My Day at the Dealer Today

Because I thought it was completely asinine that a modern vehicle didn't have a basic feature like key-less entry (what the hell are you thinking Toyota?????), part of the deal when I bought my truck a few weeks ago was to have it installed at no cost.

In the meantime, I found a set of take-off's from a TRD Sport in absolutely flawless condition, with the TPMS sensors, and only 7 miles on the package, so I bought them. The dealer has been hounding me to get the key-less entry installed, because as they claim, they lost money on the deal (I got a bunch of other stuff for free, or at cost) and didn't want to carry the loss into August.

So, I scheduled for this morning at 9AM to have the key-less entry (the "official" Southeast Toyota part) installed, and to have my steelies swapped out for the Sports. 3 hours for the key-less entry, and 1 hour for the wheels/tires swap plus reprogramming the TPMS. At 1PM, the service adviser informs me that they're still not done with the key-less entry. In all fairness, they offered me a rental, but I didn't want to deal with that hassle for a few hours. Anyway, 3PM rolls around (I'm working on my laptop at a nice quiet table in the showroom, which also served as a great people watching spot), and I mosey on over to the adviser who tells me they won't be done with the key-less entry until 4PM. OK, fine, I'd rather they take their time and do it right, so no harm, no foul. I was busy working anyway, so time was going by pretty quickly.

The adviser then informs me that they have to remove the tires to get the TPMS sensor ID's, then mount and balance the tires. So I go back to my table, and call a nearby Toyota dealer who said they have the device that can read the ID's without removing the tire. $120 to reprogram the TPMS to my truck. My dealer was going to go through the whole tire removal process for $60.

5:30 rolls around, and they are now just driving my truck over to do the tires/wheels. I told them to just do the swap and don't worry about the TPMS. The adviser told me there would be no charge for the day. Cool I thought. I'll just head to the dealer with the right equipment and have it done without pulling everything apart.

The tech drives my truck into the service drive, and oh my, those new wheels look absolutely spectacular on my Super White SR! I checked the functions of the key-less entry system, and it works perfectly. Off I go!

Pull in to the grocery store about 10 miles away, and just happened to look in the bed of the truck to see the green cloth I had wrapped the proper lug nuts in. How nice, they packaged up the old lug nut for me. Hmmm. Did they? So I look, and find the lug nuts for the alloy wheels nestled nice and cozy in the cloth. I check the lug nuts on the wheels, and I'll be damned if the tech didn't use the lug nuts from the steelies to install my new alloys!

I get home, freaking out that the mounting holes might be cracked, and replaced all of the lug nuts with the proper version. The scary thing is that there was maybe 2 threads holding the other lug nuts on. Thank goodness I wasn't heading on a long drive after leaving the dealer.

This is precisely why I do things myself whenever possible. I spend more time fixing peoples screw-up's than you can imagine. I left a message for the adviser, but in my opinion, there's absolutely no excuse for using the wrong lug nuts when the proper one's were in the back of the flipping truck. Tomorrow I'll be getting what will likely be my last upgrade, a set of running boards, at cost.

As a side note, my TPMS light hasn't come on, so is it possible the base unit picked up the new sensors????

 

I'd call them out on it. You could of died.

 

Sounds like a very unproductive day at the dealer

 

I'm not surprised. From my experience, Service departments have just one or two Master or well qualified technicians. The rest are inexperienced or just poor at their job.

 

I read 2 sentences and gave up

 

Should have bought a sport to begin with. Would have gotten the wheels you wanted, keyless entry, and one day of your life back.

 

Tacoma TPMS takes 40 mins of driving to turn on.

 

So let me get this right? You were at the dealer waiting on them from 9am to 5:30 PM?
Hell, I'd get impatient after 30 minutes and just take the rental they offered. On top of that the techs had all day to do a few 'simple' tasks and they still messed up.

 

Sounds like...I'm not sure...your TPMS still waiting to get installed? Or waiting on running boards?

 

Some say he is still there at the dealer to this day, waiting for that tpms. They say you can see his ghost sitting at a clean table on the show floor people watching

 

Or leering, why is he sitting there staring at us. What's his issue and why do we need to be concerned?

 

Post of the day

 

Dealer* come onnnnnnnn

 

Auto correct man give me a break

 

Don't need to lie brother.

 

This is why I take my cars to reputable shops that take real pride in their work. Otherwise I'll just do it on my own if I can. Ive had things "fixed" on another car by the dealer and it was a bigger waste of time, It kept breaking until I actually fixed it my self...... stealerships I tell ya

 

I read the whole thing. Took me about one minute. Perhaps you need to practice your reading? Maybe one day you'll be able to read a few paragraphs in under a minute as well. Good luck.


OP - sounds about right for a dealer experience. I'm like you. Way better to do the work yourself. I only go to the dealer for the service intervals so they are on record.

 

As @smitty99 would say "One less turd gen on the road"

 

Any Pictures of new wheels on truck?

 

And on dark nights when the wind blows...