It's Christopher Morris here with a consumer complaint. I would ask that you post this on your blogs or send via email, even though it is a local issue.
First, the good. That's a sentence fragment, but who cares. The Hyundai Motor Company makes an awesome line of cars. They are super reliable, have a great 100,000 mile drivetrain warantee with a great extended warantee to boot for a small sum. They work hard to get the financing at a great rate and easy payments. Their dealers are typical high pressure, negitiate until your teeth hurt salesmen, but come on! That's half the fun. AND their service departments are superior. The fight for warrantee work and give you a loaner car and call every day with updates.
Now, the bad news. Rick Torres Empire Hyundai:
Company DetailsLocation: Fall River, MAFounders: Richard R. Torres, 41
Website: www.empirehyundai.com
Year Started: January 2000
Initial Investment: $200K
Turned a Profit: 2000
First Million: 2002
2002 Sales: $18.4M
2006 Sales: $60.7MNumber of Employees:
Day 1: 9
2006: 85
2007: 111*
Awesome company. Great service department, initially. Four years ago, the let go of some of the service managers and installed a few real hard asses. We fought tooth and nail. Then, when we had a drivetrain problem and a ball joint problem, they tried to screw us.
Background. My father has worked in the automotive service industry for 30 years, with Goodyear, Getty, Moe's Alignment senter (owner, operator) and for Henney's Towing and repair and Glassman Auto (one of the most respected car dealerships and repair facilities in all of the Bristol Area. I had Glassman do the 60,000 mile madatory replacement of the timing belt, water pump and tensioners. ALL Hyundai Certified parts, with an ASE certified mechanic and a full itemization. Their reputation is known in three states as a quality shop.
So, a year later a few problems pop up. We take it to RICK TORRES EMPIRE HYUNDAI. Jeff White, the service manager, is reasonably sure it's all warantee work, but promises to call if there are any problems. Without written consent, he takes the car apart (not even necessary) claims the timing belt is mangled and it's going to cost $450.00, no warantee, to fix.
Hold on, I say. You did not authorize this.
Well, I've got your car in pieces in my bay right now. It will cost you just as much to put it all back to gether, but feel free to take it somewhere else.
Me: when can you have it fixed?
One week.
Oh? So, how are you going to get it out of the bay?
It's going to sit there until you agree to pay or my guy puts it together and we get paid for his time.
Me: My father works at Glassman auto. They replace the timing belt, the water pump and the tensioner. So, they screwed up?
Yes.
Okay, my brother in law works for a dealership and he could shede a little light on this. I want all the parts you take out.
I can't give those to you.
By law, you have to.
No, they have to go to warantee to ensure that we did the right work.
The job you said wasn't under warantee, you said.
It's half under warantee.
I want my my guys to look at the parts before then. They have all the records and they'll see about this.
Well, it's going to cost you that much either way.
So, you've got me over barrel here. This is like blackmail.
I'm just doing my job.
Look, I've been around car repair long enough. You're lying.
I'm sorry you feel that way.
Who can I talk to about this?
No one. I'm the manager here.
I'll hand it to JEFF WHITE, he never raised his voice and made me sound like a cranky old man.
Fearing for my car, I apologized and told him to do the work. I even said my stress level was too high and I should not be taking it out on him and that he was doing his job. Which, I didn't tell him, was swindling people.
I did my research and had a few phone calls made to RICK TORRES HYUNDAI.
SHOCK! It all magically got covered under warantee. THEN, they'd stolen money from the car. Yes, we'd left it there on purpose. The last straw.
Facts.
1. NO repair shop can touch your car without a written good faith estimate and cannot proceed beyond that estimate without another written consent.
2. The cannot charge you labor for any work they innitiate to investigate a problem.
3. No company in their right mind ties up a service bay with a car 'totally taken apart' for nine days. They had to put it back together to get it out of the bay to work on other cars.
4. They have no right to lock your car in a gated lock if they have done no repairs, unless they are willing to release it with a signature of receit.
I was blackmailed, lied to and meant to feel very stressed out AND had to kiss the ass of a lying worm of a service manager just to save my car.
Lastly, they dumped motor oil on parts of the engine to make it smoke and smell to try and get us to come in for a supposed oil leak. Nice try.
Customer service cannot get either manager on the phone to resolve this. I want an admission of the lying and blackmail, reprocussions for JEFF WHITE and a watchdog on their ass, like the Mass Better Business Bureau.
They pull this crap with old ladies and women and executives with no car knowledge.
Advice:
Go with your gut. If the price jumps without warning, refuse and ask to take the car immediately with no service charge.
