I had a blown seal in the motor of my RX-8 which caused coolant to leak into the engine. The motor was still under warranty so I took the car to my local dealership. After getting the run-around, being forced to pay over $400 in ""diagnostics"", and seeing through their attempts to bully me into paying $4500 for unnecessary repairs before doing the warranty work I needed, I took my car to Jim Ellis Mazda in Marietta (about 1.5 hours from where I live). Everything from my initial phone call to the moment I drove my car off the lot was amazing. The staff was courteous and helpful, they gave me a loaner car without me even asking (I fully expected to pay for a rental which would have cost me over $300), and they told me point blank that they'd do everything they could to get me taken care of under warranty. There were no thinly veiled insinuations that I might have caused the problem somehow or crackpot theories about how my non-Mazda battery or spark plug wires could have caused the engine to blow like I had heard at numerous other dealerships in my lifetime.
I now have a new motor in my car and it's running better than ever. To top it off, the whole thing only cost me $100 which was due to some aftermarket parts/wiring I had in the engine bay that they had to reconnect after the warranty work was done (which is very understandable). This is the first dealership I've ever found that sincerely has the customers best interest at heart and I couldn't be happier with the service at Jim Ellis. I will gladly make the 1.5 hour drive there again if I ever need service on my car and highly recommend anyone else do the same.
more