Your Worst Dealer Experiences...service Or Not!!!

[my3needsaname]

This is at Hayward Mazda in Hayward, CA. They're good to buy from but don't touch their service department.

Keep in mind I walked in pissed that they promised me my car saturday afternoon and this is Monday morning at 8:45 when I'm a little cranky and still tired. So I walk in like (argh) and this just gets worse.

So anyway, I got my car back from what was supposed to be a 1 day warranty service visit (went in with like 536 miles) but it turned into a 3 day battle, the best kind!!, where I had a complaint about a scratch on the inside of the right xenon glass ball, my spoiler light wasn't working because the tint guy disconnected it for some reason, the glovebox light wasn't working...to my knowledge, and the A/C did some weird thing that as any dealer they didn't see anything wrong.

And on with this terrible experience,
The good news is that the glovebox light does work, you just need the headlights on for it to work...who'da thunk it?

The A/C compressor...COMPRESSOR...COMPRESSOR (can't stress that enough cause they didn't get the idea I'm sure you guys do...now I mean like "der what's a A/C compressor derrrr? You said der A/C????) Anyway, the A/C does this thing where it'll be running at a stop after the car is warmed and the A/C lowers the fan speed and when the COMPRESSOR turns on you'll hear it and watch the RPM's go down to like 650 as it idles a bit rougher and then the A/C COMPRESSOR will turn off and they will jump up to 750 and the car will jerk forwards a bit in drive and it's noticeable no matter what (PRNDM) gear you're in. They obviously didn't find a damn thing wrong with it which is fine because they probably would've busted it somehow.

They took a look at my spoiler and hooked it back up but then I was driving around this morning after getting the car and heard the hatch rattling and had no clue why until I opened it up and noticed that the left side of the plastic covering around the window was nowhere near as secure as the right and it turns out that my tint guy and I took off the plastic and saw that they totally left off this one button clip and didn't even connect the left metal clip to the plastic covers. Brilliant!!! (doh)...not they're just f***ing stupid. So I found the rattle and my tint guy had a spare button clip lying around and he fixed it.

I looked over at the guy and asked him to put the wheel locks on...he said they would...but they didn't, and there was no way in hell I was gonna pay $28 for them to put them on.

The last bit of wonderfulness, my right headlight. The guy replaced it Saturday and left the front end (bumper) of my car on the shop floor until this morning. That's stirke one...I'm pissed about that but can brush it off. It turned out that the guy who was supposed to order my headlight left and didn't place the order so they pulled around a Stormy Blue 3 GT Hatch from the lot and took the headlight off it and put it on my 3...kinda cool. Then they pulled my car around once the guy put the front end back together and I was loooking at it and saw how I had 1/4 of a tank of gas and shut off my car. Then I did a thorough inspection of the car and then went to test the light, it turned on, the blinker worked, the parkers worked, the highbeams...wait why didn't the Xenons come on with the brights? So I walk over and sat down in the car and all the interior lights are flashing at me and I turn off the car, turn it back to ACC and all the needles go full up (8K RPM, 140MPH, H, F) and the Trips reset along with my entire radio system. WTF?!?!?!!?!?!??!?!? Somebody left some light on since Saturday and drained my battery...strike two. I walked over to the service desk f**king fuming and yelled in the guy's face "my f***ing battery's dead fix it now!!!!!!!!!!!" and he's like right on it. So this kid pulls around this fatty contraption and hooks it up to my battery and tells me "just drive it around and the battery will charge." Well, there was no way in hell I was walking out of there at this point with a drained battery. Then he's fiddling with the battery cover trying to put it back on and I take one look at it and see the feet in the back and the clips and put it on. Then I try to clip the right one down and it was split at the bottom and just kinda flopping around on there...strike three. By this time these guys are basically scared of me and he runs back to the desk and pulls the car back to replace the entire battery tray and battery...straight from the new 3 they took the light from. He pulls my car back over and shuts it off, I get in and start it up, tell them they will never see my car again and left.

