Toyota Cleveland Heights

Could have been much, much better. As promised to the General Manager, I am editing my previous one-star review of Motorcars Toyota/Scion from a month ago. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 sta As promised to the General Manager, I am editing my previous one-star review of Motorcars Toyota/Scion from a month ago. On a scale of 1-5, with 1 star being “completely dissatisfied”, 2 stars being “very dissatisfied”, 3 stars being “satisfied”, 4 stars being “very satisfied”, and 5 stars being “completely satisfied”, I will now give Motorcars Scion/Toyota a 3, for “satisfied”. My detailed explanation for this rating lies below. I purchased what I thought was a Scion Certified Pre-Owned 2012 Scion xD from Motorcars Scion/Toyota in late June 2015. I was paying cash, but I only had about 68% of the purchase price on hand because I was waiting on a UPS-delayed insurance check. Motorcars graciously allowed me to take delivery of the vehicle with 68% down and gave me a week to complete the remaining 32% of the purchase price, which I was able to do a couple days early once the check arrived. Other than that gesture of goodwill, the buying experience was rushed and I do not believe I received the time and attention that any buyer should receive. Before completing any paperwork, I was handed the keys by our salesman, Internet Sales Manager Ken Mack. Right at the beginning of paperwork signing with Finance Manager Ryan Barksdale, I was asked to sign a form indicating that I was receiving the car in "excellent" condition, before even having a chance to inspect the vehicle. In retrospect, I am glad I did not ever sign that paper. On a very short 2-3 minute cigarette break during negotiations, I noticed that the interior of the car was not cleaned out and detailed as promised by Ken Mack, and that the one of the wipers' rubber was dangling off the wiper. Ken Mack immediately took the car to service to be detailed and said he would include a new set of wipers in the car, which I had to put on myself. It was a rainy day and I did not have an opportunity to properly inspect the car. I completed the purchase paperwork and drove the car home. Unfortunately the saga with Motorcars did not end there: On the drive home, we noticed a flapping noise and that the car had not been properly cleaned as promised. Due to the flapping noise, we had to pull over on the side of the road. We then noticed that there was a loose wheel well liner on the right front, which was not properly attached to the car and had been severely damaged from rubbing on the tire. The damage was much worse than the 10 or so miles we had driven the car would have caused. We also noticed that there was some body damage to the right front which was causing the passenger door to rub on the quarter panel. We assumed the wheel well liner problem could be attributed to this. On the other side of the car, a wheel well liner was not even present. This prompted my fiancé and I to print off the Scion Certified Pre-Owned Vehicle checklist available online from Scion. First thing the very next morning, we went over everything on the car except for mechanical systems, as neither of us are a mechanic. We found some pretty glaring discrepancies between the certification checklist and the vehicle we purchased, with regard to missing parts and cosmetic issues that Scion’s exacting checklist criteria details. The next day, we drove the car up to the Motorcars service department to have all of these issues resolved immediately. Upon arrival, they do an on-the-spot vehicle alignment check. The car failed this check. A question immediately popped into mind: How could a certified pre-owned vehicle fail an alignment check?? I then met service adviser Bill Chapman. I supplied Bill with my checklist and he made copies for the service team to reference during the repairs. Bill really seems to care about doing good work, and really wanted to do everything in his power to make everything right. Unfortunately his power was limited by what the Sales Department was willing to concede. The alignment was performed, some of the minor issues on the checklist were fixed, and a future appointment was set to return to have the missing wheel well liners installed and a full detail performed. I made sure to ask for a copy of the checklist that the dealership used before certifying my vehicle and putting it up for sale. Unfortunately I did not receive a copy, and went to the sales floor to get a copy. I first went to Ryan Barksdale, thinking that as the Finance Manager he would have access to the internal file containing all of the information regarding my car. He was not able to locate the checklist. I spoke to Derek Roberts, Sales Manager, thinking he would have access to this file. He did not, and said that he would get me the checklist as soon as possible. I felt as though I was starting to get the runaround, but remained calm and patient that this team would do what they could to make things right. The next day, I drove back to the dealership to get a copy of the checklist, and instead was handed a booklet explaining the details of the vehicle service agreement that I had purchased. I explained that this was not what I had asked for, and my fiancé called Used Car Manager JD Thalman to ask specifically for this checklist, which he was also unable to provide at the time, but did promise to email a copy to me. JD did come through and emailed me a copy of the checklist that the dealership used to certify the vehicle. On the checklist dated 3/25/15, three months before I purchased the car, and signed by both JD and the Service Manager, all items were checked off, indicating that the thorough 160-point certification inspection was performed