I hate car dealers.

About 2 years ago, I bought a new Mazda6 from the local Mazda dealer. I've been coming back for oil changes since new because they gave me a coupon book. Today I take it in for an oil change and tire rotation. After it's over they ring me up for $110.00, calling it the 25000 mile service. I went ahead and paid it just to get out of there. Once I get home, I realize that they never rotated my tires, the washer reservoir was almost empty, and the air box obviously never been touched. I have since called the general manager and gotten almost nowhere, he offered to take it back and perform the services they were supposed to do. At this point I just want a refund, I'm done with these guys. What would you do? Am I right to have lost all faith in them?

Yeah - do it yourself. Tell him to split the cost with you.

Get a refund. Go on Yelp.

Get ALL your money back or tell them your next call is to your states AG office. They basically stole $110 from you.

>>Am I right to have lost all faith in them?

Yes.

dean1484 wrote: Get ALL your money back or tell them your next call is to your states AG office. They basically stole $110 from you.

^^ what he said.

I agree with dean and irish, but, what's the AG office?

Attorney General

Did you pay with a credit card? Do a chargeback immediately.

Did you authorize a 25K service or just an oil change? What did you ask for, what was written up and more importantly, what did you sign? If you asked for a oil change and they did the 25K service without your authorization or consent, they can't charge you for it. If you did sign off on the 25K service but key items were not done, just call your credit card company and do a charge back for the amount of work that they did not do. Seriously, asking for a 100% chargeback will look bad and won't usually go in your favor but asking for the difference between the 25K service and oil change will probably happen without an issue.

Disclaimer. I was a Service Manager, Parts Manager and Service Writer for various new car dealerships many years ago.

jimbob_racing wrote: Did you authorize a 25K service or just an oil change? What did you ask for, what was written up and more importantly, what did you sign? If you asked for a oil change and they did the 25K service without your authorization or consent, they can't charge you for it. If you did sign off on the 25K service but key items were not done, just call your credit card company and do a charge back for the amount of work that they did not do. Seriously, asking for a 100% chargeback will look bad and won't usually go in your favor but asking for the difference between the 25K service and oil change will probably happen without an issue. Disclaimer. I was a Service Manager, Parts Manager and Service Writer for various new car dealerships many years ago.

Furthermore, asking for a full refund even though they did render some form of service makes you look like the rest asshat America. You are entitled to WHAT IS FAIR, nothing more. When there is a fly in my soup, I ask for the waiter to bring me a new soup (fly less) but I don't then gorge myself on my food, order more, and then demand a free meal or "more than I'm entitled to" compensation.

If they charged you for a 25k service and only changed your oil, I would go back and get refunded for everything but the oil change.

And Jimbob is right, double check and make sure that you authorized the 25k service before you go after them. Check the paperwork. Save yourself some humility.

What they did is what you asked, but they charged you for something different that they did not do. Raise hell but as others said your only entitled to the money for the services not performed.

So you think the dealer shouldn't eat a 19.95 oil change to try a save a customer? It smells of thievery to me trying to get back some of those magic coupons.

Dealer didn't do what was charged, much less being able to do what was asked for (doing more, charging for it, isn't doing what was asked, even if it was done properly, and especially if it was botched.)

This is why dealers get bad reputations. The people defending it, well, and not to be rude, you are part of the problem. When I did service work at the bike shop, we did what was asked and got authorization for anything else. If they didn't authorize, we didn't do it. If we did we ate it. And we kept customers. Regular back log actually. Restaurants give you the meal free because they know the fly left you a bad taste in your mouth about them (pun intended). They can eat A meal's cost and maybe have a shot at retaining a customer, or do the "replace the soup routine" and are almost guaranteed to lose that customer and everyone he tells.

You go above and beyond when you make a mistake to regain trust and good faith and prove you are someone trustworthy to do business with.

I would go and give them a chance to make it right. Refund you the overages, and see if they want to retain you. Tell them of what you asked, what was given, what was charged, and what was actually done. Getting upset is fine. Give them a chance to fix it. If they want to fix the work and refuse to refund because they did the bait and switch on the paperwork and you didn't catch it, you have already paid. Not much you can do except cost them customers by telling every one far and wide.

If they say no to all of the above, file with the states Attorney General, make sure everything is documented and get the CC company to do the dispute. (as far as my CC companies it is all or nothing. So you will have to request the whole thing to be returned. There is none of this partial refund stuff. Either they did what was sold or they didn't. Black and white.)

