Lindsay Cadillac of Alexandria

UPDATE: After my review was posted on Yelp last Tuesday (10/11/11) I received a call last Thursday (10/13/11) from James Pollack, the Service Manager from Lindsay Cadillac. I was in a meeting when he calle (10/11/11) I received a call last Thursday (10/13/11) from James Pollack, the Service Manager from Lindsay Cadillac. I was in a meeting when he called me so I was unable to answer the phone. He left a voice mail and informed me that he called to discuss the service appointment. I called James Monday evening (10/17/11) and left him a voice mail indicating that I was following up on his call. This afternoon James called me and was apologetic about the service appointment experience as well as for not calling sooner. I informed James that this experience was an aberration from the many other times I've have my car worked on and we both agreed that communication could have been handled better. James even offered to refund me for the entire service appointment, which I gladly accepted as a great first step in rebuilding my trust in Lindsay. He took my CC info over the phone and issued the refund right there and then. I did mention to James that I was in the market for a new car and he let me know that he would be willing to assist me in that should I opt to go back to Lindsay. Furthermore, he mentioned that should I need to bring in my CTS for service in the future, I should contact him directly and he would handle my service request personally. Overall, I'm very pleased with the response I got from Lindsay and am glad to see that they made this effort to win back my business. Today is exactly 4 weeks since I sent this letter via Lindsay Cadillac's website as well via the online survey I received after having my car serviced there on 09/20/11. To date there has been no response: I purchased my 2007 Cadillac CTS from Lindsay Cadillac in September 2007 as a birthday present for myself and - as a loyal Lindsay customer - have always brought my car into the Lindsay dealership for any routine maintenance and state inspections. In the 4 years I have owned the car, I have always been pleased with the level of attention and timely service that I have received, but today I am writing to let you know that my experience with today's service has been extremely disappointing. I scheduled a service appointment for 7:15 AM this morning to get my Virginia state inspection done as well as to address a safety recall that was issued for my car (this is the 3rd safety recall in 4 years). I got to the dealership around 7:20 and met with Gino. After waiting for him to finish up something on his computer, there was no "Good morning" or greeting of any kind; this was odd considering the other service consultants I've dealt with in the past have always been very engaging and courteous. Gino then proceeded to walk out to the car, gave it a once-over, then went back to his station and filled out the paperwork to start work on my car. I asked Gino how long he estimated it would take for the recall work to be done. He replied "a few hours, probably 3 at the most". The recall notice stated that the work would take "approximately 45 minutes" but that it may take longer. I had given notice at work that I would be in late since my car was in the shop, so I elected to stay at the dealership till the work was done, given Gino's estimate. Around 12:30 PM (5 hours after I arrived at the dealership and 2 hours after I was told the work would be done), Gino came to the customer lounge and tells me that my car would not pass inspection unless the right brake light bulb is replaced at a cost of $130. I was shocked to hear that a bulb (not the housing, but the BULB) would cost that much to replace. I informed Gino that $130 is far too much to pay for a bulb and I even told Gino I was capable of replacing the bulb myself and even told him how it is done (open the trunk, removing the liner, unplug the light assembly, etc.). He replied that he would "see what he could do about the cost." And he also pointed out several other items that were considered cautionary (air filter/fuel filter replacement) and I informed him that I did not want that work done at this time. Around 2pm, another service consultant (I believe his name was Craig) comes up to me and informs me that Gino went to lunch and asked him to check on the status of my service. At this point I'm beyond frustrated from sitting in the lounge for nearly 6 1/2 hours. He informs me that the service recall work is complete but that the headlights require alignment to pass inspection. I asked what the status of the tail light was and he told me that I would only be charged for a 1/2 hour of labor ($65) as opposed to what was originally presented to me ($130). At this point, I'm at my wits end and tell the consultant to go ahead and realign the headlights just so I can get out of here. What I thought was supposed to be a routine $16 inspection turned out to cost me $128! Finally around 2:30 I was informed by the other consultant that my car was ready...an entire 7 hours after I got to the dealership. When I expressed my frustration for having to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a burnt out tail light, Gino then knocked the total cost down to $108. While I can appreciate the gesture, a $20 discount far from makes up for the time I spent waiting for my car, especially when I was one of the first ones to arrive for service this morning. Add to that, I missed an entire day of work and had to use my leave. If I had known the work would have taken all day, I would have made arrangements to get to work and come back later. This service experience has left me with the impression that safety recalls are not a high priority to your service staff or techs and that because the work is done for free, your establishment has to find some ways to gouge me out of my money just so that you can say you made some profit. I am beyond frustrated with this experience and am considering selling or trading my Cadillac just so that I don't have to endure this type of aggravation again. More