kevs

Okay, my dad brought his Lex into the dealer to get some work fixed on his car. The bottom line is that, things were fixed without my dad's verbal or written consent, but Lexus claims that he did.

He thought the car was still under warrranty, but it had expired this past August. Lexus did not mention that this was not covered under warranty and went ahead and fixed a lot of things.

Even if the car isn't under warranty anymore, my dad should be paying no more than $900 for repairs, but instead he was charged $2500 for unauthorized repairs. Lexus offered my dad a 10% discount and my dad couldn't believe it.

Rockville Lexus in Maryland definitely did not do their job as showing even an ounce of decent customer service. I am pretty upset about this.

What do we do? Is there a number to call? A particular person to talk to? Any help would be appreciated.

2SAVVY

I guess the best advice I can give is call Lexus Customer Service and file a complaint.. Hope you get it resolved!

wwest

ALL Lexus dealer service shops are in customer gouging mode. NEVER leave a car in their service shop without clearly defining in writing the limits of what you want done if not exactly what you want done.

This is especially true of scheduled maintainance. Lexus service shops will ALWAYS (needlessly) use the ROUGH SERVICE maintainance schedule unless you clearly define that they should NOT.

Lexus is a single marque shop, with the extreme reliability of the product being what it is, it's hard for them to turn a profit in normal economic times, and in the current times they are undoubtedly operating well into the RED.

Another aspect of that problem is the use of "gofers" for more than routine mainatainance proceduces. It's bad enough that they use gofers in the normal sense.

PERRYinLA

...all dealer service shops may not be scheming to take our last nickel, but their job is to make money selling service on a very reliable line of cars, and they do that by "fixing" as much stuff on your car as often as you'll allow it. My goodness- we could probably run our cars forever on the "worn" parts filling their dumpsters each night.

And many (see? I didn't say "all") Lexus owners, being as heavy in the wallet as they are light in their mechanical knowledge, happily pay the bills, no questions asked.

So thanks to kevs, wwest, genearch, 2savvy, Taka, retrodrive, lvangundy, VQT, Lex Luthor, 933005sp, Static911, CmputerWiz, manaray, SupraCoup3 and all the other CL members who so generously share their experiences and make us all better-educated (and less-easily-gouged) Lexus owners.

wwest

If you can point me to a Lexus Dealer who also carries another marque then I will agree that not all Lexus dealer's service shops are into customer gouging.

Is there a Lexus service shop out there that will even ask:

"I'm going to perform the normal service routine unless you want me to do the "rough service" routine."

I'm willing to bet not.

How many Lexii EVER need the rough service routine done?

2SAVVY

wwest,

Let me give you an example of a good Lexus service centre.. I took the GS in for an oil change and with good intentions I wanted to even pay for an engine shampoo detail service.. They told me don't bother and they did it for free while they were washing the car.. Maybe I just have a great Lexus dealer but I hear about this kind of service more from Lexus owners than BMW or Mercedes..

mooretorque

Boys (and girls, few though they are on CL), I have to agree with Willard. He (and I) have been Lex owners for longer than most of you (not bragging, just older). In the early days, Lexus literally redefined the dealer experience on both showroom and service levels. NO ONE did business like they did back when I bought my first in 1991. And service especially made their reputation; you buy the car once, but it goes to the service dept again and again. They made it SO EASY and PLEASANT!!

What's happened is that (duh) Lexus has made a big dent in the luxury market. There are lots more, less carefully selected dealers. The service department is a seperate cost center, expected to pay it's own way. What simpler way to increase revenue than by doing MORE for customers who already expect it because they have a luxury automobile?

My dealership, at one point (in the more recent past), issued a locally printed, "recommended" service schedule (that more or less mirrored the "rough service" schedule) which was included in the owner's manual folder WITH EVERY NEW CAR THEY SOLD. If asked, the reponse was "based on our experience........". As if "their experience" could actually be compared to the R&D done by and for the 3rd largest car mfgr in the world. This, from the only dealership in a state with only 2 million people. How much "experience" can they have?

I actually like the folks at my dealership. I've bought 5 cars there. They've been (mostly) everything you'd want a Lexus dealer to be. But I've also watched the changes over the last 10 years. I'm fairly mechanically knowledgeable. I tell them what I want done and what I don't want done. Can your wife do that? Can you? I've read lots of posts here. I'm sorry to say, and mean no insult, but a lot of you can't. Easy meat, boys. Certainly there are still plenty of dealerships that still live by the Lexus philosophy and, if all else fails, the "do right" rule. But there are plenty that don't.

My eyes are not blinded by the light of the Rising Sun. Nor are Willard's. You who are reading this tiresome, drunken (sorry, first night of a short vacation) missive already know that we drive one of the finest cars on the planet. We just have to buy and service it from people who aren't. Caveat emptor.

I promise, I won't drink this much AND type this much ever again.

wwest

Damn, Mooretorque, was that one of MY Margaritas you had?

Memphis Blues Ball this year is September 28th, can you reserve that date?

Raffling my 99 C2 to benefit St. Jude.

wwest

actually I meant owners manual "set" or package.

One of the manuals supplied to the owner explicitly defines the items recommended for each maintenance interval and the circumstances, rough service or not, under which those items should be addressed.

If you show the service manager these items for 60k service and ask him, INSTRUCT HIM, to only do the recommeded service (non-rough) for that interval then 60k service should cost less than $150.

DevilDog

Even today the mechanic is still trying the shed the "I'll rip you off" cloak. I proud to say that I work at a great dealership, we service between 50-75 cars a day. One thing we do to deter over zealouse techs is an in house mystery customer. The General Manager will randomly ask a customer coming in for service to participate. As a bonus we will pay up to $250 of whatever their bill is. Here is how it works, when the customer comes to pick up the car, he/her is interviewed by the GM. He will ask questions regarding the service writer, cashier, greeted properly, car wash ok, did we call when we said we would, general appearance of the dealer, and so on. Thenthe owners car is pulled into the shop, racked up and re-inspected, everything the tech wrote on the repair order is verified. I can't speak for every dealer, but it works for us.

DD

Manaray

That's a great system! Every dealership should implement a system like that...

jbow07

I have been in the auto industry for over 9 years, and I have yet to find a dealership where the service and parts departments are not the profit center. Most service and parts depts. double the car sales end of the dealership. Service writers are in the sales business as much as the car salespeople are and in a-lot of cases more so. With that being said the service writers will sell you anything that you will buy wether you need it or not. The only other thing that I can add is at least you can get a appointment. I have been trying to get a oil change for 3 weeks but can never get a service writer to pick up he phone. they want me to leave a message for them to schedule the appt. The funny thing is I work for a Ford dealership and here and any other Ford dealership in the country a oil change is a no appt necessary service! Kind of sad!!!

rybikowsky

not every dealer is trying to rip you off.Lindsley lexus in alexandria is an honest dealership.If you feel screwed over,Grab the service manager by the neck and pound the living sh-t out of him.

jwTR6

I too have had experience with the Rockville dealership and agree that they SUCK. Their parts prices are at least 20% more than the dealership in Silver Spring, the parts personnel are generally very rude and lastly, their service department does (when they worked for me) shoddy work. TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE!!!!!

verylost

is there a decent lexus shop in maryland?

by the way, theres a sign at the rockville one that says u have to sign off on anything they do. its state law.

i think u have a case in court