Reasons why Toyota of Lake City does not do good business:
1) They will promise you things that they can’t deliver on.
2) Don’t know what they are talking about, and will try to sell you thing you don’t need
3) Will over charge you on services at the time of signing.
4) Will try to get you to finance additional charges to get more cash out of you.
5) There is no customer service once they have your money.
If you want to know my experience with Toyota of Lake City then read on. It’s kind of long but the main things summarized.
Once Toyota Of Lake City has your money, you’re nothing to them. This was my experience with the sales staff at Toyota of Lake City 2007.
I really have to let people know about know about Toyota of Lake City and how they do their business. This was the first dealership I had gone to, and salesman was at first very nice and accommodating to me and he gave me a reasonable offer (only after 2 hours of trying to leave) but I had to check out some other place before buying a car right on the spot. He gave me the whole spiel on how he can give me the same price any other Toyota dealership can, and it would be a shame if his price was beat by something like $200 and how “earning a new customer” is more valuable than any car. So I had told him that I would keep him in mind but I had to check out some other places first. So I looked at some other places and they gave me the same offer as the Toyota of Lake City.
But here's the first thing that should have tipped me off to the kind of business they do at Lake City. I asked the salesman at the other dealership if he could cut me the same financing that Lake City gave me, where I could do a 7 year financing, where the first 5 years would be at a lower interest rate and the last 2 year would be at a slightly higher rate. The salesman at the other dealership told me that that was not even possible do that and he had never heard of anything like that. So I kept what he told in the back of my mind. There was something I didn't really like about the salesman at this dealership and it was a little bit further from where I lived so I figured I could just go back to Toyota of Lake City. So I went back and got the car for the same price he had originally quoted me for, and signed started signing the papers.
This is where the manager came in tried to sell me on some sort of “convenience service package” get more of my money and tried to tell me that these services will keep my warranty valid. I haven’t even seen the warranty, and this guy tried to tell me that if I give him all this money, he will make sure that it gets taken care of. So I ask him exactly what services this convenience pack covers and to see the warranty for my car, and he starts reading off services for the wrong car. Strike 1. So I did the math quickly in my head and it really wasn’t worth it to me to pay like $2000 for someone to change my oil like 3 times and to visually inspect my brakes. Then I go to the F&I room. There they try to sell me extended warranties and window etching basically stuff I don’t need. But they did have this paint protection that I liked. I asked them if I could come back and get this later, since I don’t like being pressured into something on the spot. They said that I could, but it would be better to just have it done before I drove it home because it would ensure that nothing would happen to the car before the paint protection was applied. I went and visually inspected my car after signing the paper and there were scratches, and chipped paint on the vehicle, and this was a brand new vehicle. They totally took care of the scratches and chips at no cost, but they really should have shown the car to me before trying to get the cash out of me. So after I sign the papers and drive the car home, an looked at the service papers they gave me, and that’s where I noticed that they charged me $50 more for the paint protection was if I had gone back for it after. Strike 2.
So I have this car for only a month and my friend’s dog scratched my new car, nothing really bad, just a little bit of buffing would take care of it. So I asked the salesman that sold me the car and ask if he could do like a one time complimentary service or at reduced cost since I had just paid a lot of money for this brand new car and it had just gotten it. So the salesman responds to me and tells me that I had gotten this car for a great deal and to take some of the savings and contact the service department and use my “savings” to pay for the scratches. Strike 3. Since he already has my money, I’m now nothing to him and he basically tells me to F-off. It wasn’t like he could help me it was that he wouldn’t help me. I feel that a dealership should keep a good customer relationship with their customer so they would want to come back and give them business. So I would probably not go back to this dealership and would advise anyone else from going to this dealership. Because they’ll tell you anything to get your money, but after they got your money, you are useless to them.
I here is my suggestion, make sure the dealership is a reputable and has good reviews, know what you want to spend, take everything they tell you with a grain of salt, get everything in writing.
I hope this helps anyone thinking about going to Toyota of Lake City.
Recap of why Toyota of Lake City does not do good business:
1) They will promise you things that they can’t deliver on.
2) Don’t know what they are talking about, and will try to sell you thing you don’t need
3) Will over charge you on services at the time of signing.
4) Will try to get you to finance additional charges to get more cash out of you.
5) There is no customer service once they have your money.
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