These guys play games in the service department or are incompetent or both. On the day I brought our vehicle in for servicing, another individual was there at the parts department who had been notified that his part had arrived in stock, when in fact in wasn't. This was the 3 time this had happened to this person and needless to say he was justifiably upset.
To drop off my vehicle took over 20 minutes since the service advisor couldn't quickly finish his paper work and they could not type the correct owner's name for our vehicle into their system. Our vehicle was in for a 60,000 mile maintenance and we received a call from the service advisor that day that other repairs/service was needed. The brakes needed service and new calipers. The fuel injectors and throttle needed to be cleaned. The wipers needed to be replaced. The transmission fluid was dirty. The last two were quite old, since the wipers seemed okay. The transmission fluid service was very odd as I mentioned that they had just done a transmission service about 10,000 miles ago. The service advisor just basically responded, oh okay like I had caught him in a lie. Already, this left me with the feeling that they were trying to push unnecessary services to make more money.
I okayed having the brakes and fuel injectors done. On Monday I was notified the vehicle was complete and went to pick it up. When I picked up the vehicle, I noticed immediately that the instrument panel lights would not come on. I mentioned this to the second service advisor who brought the vehicle over and he responded that he noticed the same problem. I informed him that when I brought the vehicle in the lights were working. They had the car for four days. The service advisor continually made excuses like there was nothing they did that could have done to have caused this and repeatedly questioned whether the lights were working when I last used the vehicle. He proceeded to do a service write up and only after about 10 minutes of typing and looking at various papers did he inform me that it would cost $60 for them to diagnose the problem, not fix the problem but just diagnose it.
Needless to say, I felt this was an unjustifiable charge as I felt the problem originated when the car was under their car. He showed me a piece of paper where the mechanic noted the problem, so he said there is no way they could have caused the problem. I responded that if this was the case, why did not the original service advisor call me and notify me of the problem instead of telling me the car was complete and wasting my time to pick up a vehicle that was not working properly. The service advisor responded by saying the original advisor probably just overlooked the comment, which was odd since it was written in 1 inch letters. I have my doubts whether the mechanic actually wrote it.
At this point I informed the service advisor that I did not want them to examine the vehicle for $60 and would rather just take the vehicle home in its present condition. The service advisor responded by saying the vehicle is unsafe to drive in its present condition. I felt this response was very odd, since he was going to let me drive off initially even though he had noticed the lights not coming on and was not going to mention it until I did.
The service advisor then went on about how he has to charge the $60 so he could pay the mechanic for his time in removing the instrument panel for diagnosis. This response was laughable as I was certain he was an employee of the dealership and not the owner, so he was not the one paying the mechanic. As a small business owner, I doubt this guy has ever signed the front of a payroll check and has only signed the back. After already spending over $500 on service and maintenance I was shocked that they would ask me to pay to examine the source of a problem that I felt they caused. I was willing to pay for the cost of repairs if the diagnosis revealed that it was failure unrelated to the service, but to ask me to shell out $60 when the cause of the problem was in dispute was a short sighted way of treating a repeat customer. I would advise everyone to stay away from Lithia Dodge in Burlingame.
The sad thing was that even when I was picking up the vehicle there was another individual who just had a poor service experience. He was quoted one amount over the telephone but when he came to pick up the vehicle he was charged twice the amount. He paid the amount but like myself he vowed never to come back to Lithia Dodge in Burlingame again.
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