In spite of everything they broke I got them to put on my wheel locks for free and I watched the guy torque them down and listened for the clicks to make sure they did it right. Luckily, that was the one thing they did right.

That was my Monday morning at my friendly "knowledgeable" Mazda dealership...I will never go back.

 

[sl0wthe0ry]

oh i got a good one for ya
this happened to be a post of mine back from 06

ok so, heres the story as goes

i have a 05 mazda 3 hatch. its lowered on eibach's with a 2.5' custom catback. i was driving to work the other day, hit a slick spot in the road where it had rained, lost traction and heard a loud crash, right after, i ran over something. looked back, to see what it was, thought it was just a piece of wood. as soon as i pulled into a parking lot, the car died. first thing i thought was "oh s***"

so i got out of the car, popped the hood, and my motor was leaning on the chassis on the left side. first thing i thought, "bad mazda motor/tranny mounts". man was i right. so i called roadside assistance, they were nice of course, and helped me out. tow truck came up and as he started rolling it up, i noticed something. my left cv axle came completely out of my transmission. you can imagine how pissed i truly was.

as soon as it got to the dealership they called me, telling me that they would check it out and tell me the cause of the problem. i couldnt be there cuz i work 60 hour weeks at my job. well bout 5 hours go by and they call and tell me it may not be covered under the warranty, they were concerned for abuse of the car and they wanted to tear down the transmission, to look at the clutch. now they explained that if it was covered under warranty, there would be no charge, but if it wasnt, they would charge me 500$ on top of fixing the vehicle. of course i gave them the ok, thinking there would be no problems. a day goes by, they call me telling me they wouldnt cover it due to the suspension and they said they found hot spots on my clutch disk and rivets on the pressure plate. they also said that the condition of the clutch would be normal wear of a clutch that had 70k miles on it. i have a little over 22k on mine. (bought it in may, how sad)

so now i begin to freak, they give me the estimate of everything that needs to be replaced. the transmission, cv axle, motor mount (of course), and probably the wiring harness all for 5600$. and all of this will not be covered under warranty. now i work at Hibdon Tires Plus, and for those of you who dont know what that is, we pretty much do anything from tires, to tune ups, to some deep engine work plus all of the suspension parts. so i know what the hell to look for, and what goes wrong. and if i dont, my technician does. hes told me that nothing ive done to the car could cause what happened.

i need some help, maybe some advise. would anything ive done to the car, as far as suspension or maybe even shifting hard (i dont even shift hard) cause what happened to this mount?


Edit: just as an update, i went to the dealership to give them paperwork that i had from a while back. it was a reciept from reynolds mazda that i had gotten an oil change and complained about about a broken motor mount back in june i think of 05, i hadent lowered the car til, october. it also said that they test drove the car but they didnt find any problems at the time. yet the mileage said "in: 3091 out: 3091"

also when i went up there, they said that i was racing because of my "exhaust" which is a cat back (not voiding warranty) and i had "wider tires" (i went from a 205/50/17 to a 215/45/17 cuz it was a more available, cheaper size)

now the district manager is coming down the 19th. and they refuse to give me an enterprise rental car till then til they can prove it is a warranty issue. am i getting ***** or what? :ky:

 

[sl0wthe0ry]

and pictures shortly after

Thanks for the pics Jeff

the axle that ripped COMPLETELY out of the tranny

whats left of the mount

depressing

 

[sl0wthe0ry]

and yes i still have this car.

 

[my3needsaname]

That car better be damn nice to you man. s***, I know that if my car pulled some crap like that on me then it would never have an easy drive again...or I'd sell it...or (blowup)

 

[sl0wthe0ry]

nah i drive the s*** out of it. just waitin for the day for the motor to implode. only so i can go forged.

 

[my3needsaname]

HAHA! Nice, I'm just wanting to get a grant to test new turbo kits so I can upgrade my car...for free...or science!!!