I had a series of service visits at this dealer related to one issue, which took a few rtips to diagnose, but turned out to be the 4th cylinder misfiring due to issues with the fuel injector. I had the misortune of having these things happen over the 2011 holidays when it seems like the dealer was short-staffed and was closed a few days. After the 2nd visit they brought out the car on 12/31 and it was leaking gas out of the engine, with some smoke, and the gas tank was on empty. I showed this to the service manager and they were noticably concerned, and took the car back in. They did get it corrected in a few days. I was pretty irate and made this known to management. Within a few days, the principals of service management made contact with me. One in particular expressed great contrition over the quality of service. His resolution of this issue more than exceeded my expectations. While it is regretable that this happened, in the end they did right by me and I would use them again. I'm not sure how many auto dealers one could say that about, so JM here has restored their good name.

 

Welcome to Club Lexus as a first-time poster. Glad to have you.

While I agree that your experience could have been better, I wouldn't gripe too much. First of all, your car is no spring chicken....with 14 years and 145K on it, IMO, you've already gotten your money's worth out of it, and, as of now, it doesn't owe you a dime. Second, today's cars (and, by "today", I also mean as far back as your car's 1998 model-year) are enormously complex mechanically and electronically, and many things can cause either steady or intermittent fuel/spark problems and a rough-running engine (even lousy fuel with water in it). Diagnosing something as varied as that is not always easy the first time. Third, they apologized and offered you free service, so they don't seem to be one of those "We-Don't-Care" shops.

 

You had a bad service experience at a dealer. The dealer offered compensation. Even by your own admission, you feel that the dealer tried to make things right. I'm unsure why you feel so wronged. No system is ever perfect, and customer service exists in order to react to the imperfections.

If you feel the compensation was insufficient, you should contact the dealership.

 

I don't see the problem...

They made a mistake and tried to make things right by apologizing and offering you free service for the troubles...

No one is perfect - when things do go smoothly everyone is happy. But its how they respond when things go bad that show their true customer service. IMO, from your story, I'd be happy that they stood up to their mistake and went and made things right, and even offered you free future service.