Thursday, November 18, 2010

funny, not so funny story

It all started when Brian parked the car on the slope of our driveway in hopes the city would come and suck up the leaf pile behind his car. Our pile was passed because of the car (I assume). So, he wanted it moved incase they came by.

Brian likes to use the emergency brake when parked on the slope.

Do you think you know where this is going? I bet you're wrong.

Brian turned off the brake (See, you thought he'd leave it on, didn't you ;) )..... and went to drop the kids off at our friends house so he could attend a meeting in Syracuse with me. Since I was already in Liverpool doing a postpartum job- he would meet me there and we would drive to Syracuse together. We grabbed dinner at Panera in Liverpool. He decided to tell me there his car was acting funny. Maybe the transmission was slipping? He said he felt like he was driving in snow.

We drove in my car to the meeting. At about 10pm we arrived back to Panera. He was gonna drive his car to our mechanic in Fulton and I would pick up the kiddos. Brian put his car in reverse and drove out of the spot, put it in drive and it wouldn't budge. Ut oh.

We called our insurance and towed it the allowable 9miles to BURDICK TOYOTA in Cicero.

We got a call. The emergency brake was jammed. $92. Possible new transmission, emergency brake cables, check engine life off, etc etc etc couldn't give exact price- anywhere from an additional $500-1000. WOW. We can't afford that.... So, Brian was offered $500 cash or $1000 toward a trade in.

After thinking about it for a while we decided to take the $500.

Brian called back and left a message. It took days to respond back.... We got a call from customer service appoligizing for the way this had been handled.

Brian was then informed that they would only pay out the wholesale price. Wanna guess what it is???




$100. Not a typo. $100
The KICKER?! He then said "you owe us $92 and we would give you $100 so we'll just call it even and TAKE THE CAR OFF YOUR HANDS"
WHAT?! excuse me??

No way. We paid $75 and got it towed to our mechanic.
We just got notified he looked at it, the car is fixed. It cost about $200.

Burdick Toyota, You are sleezy. You tried to nickle and dime us and we don't appreciate it. We were thinking about upgrading to a Sienna, and your dealership has made us rethink this decision. We wouldn't want to support your dealership. You lost a customer for sure. Good riddance, The Steffen Family

I have owned a Saturn for almost 4 years and I have never ever ever ever experienced service as horrible as this. I was always given a fair price and treated like I was their top priority. When something upset me, their customer service deparment was willing to give gift certificates and other free things to make up for any inconvience. Saturn is sorely missed.

2 comments:

KelliSue Kolz said...

I'm so glad you guys saw through the sleaze. I sold my husband's blown out engined Subaru with horrible rust damage for $500. They really should be ashamed.

Jen said...

Did you write them and complain? Bring it up to better bureau or something.....geesh that's horrible!