Bad Service @ Arlington Toyota in Jacksonville FL

[pahicks]

In 2006 we had a fairly good purchasing experience at Arlington Toyota in Jacksonville FL. We purchased a new Toyota Prius with an extended warranty. At that time my husband and I decided to go ahead and have all the servicing done at that location. Everything was find until a year later when a brake problem occurred with the car. We took it in and left it with the dealer. A week later we received a call saying it was fixed. At that time the service people said they had replaced its 12volt battery because their battery charger failed and shorted out the battery. When we got in the car to start it the entire front panel lit up with fault lights. We informed the service people that contrary to their opinion the car was not anywhere near fixed. In fact it was more broke than when we brought it to them. Another 5 days go by at the end of which the service people called and said that the transaxle was shorted out and needed replaced. After that they called and said that the car had a short in its main power supply and that they needed special equipment to test it. Then they said that it needed its power inverter replaced. Engineers in Japan said that not a single power inverter had failed and that they wanted ours to be shipped directly to them for testing. At the end of this our car was finally fixed. However a few months later we took the car down for an oil change and were told that we needed new tires. They said one of the tires had nails in it and was leaking. When we inspected the tires ourselves and took it to an independent garage there were no nails to be found and the tire pressure was fine. Finally last week we went for its latest oil change. We always take our own oil. The Prius takes less than 4 quarts of oil. Prior to this time we have always received the remaining oil back. We should have suspected something when they did not give us the left over oil. When we got our prius home the following day we noticed oil in the garage floor. My husband checked the oil and found that is was over filled. So we took our prius back one last time to Arlington Toyota to have them fix it. They said it wasn't leaking oil. And that they found it "hard to believe" that it had leaked any oil. This was after they drained and refilled the oil. Needless to say this is our very last trip to Arlington Toyota here in Jacksonville, FL. I would warn anyone in Jacksonville to use a different service vender for your prius.

[edthefox5]

They sound horrible. Like they did all they could first round to destroy your car.
Brought it in for a brake problem. They ended up replacing your battery because there charger shorted the battery out? What? Why was there a charger on the battery to begin with? Thats a pant full right there.

Then they presented you with a car that had a damaged inverter as evidenced when you went to pick it up and all the lights were on. Whoever parked it knew all the warning lights were on, yet they still released it to you???

What probably happened was while they were waiting on parts they left the door ajar. Battery went dead. Then since there idiots at this place when they went to jump start it they wrong polarized it and blew up the inverter.
After they scratched there heads a while they tried putting a new battery in it. Didn't fix it. Maybe they drove it around too. My suspicion is on older Prius
with inverter damage is if you drive it around with low power out of the inverter it low volts the Motor/generator overheating the field windings and destroying the electric motor. Quickest way to destroy an electric motor is to low volt it under load.

All started with a dead boot battery and morons. A bad mix with this car.
Avoid them like the plague.

BTW, I googled them and there's a fair amount of complaints concerning this dealer.

[N3FOL]

If that was me, the 1st bad service is enough to keep me away from them. Hope you got all your car problems fixed and start looking for another dealer to service your vehicle.