If anyone is contemplating buying a Lexus from Lexus of Watertown in Watertown Massachusetts, you might want to find another dealer.

On February 1, 2004, I placed an order with Lexus of Watertown, located in Watertown Massachusetts for an LS430. Since the car needed to be ordered from the factory, they quoted an estimated delivery time of two to three months, and indicated that the car would probably arrive at the end of April, 2004. I placed a $1000 deposit on my AT&T Mastercard, and noticed that the charge had posted to my account on February 6, 2004. In turn, they sent me a formal quotation for the car via fax .

In the middle of April, I started calling the dealership in an attempt to acquire a firm delivery date. I had previously ordered a Ford from the factory back in 1996, and the Ford dealer was able to quote a manufacturing and delivery date one week after I placed my order. Each time I contacted the Lexus sales team (the sales rep - Matt Henry / Barry Baptiste or the sales manager - Tom Christopolous), they indicated that Lexus had not yet set a formal delivery date, and that the car would arrive “any day now”. I placed ten telephone calls to this dealership over a two-month period.

Last week, I contacted the same sales manager via telephone. I indicated that we were well past four months of wait time, and asked him for a firm delivery date. He indicated that he’d have to call me back. I never received a response.

This week, I called Christopolous, who after keeping me on hold for ten minutes, told me that they had no record of the order, and no car meeting my specifications in stock. At that point, I cancelled the order. The sales manager promised to return my deposit to my credit card account within 72 hours, starting from Monday, June 14, 2004. It took two weeks and dozens of phone calls to repossess my deposit. I received no explanation, no apology and no offer to fix the issue from anyone there.

Lexus of Watertown has a decent number of Better Business Bureau complaints against it. Imagine how you’re going to be treated when you need service or warranty support!

BTW, Lexus refuses to get involved, and tells me that I have to negotiate the issue with the dealership. They couldn't care less about the whole situation. I for one am going to seriously consider Mercedes at this juncture.

My experience suggests avoiding Lexus of Watertown at all costs.

Chris

 

Wow, as a Lexus owner (and wroking at a dealership) I feel it is my responsibilty to chime in, I'm not going to be a blind Lexus loer saying, "well, they probably meant to do this, and didn't mean to offend you". My friend tried to order a 2004 M3 from a BMW dealer, and basically the same thing happened. After months of waiting, they had no record of the order being placed at all. This shows lousy customer care, and at least they do have complaints against the from the BBB.

Recently we have been talking about how now that Lexus is becoming more succesful, that the dealerships are becoming cockier, more arrogant places. I deal with idiot salesmen everyday and hate dealing with them. The actions I experience, and the ones in your story and unexcusable and shouldn't have to be experienced by customers of a carmaker who has a good track record in the past. Our neighbor tried to go to Lexus of Bellevue and see about buying a brand new SC430. She and her husband are both young and wealthy, and because of their age, I have a feeling they weren't taken seriously. Whatever happened to the customer always being right?

James

 

Well, it's nice to talk about the customer always being right, but in actuality, this is not always the case....just another one of those old cliches. Customers sometimes THINK they are right but in fact are not.
I have seen firsthand many cases of where no matter HOW good a deal the sales or service people give them, a customer is never satisfied....they always want more and more for less and less money. No matter what they pay for a car...they always grumble and complain that somebody else paid less. Rebates are NEVER enough. Financing is NEVER low enough, etc..... Same with service...they always feel they are getting taken by a bunch of rip-off artists. Likewise, I've sen people complain about cars that had "problems" that were as in fact as good as new. Conversely, I've seen people say their cars were "running fine" when in fact they had noticeable problems like shimmies, pulling, rattles and squeaks, etc....
So, my point is, while there in fact ARE dishonest dealerships, salespeople, and service departments, ( I don't deny this, and it sounds like this thread poster may have dealt with one), there ARE dishonest and unreasonable customers, too.

 

I might be willing to accept that a mistake was made, however in that case, it would have been reasonable for the dealership to apologize profusely for their mistake, and take steps to rectify the situation. The dealer never apologized, never offered to get another car, and never offered an explanation. The unmistakable message was "We sell every LS430 that we get. We don't need your business. Drop dead."

The worst part is that Lexus condones this behavior (as evidenced by their response to my letter). That suggests that their "customer service focus" is nothing more than marketing hype, no different than that seen from Ford, Chevy or Buick.

