I purchased a used 2009 Smart fortwo vehicle from a salesman by the name of Bruce
Neime, who no longer works with the car dealership. When I bought the car Bruce
assured me they were knowledgeable of the car and theyre mechanics can work
on it, and that they had already performed one oil change on it, which he said
was standard for any used vehicles they get in. This may or not have been the
case however they did two oil changes which I paid for. Upon driving the car I
reached the usual three thousand miles or so and decided to take it in for an
oil change. When I did so I was immediately brushed off on a person who claimed
to be the service manager by the name of Johnny Iacovo, who at more than one
point told me that he didnt have a mechanic who knew how to work on my car,
and that he did not want to have somebody working on it that was unqualified.
He also expressed to me his concern with why their sales department takes in
vehicles for which they have no one knowledgeable about fixing. After taking
the vehicle in for the oil change shortly their after the service indicator for
an oil change came on.indicating I needed an oil change, but I had just less
than 3000 miles taken it in to Michael Toyota to perform one. I found after
taking it in for another oil change that it was not that it needed one at all.
I paid seventy one dollars for them to change the oil again and asked that they
please reset the service light indicator. Once again Johnny was concerned about
finding someone to be able to perform the basic but essential tasks. After
Michael Toyota changed the oil I got into my car only to find that the light
was still on. I immediately went to Johnny and asked him to please reset it,
after waiting for about thirty minutes; they sent the mechanic who had been
changing the oil the two times I had paid for it out to reset it. At that point
I had done some research on my own about how to reset it but was not being paid
do so, and felt that it was the responsibility of the dealership and in the
terms of an oil change. After the gentlemen was unable to reset it he gave up
and also informed me that they had no one that was knowledgeable about
performing maintenance on my vehicle. After all this I was forced to reset the
indicator myself. As time went on, the vehicle was fine. The time came around
to change the oil again. So I decided to try and take it to a friend of family
who works at a local shop, he said he would charge me fifteen dollars if I
bought the oil filter and the oil and reset the indicator myself, in these
times you can imagine that from the forty odd dollars I was saving from taking
it to Michael Toyota, I took the offer with the friend who was a mechanic. He
was what seemed more approachable about the vehicle and immediately asked if I
had performed any other routine maintenance on the vehicle. I informed him no,
and that Michael Toyota had been performing all maintenance prior to them while
the car was under my ownership. We left the car with the friend and went for a
walk to eat something as it was breakfast time. He called us ten minutes later
or so and informed us that their was a problem with the oil pan. We went back
and he showed us how at some point over time their was someone performing oil
changes incorrectly and their is a washer on the oil filter plug that needs to
be replaced and hadn't been and that the oil pan was stripped leaving the car
to leak oil. I immediately called Michael Toyota and got in touch with their
real service Manager John McCormick, he asked what the problem was and what I
wanted him to do so that he may inform his manager, he also asked for the number
to the shop where the vehicle was so that he may call, which he never did. The
next day I got a call from John saying that they feel that it was someone
else's fault, and that they think the friend who is a mechanic could have done
so himself while unscrewing the filter.
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