How big of a ride did the dealer take my wife on.

I’m not much of a fan of this.
Cat litter is water soluble clay. It actually doesn’t absorb oil, but it has huge surface area so the oil sticks to it and allows you to sweep it up. However over time (days to weeks) it will drip off. Essentially once dumped in the landfill it leaches out into watersheds. One quart of oil can pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water so one oil change dumped is potentially polluting over one million gallons of water.

 

For fun I sent the service manager this message. Will see what happens (if anything).
_________________________

Just wanted to reach out as I was disappointed with the service on my Toyota Tacoma today. The original job was an oil change and top off the power steering fluid.

Service fell short in three ways
1)At the service counter we were asked about any problems we were having and we stated power steering had squealed but I got the truck back low on power steering fluid. They certainly did not check or top of the fluid. This is a safety issue and shows lack of quality control in the inspection process.

2)Was charged over Toyota MSRP on all my parts. On each of the cabin and engine air filters, I was charged about $10 each over Toyota MSRP. The service writer convinced my wife we needed an EVAP cleaning which was unlikely needed a second time on this truck. But ignoring the necessity, we were charged $75 for kit that has an MSRP of $40 but is often sold for $28 by Toyota dealers. https://parts.sparkstoyota.com/p/Toyota-AC-Refresher-Kit/69278112/00289ACRKT.html
In total, we were charged about $65 over MSRP for today's parts.

3)Labor seems excessive for the filtres. After I paid for an oil change and inspection and the power steering was no inspected I took the time to make sure the filters were changed. It took a total of 2 minutes to access both filtres but I was charged $60 to charge them. Even at $200 an hour shop time that amount doesn't remotely align with the time it would take to change these filters even if you doubled or tripled it.

My primary concern is the failure to address the one safety issue of being low on power steering fuild and the charging above MSRP on parts.

I can be reached via email or phone
.....

 

Whoa

 

Well all I can say is you know who is going bring your truck for an oil change next time and it sure ain't gonna be the wife.

 

Yeah you got took for sure.
Lesson #1 do not go to the dealer except for recalls
Lesson #2 Do not ask wife to go to said dealer

 

Yes, you got screwed. I used to go to the repair shop with my female friends to prevent this from happening.
Don't feel too bad. I had never taken a vehicle to be repaired or worked on ever(except painting) until I took my current Tacoma to the dealer for transmission service. I had no other choice. Everything they touched, they f'ed up. I've owned Toyotas a long time, and there may be exceptions to the rule, but the worst part of Toyota ownership is the dealer.

 

My new truck is 11 months old and has not been to the dealer since I have picked it up. My oil changes are done at my local mom and pop service station. Good service at reasonable prices and they stand behind their work. As there is not too many to point at when someone does screw up.

 

Your wife was trying to help you out. I would apologize to her.

I wish my wife was still here to help out.

 

Its not what i do...its what id do if it was difficult to recycle and im being turned away from disposing of it....or burn it.

 

I have not read through this entire thread, but your original post clearly shows that you fucked up here on multiple levels. This is not your wife's fault in the least and the ass chewing you gave her was way out of line. You need to make serious amends for chewing her ass out for something you should have handle to begin with. IMO, you got what you deserved here.

 

It’s a fair and open market in regards to pricing. There is no law against charging over “MSRP”. There is laws and regs against performing work without authorization, your wife must’ve authorized these repairs and agreed to the specific price. It’s the consumers duty to shop around for the best price but you will find most dealer will be about the same. You can buy parts from anywhere below your so called “MSRP” price but you complaining about it later once it was authorized doesn’t do anything but make them laugh. You can complain all you want but it’s a free and open market. Anyone can price anything at the amount they want. It’s up to the consumer to accept it and the consumer to do their shopping around.

 

Eh, I would have been cross with my wife as well, but she knows better. If they suggested anything other than what I told her to get done, she would either call me or decline. But, she probably wouldn't have done this kind of errand for me in the first place "because I'm always so anal about it." My oldest daughter is willing to learn and learning. My younger one, I'd just be happy if she learned to drive.

 

Years ago, I took a Civic in for an oil change at 12k miles. Service advisor wanted me to pay $75 for a safety check, which I laughed out loud.

When I was home, I asked my wife if she'd have paid that, and she said yes.

 

Dude.. well everyone has told you you messed up and I agree. I do NOT send a vehicle to the dealer without either me being there or on the phone with the service writer. It’s totally your fault. My wife refuses to go unless they call me or I go alone for the drop off and spell out what I want done.. next thing you will know is nitrogen in your tires..

 

That's probably what OP's wife's intent was in the first place. And that's what OP has to understand and make up with his wife.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

This is me...if I was trying to make amends, I'd offer that amount for her to spend on whatever she wanted. (I've been in serious trouble with my wife at times during our 32 year marriage so I try to make things right)

Yeah, it's over $350+ but it's not the end of the world. That's the price of a TRD Skid plus enough for OEM wheel locks.

 

I had some work done at the dealership today. It still hurts to sit down.

 

I'll add in another perspective. Shit's expensive these days. Everything. So $300+ dollars you got oil change, air filter, cabin filter, and AC whatever, its not the end of the world. Basically you paid someone to do it all for you and your wife took care of it it wasn't super expensive, basically the cost of what I would expect to pay if someone did it for me.

If you took it to another shop, that's over an hour of work plus parts. Yeah yeah people will tell you they could do it in 10 minutes but that's BS. You spend all that time running around buying the shit, then you say 10 minutes to install but it actually took you 2+ hours total. You didn't have to buy the tools, rags, you didn't have to clean up.

Could have been worse. Toyota tried to charge my wife $400 for a tire that was covered under warranty. now THATS a rip off.

 

$385 is the new $150

 

He’s not wrong, (in my case anyway.)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqqcrf64UWg