I feel for you. I used to have a tire/wheel/alignment guy who did great work and was the only one I'd let touch my wheels or do alignments. He manually removed the wheels if you asked him. Always protected the impact or manual wrench when removing the tire. Let you hang around the shop and BS with him while doing your alignment or tire change. He was a ZR1 guy and understood that, like him, car people wanted to take care of their cars no matter what they had. He retired, sold the business, and now you might as well go get your tires changed at one of those $20 used tire shops.

 

Who wants repainted BBS wheels though? I'm sure the paint technology has improved but I'm imagining flaking or peeling paint on $2000 rims.

 

Reminds me of a Sears visit with my Jeep. All they had to do was rotate the tires. I looked over my wheels once I picked it up and noticed most of the lug nuts looked crooked. To my amazement 4 nuts on each tire were cross threaded and not completed seated. I went in to let them know and it seemed like they were programmed to deny deny deny immediately without looking at the facts. They even had the audacity to say, yes, it obvious someone cross threaded your lug nuts but it wasn't us. I calmly showed him my invoice and said I agree someone cross threaded them, and look here, it was you guys, I just picked it up from you! The guy's eyes almost popped out of his head. They had to work overtime that evening because I demanded it be fixed right there and then, how else was I going to get home? They had to replace all those lug studs and bolts. Small price for them to pay but even bigger they lost me as a customer forever.

Lesson for all of us, check your vehicles immediately after a service visit.

 

100% this!

I had the contractor trolls who hang out in the service bay fix the curb rash on my 2016. Sure it was smooth, but it didn’t match the other wheels. Drove me batcrap crazy.

I noticed scuff marks in the lug bolt area on my wheel too, but not until later. I couldn’t go the replacement route, but my account states the technician has to be careful with the impact gun when the wheels are removed. They’re balanced every 6 months, so the note is referenced a lot.

Smart move not going back to them.

 

Not a great option... granted. But at least all 4 would match. I would likely insist on refinishing all 4 if that was the only viable option.

 

Lexus of Omaha has that same setup. Pretty slick.

 

Just a thought... maybe this is an opportunity for improvement? I like the BBS wheels but black seems to be very overused these days. How about maybe having the dealer fund a refinish and go with a different appearance? Gunmetal grey would be nice IMO depending on the color of the car.

 

I guess I am lucky. I live 220 miles from the nearest dealer. I get my car serviced by the Toyota dealer 23 miles away. Cost is half of dealer cost and the guys are so pleased to see my "antique 2004" drive in and look it over that they give me flawless service. Even recommending a cheaper alternative to the required maintenance, like when The AC quit a year ago ( after 20 years!) and I expected a compressor but they cleaned the freon and it fixed the problem, $280 instead of $2800. They could have sold me a compressor and I would not have *****ed, but they didnt.

 

Keep giving thst dealer your business! Diamond service!

 

18 GS F-Sport owner and I still have an outstanding recall on my fuel pump. I refuse to go to the dealer for replacement and might just order a new pump and have The Car Care Nut install it since I'm somewhat close to his shop, they're only $160 from Lexus. If I have to go back to dealer I'm going to have the service manager do a walk around with me to visually inspect the car prior to one of the techs. servicing it. Such a shame dealers are like this especially when you bring a car in that's in pristene condition.

 

A little bit surprised at all this talk about dealers dinging up cars.

Granted, it does happen, but is it really more likely to happen than anywhere else? Additionally, I would think that one would have higher confidence that a dealer or corporate would make things right assuming there is proper documentation that the event did indeed occur while car was in their care.

Recently, I had my dealer install 4 new Michelin Pilot Sport 4 a/s tires. Besides their own documenting, I did take the precaution to photograph all 4 wheels when I was dropping off the car and checked them again when I was picking up. Had to do this again several weeks later when I realized that they did a poor job balancing new tires and had them road force balance to fix high speed vibrations. Honestly, I didn't feel comfortable going to any of the local tire chain places and I was actually waved off by people at the local Sam's Club (place that recently installed 4 tires I bought there for my daughters car). They looked at me and point blank said that their core business is corolla and cr-v type cars, and that I should really reconsider before letting them touch my car (their words). Was barely there as it was, and those words pretty much sent me running for the door.

Not saying that all dealers are made equal. Sometimes you just need to find a good one or maybe get friendly with a few service advisors and a master tech or two. That usually ups my long term ownership satisfaction by quite a bit.

My question is if you're avoiding all dealers like the plague... where are you supposed to go?

 

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I prefer going to the dealerships. I’m older, so to me, customer service across the board is not what it used to be. Meaning…back in the day you could just trust the person would have pride in their work and do things right the first time. Nowadays everyone requires ‘active management’, so I openly communicate my expectations and most of the time, I get the desired results.

The road force balancing (depending on the score) could be a faulty tire. I had to get one of my rear tires replaced by TireRack because no amount of balancing voodoo at the dealership satisfied me. I had to buy a replacement first, then go through the warranty procedure to get the reimbursement.

EDIT: I’ve also found that a better experience begins and ends with your service rep. Find one who has been there for awhile and clearly has the respect of his colleagues. The folks from the check-in reps to the mechanics seem to treat your car better.

 

They did a regular balance first. My fault. I should have specified road force balance up front. Worked fine, they got it into 3 digits to test and I haven't felt anything out of the ordinary ever since.

100% agree with the service advisor comments. I am usually very friendly and upfront with my requirements and concerns. Somewhere along the way they get a sense that I have above average affinity for and am atypically attuned to the health of my car. In my experience, that's not the type of customers they want to mess with. That leaks over to our other vehicles as well as my wife was recently in for 10k service with her NX and they did a state inspection with 1 month to go without asking. She didn't know what that was and told her advisor that she would need to pull me into the conversation. At that point they promptly decided to comp the inspection fee vs speaking with me. That's great service right there!

But seriously though, I was in for 5k service the other day at a dealer I bought IS 500 from, not our regular dealer. Its not as big or as flashy as our regular dealer, but the advisors and techs I spoke with were all enthusiasts and knew their stuff inside and out. Advisor comes up to me when work was done to ask me if I want them to carwash my car. I said NO, and he said he thought that would be the response, hence the ask.

Come out to pickup my car and there are 3 techs including their top master tech checking out my car. Said this was their favorite currently made Lexus and that they don't see nearly enough of them.

 

Your friendliness isn't going to overcome their ineptitude. I never shared this before but the last time I went to dealer service for my 10k mile oil change, the SA comes out and says, "wow nice car is that the turbo?" I facepalmed and was about to ask for a different SA but I'm too nice so I let it slide. I found out he just started working there a couple months ago but this is the type of people Lexus hires - those with no friggin clue.

 

Well... as DLPTony aptly put it "Nowadays everyone requires ‘active management’, so I openly communicate my expectations and most of the time, I get the desired results". This is my approach as well.

If the person on the other end of your service transaction has spent any time in the job, this approach immediately flags you as an enthusiast, hence a lot more demanding and particular about your cars. They may simply be terrible and not care. In that care, you may have to go to a few dealers to find a friendly one, as there are a lots of Lexus dealers that handle large numbers of service transactions involving high volume consumer vehicles that everyone treats like appliances. Obviously, that sort of approach wouldn't work out well for a typical IS 500 owner.

The type of interaction you describe would have pissed me off as well as I don't think its right that when an end user knows more about the product than the dealer. But that is frequently the case these days.