Chris

 

I'm sorry to hear how they treated you, and you're right, there is no excuse for what they were doing. If they're gonna be like that, you did the right thing by telling people and getting the hell outta there and not giving them your business.

On another note, it seems like whenever there are threads about how bad Lexus dealerships/cars can be, not nearly as many people respond as if it were about BMW. Over 90 views and three replies? Just something I noticed, so it might just be me.

James

 

Well, I used to be the IT Director there, so I'm gonna say nothing!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by massshelti

On February 1, 2004, I placed an order with Lexus of Watertown, located in Watertown Massachusetts for an LS430. Since the car needed to be ordered from the factory, they quoted an estimated delivery time of two to three months, and indicated that the car would probably arrive at the end of April, 2004. I placed a $1000 deposit on my AT&T Mastercard, and noticed that the charge had posted to my account on February 6, 2004. In turn, they sent me a formal quotation for the car via fax .




Wow, that's terrible. I have a question: why did you need to order an LS430 from the factory? There's plenty of them around now. The type of order you placed sounds like a "Special Order", what were you trying to get? Just curious. It's too late to special order one now because it's too late in the year, no more 2004's are being produced. Do you stil have your receipts and copies of the fax they sent to you? Perhaps you can arrange something for a 2005? And did you try and talk to whoever took your original order about why they never ordered it? That is so weird there was no record of it.

 

I don't blame you for avoiding that dealership, but you shouldn't punish yourself by going to Benz. The E-Class in particular has had it's share of reliability issues. Hopefully, you find a good car and have an easier deal the next time you go about it.

 

Sorry to hear about your situation. Yes, don't punish yourself by getting an MB. If you like the 430, try another dealership. When I went to look for my GS at a dealer cough..Tustin..cough, they were horrible. I just left and went to another dealer. Another problem when my sister in law went to look for a 330 ci at one BMW dealer, they weren't willing to negotiate. So off we went to another dealer who was very nice and friendly-Sterling in Newport Beach. And after 1 day of getting the car, it has some weird static noise. already. By sharing your experience, I don't think anyone from here will be buying from them.

 

That is just wrong. I can see someone making a mistake and forgetting to order the car (Not very professional, but still a mistake), but you followed up with them for weeks at a time and it appeard they keept checking and telling you "Any day now". It sounds like those guys never really checked your order status at all and were just feeding you BS to get you off the phone. That is unexceptable. If they really checked your order they would have found the order was not placed the first time you asked about it. Unfortunately. we always hear these types of stories on the internet (Wheter it is Lexus, Acura. BMW, or whatever), but nothing ever comes of it. There are just too many other potential buyers that most dealers could care less. I always hear people say to contact Lexus Customer Service, or BMWUSA, or whomever, but every single time those service agencies could not or would not do anything (At least from what I have read on the internet). I think it is a waste of time to contact those guys since nothing ever gets done. How many times we hear owners complaing about something common only to have our local dealers claiming to never head of such a problem ever? Fortunately I have friends that work at our local Lexus dealer so I usually only deal with them.

 

I wanted an options combination that wasn't being shipped to the US. I'm convinced that someone walked in after me, and was willing to pay more money for the car. Since dealer allocations of cars is limited, I'm betting that they sold my slot to another customer. They then kept putting me off, assuming that eventually, I'd cancel the order.

I can accept the fact that Lexus of Watertown has questionable ethics. I was most surprised that Lexus AND Toyota in Japan blew me off when I told them of the experience. The customer focus claims are nothing more than marketing BS.

 

http://www.mercedesproblems.com/

http://www.troublebenz.com/

http://www.troublebenz.com/cgi-bin/d...conf=DCConfID1


http://www.bmwlemon.com/

good luck with mercedes

sorry to hear about your problem with that dealership have you tried others

johnny

 

Thanks for those links. Good readings When those owners were desperately asking for help, I kinda wanted to tell them to get a Lexus, but some materials were pretty old.

 

We had to wait for an ES 350. Great price. Due to this thread we were staying on top of them even to the point of contacting CA to be sure our car was coming in with the equipment as ordered.

Everything went fine, even a check back for overpayment.

If we have problems such as warrenty issues etc. I'll come back here. Otherwise, salesman, sales manager, and customer service were very responsive.