Good Luck.

I don't have a problem paying for the oil change, but at this point I just want a refund for everything else. More than anything I just wanted to vent a little. I just can't stand people that will half ass a job.

best advice (assuming you can't get any satisfaction from the dealer) is the CC charge back … that WILL get their attention … maybe then you can get somewhere with them

CC Chargeback gets their attention, but too many people think the credit card co is going to fight the battle for them. If the dealer can show a signed RO, or sometimes even a signed credit card slip, they will reverse the chargeback, and charge you. I don't recommend BBB either. My experience on the dealer end was if the customer went to BBB, they were too lazy to do the work to get anything back, and most of the time the BBB was more interested in signing you up as a business than doing anything for the customer. I actually had a BBB rep tell me if I purchased their service, with a web page, that any customer complaint would disappear. Like jimracing_racing, I was also a parts manager, service manager, service writer, and dealership owner. Also, don't use the "I was going to buy a new car, but now I won't buy it here" That one always caused me to smile when the customer had a 2 year old car.

Savaging people on Yelp actually works quite well. I hate Yelp though because a friend of mine has some dumb hipster bitch and her friends give bad reviews for him because of "noise" while he was cutting bricks at an apartment complex (he was a tuck pointer) and she wasn't the customer. Several negative reviews for his company and then they went under. Not a single review was a customer review it was all dumb whining yuppies. Yelp wanted him to pay them an extortion fee to remove these bad reviews. That's literally what it was, extortion.

Anyone who has dealt with Yelp in that way doesn't trust yelp reviews at all. However most people still trust them.

Well..it obviously needs a 25k maintenance and you're implicitly okay with a $110 charge for it. Take it back and have them do the work or you're just out more time to do it yourself. FWIW, I've had a hard time getting air filters at the local parts stores for our new Mazda.

Not to make excuses for their fup, but it COULD be a genuine mistake.

I thought the $110 was for the work the did not perform. In that case yes first check your service order against the receipt.

Was it a full synthetic oil change? That can get pricy at a dealer.

In reply to kanaric:

Link to bichin question? Bricklayers gnaw bones

Always scrutinize the bills! Have seen too many overcharges due to error or design to just trust them. Odd charges for "electrical system diagnosis" tacked onto a tuneup (1969 Mustang) started my distrust. Inspection station that ALWAYS insists that I need new wipers even thought I put new ones on that morning. Why am I charged for 3 gallons of coolant on a car that takes a gallon and a half of 50/50 blend. "Those 4 tires will run you $320...want us to put those on?" You just agreed to $320 for tires and $211 dollars of mounting, balancing, shop fees, shop supplies and tire disposal fees! With tax that will be $576.97. 99 out of 100 just pay and go on. Hurry is expensive, be sure what you are asking for and be sure what you get.

Caveat Emptor!

Bruce

If you didn't request the service they did then get the money back for the items not performed, IE just pay for the oil change (assuming they even did that).

If you want the rest then have them do it and get them to lop off some of the bill for your trouble. There is an inconvenience factor in having to go back to them again for something that should have been done in the first place.

jimbob_racing wrote: Did you authorize a 25K service or just an oil change? What did you ask for, what was written up and more importantly, what did you sign? If you asked for a oil change and they did the 25K service without your authorization or consent, they can't charge you for it. If you did sign off on the 25K service but key items were not done, just call your credit card company and do a charge back for the amount of work that they did not do. Seriously, asking for a 100% chargeback will look bad and won't usually go in your favor but asking for the difference between the 25K service and oil change will probably happen without an issue. Disclaimer. I was a Service Manager, Parts Manager and Service Writer for various new car dealerships many years ago.

This. There's a big difference between authorizing an LOF and a 25k service. I have also run across something I don't like: the tablets that are being used in service drives now will, once the OBD thingy is plugged in, automatically assign services based on mileages and previous history! If the service advisor and customer are not diligent about what's actually wanted and manually override these it can lead to misunderstandings like this. The plus side of that is they will automatically add recalls, TSBs etc. I'd have a word with the service manager about this. Offer to pay for the LOF (which you say is what you wanted) and have the rest refunded.

Oh, on the LOF: if it's full synthetic it won't be cheap. $19.95 doesn't even begin to cover it. $49.95 is probably more in the ballpark. Yeah, I know, I know, it's an economy car, not a [insert high end brand here]; that has zero bearing on the cost of synthetic oil.