Originally Posted by
big john
I was at my last dealer for 21 years and they usually kept the advisors in check and would always lean toward honesty with customers and we all worked hard to build a large customer base. We would help them out when needed, tell them when things could wait, etc.
Then a new general manager came and brought with him several techs, 2 advisors, and a service manager. One of the advisors started before the manager and started screwing customers right away. It was shocking what this liar did to people and when some of the techs reported it to the parts manager who was filling in until the new service manager showed up we were told "the new manager will fix it when he comes". Of course, they were friends from their old place so screwing customers was encouraged and when the other advisors couldn't keep up, they were threatened with being fired. So they were forced to start lying and overselling even though they had spent years trying to be fair and honest. It made me sick and I'm glad to be out of there.
The guy was so outrageous that several times men who found out what he did or tried to do to their family members came down and threatened to beat his ass and some called him out to the parking lot. A few times the police were called. The store lost a lot of customers and had to give refunds a number of times. He's still there.
CDB and John, this has been helpful for me as someone who does not come from a car background to understand things a bit better, particularly in retrospect.
At this point, my wife and I take our cars to an independent repair shop. We had heard good reviews about them, but we were sold when the guy took a look at my wife's Prius and told her: yeah, the care is doing exactly what she said it was doing; he had seen that on a few other Priuses from the same year; Toyota knows about it but doesn't know how to fix it; sell it and buy a new car while it still has value, and then didn't charge her for his time.