and all items met the requirements for factory certification. I responded to JD’s email with a copy of my annotated checklist, in order to illustrate the discrepancies between what was allegedly inspected prior to purchase and what I was actually sold. I also asked that on my future service appointment, that all issues on my annotated checklist be resolved completely instead of only what work was scheduled. I was immediately met with resistance. I was told that the checklist was fabricated in order to qualify me for the vehicle service agreement that I requested during purchase, that the vehicle was never actually Scion Certified, and that the dealership absolutely does not factory certify vehicles, nor do they even advertise any vehicles as factory certified. I presented evidence supporting the fact that these statements were false: A copy of my car’s original online listing which used a Scion Certified logo, along with at least 8 or 9 examples of other vehicles currently being offered for sale on their dealership’s website using factory certified logos in their listings, in the form of screenshots of the listings’ pages. Some of these listings did not even meet the criteria for factory certification set forth by Toyota! I again asked for all discrepancies to be resolved immediately, and was denied. At this point I became irate. How could a dealership advertise vehicles as factory certified and mislead their customers into buying said vehicles, if they were not actually certifying them? Upon being presented with hard evidence of this problem, how could the Used Car manager himself still deny this practice and deny a customer’s request to get what they paid for? I explained that I was not above relaying this information and these practices to the Ohio Attorney General and FTC for review, as providing factory certification logos in their sales listings for vehicles that are not actually factory certified is surely a misleading and dishonest practice. JD then referred me to the General Manager, Matt Gile, for any future communications. Suffice to say, I was blown away. I made sure to carbon-copy Mr. Gile on my email communications with JD Thalman. Mr. Gile responded immediately, asking for a list of the problems I have encountered thus far. We supplied a list, along with photos of all of the issues we were able to document. Mr. Gile immediately apologized and thanked us for giving him the opportunity to make things right. Unfortunately, all issues were not resolved after several more visits to the service department, and it took several more round-trip visits for appointments with the service department over the course of 3 ½ weeks to get issues resolved in a piecemeal fashion, with much back-and-forth debate as to what would be taken care of and what would not. Mr. Gile did make sure to have their website listings completely overhauled, removing all factory certification logos and verbiage from their sales listings. He did listen to my complaints and offered apologies for the problems we faced with the sales team. Throughout this ordeal, the service department, most notably Bill Chapman, was all highly professional and really cared about how my service experience was going. The service department did go above and beyond to try to make sure that when I was in for service, that I was getting what they were allowed to provide. Mr. Gile asked that I edit my original 1-star rating for Motorcars after a final major cosmetic issue had been resolved, after a bit of haggling. I would not say that 100% of the issues with the car are resolved completely. However, I am tired of the back-and-forth and haggling to get what I paid for. At this point, enough of the issues have been resolved that I would now give Motorcars Toyota/Scion a 3 – “satisfied” rating, on a scale of 1-5, with 1 star being “completely dissatisfied”, 2 stars being “very dissatisfied”, 3 stars being “satisfied”, 4 stars being “very satisfied”, and 5 stars being “completely satisfied. I suppose at this point that’s really the best this dealership should expect from this customer. To be perfectly honest, it was a painful experience, like pulling teeth if you will, to get some of the issues resolved. I imagine Motorcars had to eat quite a bit of parts and labor cost in order to resolve these issues, but they would have had to do this anyway if the vehicle had been properly certified as advertised. As a customer I do not believe it was remotely necessary for me to have to endure all of this. Immediately upon realizing a serious error and major oversight had been made on their part, the dealership should have sincerely apologized and offered to fix all items on the checklist immediately without question or resistance. Sadly, that did not happen, and the whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. In summary and chronologically, I had a poor experience with the sales team, most notably JD Thalman, Used Car Manager. I had a somewhat positive/somewhat frustrating experience once my problems were escalated to Matt Gile, General Manager. I had a very positive experience working with Bill Chapman, Kyle, and the service department in general. Please note that mechanically, the car has not proven itself. I have only had the car for a month and will be taking it on a road trip from Cleveland to Hilton Head in a few weeks, at which point I expect any glaring mechanical issues, if any, to present themselves. I will update further if any mechanical issues arise. Personally, I will not be doing business with Motorcars again. Since I am not 100% sure that my experience was a fluke, I would advise any shoppers out there to heavily research and inspect any vehicle they intend to purchase from Motorcars before making any commitments. More