Well, I had yet another bad experience with a car dealership today. I had an
11:00 appt. for a routine oil change and tire rotation this morning, and at
11:55 I decided to check on the status of my vehicle. The young service rep
came back to the waiting room and said, "I'm sorry, no one ever entered any
information for your vehicle and we haven't even started on it yet."
Needless to say I was starting to get torqued off at this point. I had also
asked them to check out the driver's door latch because it had a tendency to
stick/jam at certain times. Not every time, but on occasion it just required
too much force to release the door latch from inside and outside of the
vehicle. Okay, once they FINALLY finished servicing my car, which included a
half-assed wash and vaccuum job, I sat down with them to settle up on the
bill. For some reason, they charged me $32.00 USD more than they did the
last time I had my oil changed and tires rotated there. So, I had to get the
service manager involved to get my 32 bucks back. Then I went outside to get
in the car and there was white lubricant all of the way up the driver's side
window in about a 3" inch wide pattern. It was also all over the black door
frame's rear, vertical post. How can a technician lubricate a door latch
mechanism and end up smearing white lubricant on such a large area of window
glass?!  :-( This 'dealership thing' really, really rots. It has happened to
me at Nissan, Lexus, Ford and GM dealerships over the years. I take a car in
to have it serviced and they end up doing one of the following things to it:
-Scratch it
-Dent/ding it
-Get grease, oil or dirt on large areas of the carpet/headliner/exterior
-Screw up other aspects of the mechanicals or electricals

It's just unbelievable how often this happens to friends, co-workers, family
members and myself. Regardless of the vehicle manufacturer that they
support, these types of dealership behaviors seem to be fairly common. At
least in my neck of the woods. I just cringe at the thought of having to tak
e ANY of my three cars to be serviced at a dealership. The two that are no
longer under warranty are always taken to an independent garage where I
truly trust the owner/mechanic.

Surely I'm not the only one that has had multiple, negative experiences with
automobile dealerships....

V.H.