Bad Dealer - Toyota of Longview

Here's the semi resolution of the missing $300 rebate I posted on another thread. Bottom line is that Toyota of Longview (Texas) has extremely poor customer service.

I ordered before the 3/10/04 price increase and my credit card was charged on 3/8/04 for the deposit. AFTER I bought the car Toyota told me I wasn't eligible for the rebate because my order wasn't placed in time. When I called the dealer he finally told me there was an order entry error so they canceled my initial order and entered it a few days later. Their error, my loss.

I've been on the e-mail and phone with the dealer and Toyota. Toyota says to work with the dealer. The dealer says it's not their issue.

The dealer already hacked me off by adding a port package that I repeatedly said I didn't want. I was stuck having to take the package (under the assumption that I would at least get my $300 from Toyota) or get on another wait list.

I took the car and I love the car, but the dealer really made me angry. When I called for the 10th time to see if they had any update the salesman told me his manager was tired of hearing about it and I could bring the car back for a refund (so they can turn around and mark it up and sell it again)! The Toyota help line kept telling me to work with the dealer.

I finally found a number for the distributor - Gulf States Toyota and amazingly they had a customer service department. I spoke to a very helpful guy who asked that I fax him the copy of the credit card charge and the info about what happened.

He called a couple of hours later and sincerely apologized. Gulf States cut me a check for $300 and sent it overnight.

Toyota of Longview took no ownership of the issue and made no attempt to rectify the issue. Poor customer service. Thanks to Gulf States for stepping up and doing the right thing.

A friend of mine was on the Toyota of Longview list right behind me and I got a call from another dealer just after I got my car. I sent my friend to the other dealer and he escaped from Toyota of Longview. He had a good experience with Toyota of Marshall.

 

I live in the Dallas area, but the stealerships here were even worse with their $3000 markups. I at least got a car in Longview.

I don't know how their service department is - they might be great. Since I live near Dallas I used Toyota of Richardson. At the 5,000 mile point I was visiting relatives in Lubbock and used a Toyota dealer there. Both did a good job with one exception - they both overfilled the oil!

Coming up on 11 months of ownership and the bad dealer experience continues to fade in the great performance of the vehicle.

Paul