Keep spotless records.
Always ask for parts that were taken out and double check with another shop if you suspect foul play.
SPEAK UP! Squeaky wheel gets the grease. We got our warantee work for $50.00 (on a $600.0 bill).
They are NEVER authorized to do work without an itemized estimate signed by you and cannot ecceed it with another signed release.
If you get screwed, fight back and threaten bad press. Call the local channels scam busters, the papers and blog and email. Bad press will force their hand.
Don't let them badger you. Get your research lined up and call a reputable shop and ask question. It helps to offer the new shop all your following business if they can help.
PLEASE post this or link it or whatever you can do.
Hyundai is a great company. Their service department is excellent, but many LIKE RICK TORRES EMPIRE HYUNDAI's service department are looking to scam.
I invite Rick Torres, his General Manager (not his service manager) to contact me at eliasdolon@charter.net understand, that's not my real name for privacy issues on the net, but I'll feel free to tell you who I am and explain further in a rational way what happened.
cc www.empirehyundai.com
Sorry for the Interruption
Friday, May 23, 2008
Posted by Christopher at 9:25 AM
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8 comments:
I HATE big car dealerships and will never buy a car from one again. They are all crooks.
And I will reprint this for you.
Did someone say "BADGER?"
BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER! BADGER!
Uckf You, Baron do nothing.
awful awful, one of the reasons why I stick to a small family owned repair shop recomended to me been with them for the last 8 years. they open from Monday -friday from 8-6pm (no loaner car)that could be a bit inconvenient just because of that but 1st of all they don't lie to me which makes me save money just there, they know what they are talking about and I thank to them for giving me my rights in wrighting on every receipt that is why I know how scums in Dealers don't do things the proper way...I am glad that the day after I bought my car I called the VW Main warranty line to ask if it was complitely necesary to take my car to a certified dealership in order to keep my VW bumper to bumper warranty like the dealer told me(VW WL said it was not necesary at all unless it was to perform under warranty repairs, just keep records they said) which my personal repair shop does (which I can print online any time) as well as I keep on my files, VW WL told me that any time I had doubts about what is covered or not I could always call them directly (which is what I did since the beginning to make sure that when I showed to the dealership for VW under warranty repairs there was no lying about what is it and what is not covered) and I would always reply to dealerships, well the VW WL told me its covered & that was the end of it.
Crazy!! scums!!!
This is why I take the bus.
That, and the $5.00 per gallon gas we'll all be paying for in July.
PISS ON THEIR FACES!!!
You take the bus because your greenpeace woman won't let you own a car.
I visited Empire Hyundai on Saturday, June 30th, 2007 to inquire about a Hyundai Accent and here is my experience: They advertised in the Pro Jo on Wednesday of that week about a Hyundai Accent. "Carol" was there to greet me when I arrived. After taking my contact info (she wanted my SS# too if you can believe that!) she acted ignorant about the advertisement and we proceeded to have a nonsensical discussion about what I wanted. When I told her I wanted the Hyundai Accent advertised, she kept on trying to ask me what features I wanted in this vehicle. I finally told her that I had the ad in my car, that there was a vehicle stock number listed in the ad, and that I had called earlier to confirm that the car was still available. I had to go out to the car and actually produce the ad. She took the newspaper to the backroom (I never got it back) and 15-20 minutes later (everything seems to take forever...) she comes back to the showroom dangling a set of keys that has a tag on it that matches the stock number in the ad. Great, I think, we're getting somewhere. Nope. She insists on taking me out to some remote lot where there are similar Hyundai Accents, some at the same sticker price, although the one she showed me was a standard transmission vehicle worth $1000 less. She kept mentioning that this vehicle had no power mirrors, no this or that, didn't I really want those features? I just stated that I came there to test drive the car in the ad. She goes back into the backroom leaving me outside with this vehicle and comes back 15 minutes later claiming that they can't "find" the vehicle advertised in the paper. MMmmm - she just showed me the keys with the stock number tag on it. Then she says we can take a vehicle and drive over to their sister location in some other City, because that must be where the advertised vehicle is! So much time has gone by that I now must return home to get my son to his job and when I tell her this, she wants me to take her in one of the Empire cars (Accent?) to go do this chore in Westport. And then, she needs to disappear again! So I go back to my car and take off. She has the nerve to call my cell phone and home phone trying to get me to come back! Then I get an email from Empire. Let me tell you, Empire Hyundai is the epitome of immoral questionable (illegal?) practices.
I would never ever do business with this company under any circumstances.
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