everything was perfect.

So annoying that we paid them $185 to diag a problem and they overlooked an obviously failed rubber bushing and instead were trying to claim it's 'likely a stretched transfer case chain'. They didn't care what the real problem was, they cared what would make them money or for some reason didn't want to bother and made up a BS thing to get us to go away.

It's not often I'm too busy, cold or lazy to DIY, but it's experiences like this every once in a while that remind me why I bother to DIY.

Another fun one; was selling a 2000 Jeep Cherokee. Had an interested party checking it out and wanted a PPI. Took it to his shop of choice. Met him there to find out the results and they said it had an engine knock and would need a new engine, but they offered to fix it (for either me or him) for $2,500. When inquiring about this supposed "engine knock", the mechanic said it was weird, he had only heard it while driving, not while in the shop idling or revving the engine. When I asked if it might also be the bad u-joint making the noise (since he had noted the bad u-joint in the report) he seemed offended that I questioned his work. Needless to say, the potential buyer passed and I sold the Jeep to a buddy who's still driving it 100K miles later and while he HAS replaced the noisy u-joint, the engine still runs as quiet and well as ever.

So sometimes independents are just a crummy as dealers. Sometimes.

I DIY unless I can't, even then, I take their "recommendations" with a grain of salt and make sure I truly agree with their reasoning.

It makes me sick to think how many unsuspecting people they make fall for this dishonest business. If they ever did it to a family member or someone close to me, I'd be sure to do my part as a consumer to make them right the wrong.

 

Stop taking your truck to a dealer.

Especially for a tire rotation.

 

Your mom must be one hell of a driver to go 3 miles missing all of that. Damn!

 

It must have levitated there, who knew the Scion tC was a flying car

 

My mother in law bought a new Highlander at our Toyota dealership in Ashland WI. She has a great independent where she lives (about an hour and a half east), but thought she would have the dealer do the first oil change. They changed the oil and off she went to home. Made it home but the engine was toast... they did not properly install the oil filter and it all bled out... Things went down hill from there; however, she did get a new vehicle in the end. But, what a hassle. I have not had many positive interactions with dealerships over the years... I mostly do my own work, and thank goodness I know enough to call foul when the BS starts.

 

A vacationing penguin is driving his car through Arizona when he notices that the oil pressure light is on. He gets out to look and sees oil dripping out of the motor. He drives to the nearest town and stops at the first gas station.

After dropping the car off, the penguin goes for a walk around town. He sees an ice-cream shop and, being a penguin in Arizona, decides that something cold would really hit the spot. He gets a big dish of ice cream and sits down to eat. Having no hands he makes a real mess trying to eat with his flippers. After finishing his ice cream, he goes back to the gas station and asks the mechanic if he's found the problem. The mechanic looks up and says "It looks like you blew a seal."

"No no," the penguin replies, "it's just ice cream."

 

How is the new motor in the truck doing?

 

Crooked dealers, yes I know all about them. There are 2 Toy dealers in Abq I wouldn't trust with a oil change. I used to take car problems that I couldn't fix to a friends shop but he threw a rod, that shop is gone now.
Now I take my problems to a german car repair place. Honest but not cheap and yes they work on my toyotas. (i asked nicely)