Lia Toyota Review
Lia Toyota of Rockland may as well change their name to LIAR Toyota if they continue to employ the Director of Service Operations at the dealership. That individual is a pseudo sophisticated, intellectually sterile bully, who likes to make idle threats. He should be relegated to just washing cars, if not terminated, by Sr. Management and the Owners. It is not surprising that he appears to have the worst on-line reviews on the website from customers, a mere 2 stars.
In my case, my Toyota Tacoma was finally approved, after 2 years of waiting, to have the rusted frame replaced under the recall program. It was delivered to the dealership on the day I received approval notification, and I was told that the process would take about a week. The truck had just over 78,000 miles on it and was in excellent operating condition when I delivered it to Lia Toyota.
During the frame replacement process, I was asked if I wanted to have the front shock/strut assemblies and the rear shocks replaced for $1,200. They had already been replaced within the last 2 years and were fine, so I declined that offer. After 2 weeks of work, I was notified to pick up my vehicle. Upon arrival to pick up the vehicle and inspecting it before leaving, the CHECK ENGINE Warning light and Slip indicator dashboard lights were both illuminated. The service rep was shown the warning lights, and my truck was brought back into the shop, since I said there were NO diagnostic trouble codes registered when the vehicle was initially brought in for the frame replacement. A mechanic checked out the problem, and eventually reported that an emission system hose had been mistakenly left off and was reinstalled. I asked for and was given a list of the four (4) diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) that were found because of this error, and the codes were cleared. The truck was driven home and to work the next day, a total of 8 miles, and the CHECK ENGINE light as well as the SLIP warning indicator light below it both reappeared.
The truck was immediately brought back to Lia Toyota and left there. I was eventually called while I was traveling out of State and told by my assigned service rep. that it needed to have the emissions canister replaced at a cost of over $860, and that it was not warrantied, and I would have to pay for it. I was irate and asked to speak with someone in charge because I said the emissions code problems were created by the mechanics when the frame was replaced and was not a pre-existing condition.
I was then connected to Mr. Peter Vaccaro, the Director of Service Operations. During our conversation he was obnoxious, condescending and belligerent. He constantly interrupted and talked over me, saying that this was not warrantied. I attempted to explain multiple times that it had nothing to do with the emissions warranty, but that the system was damaged during the frame replacement work done by Lia, especially since many of the system hoses and components were disconnected during the process, and not correctly
reattached. Since I was out of state on business and traveling in a car during the call, we were suddenly disconnected during the conversation due to poor cell coverage.
Mr. Vaccaro called back and left the following voice mail message:
"Mr. L, this is Peter Vaccaro, we were speaking on the phone before you so rudely hung up on me. I just want to let you know that your vehicle is here, and it is completed. I'll give you to 5:00pm this evening to pick it up. If you do not pick it up to pick it up by 5pm, at 5:01 pm I will contact the local PD and inform them that our loaner car has been stolen and um we will report it as such. Your vehicle is ready to be picked up now so we are not going to be doing anything further on it, and if you would like to speak with Toyota directly, please feel free to do so, and um, they can advise you of whatever they um wish. But as far as this dealership is concerned, we are done with the vehicle, and we are not doing anything further, it is waiting for you to pick up. You do have until 5 pm today to pick it up, if it is not picked up, I reiterate, I must report the vehicle that you're using as a loaner, you are now using it as a stolen vehicle.
You are now after 5pm using it without authorization and therefore it's considered a stolen vehicle. I do not wish to go down that route. I do not wish to have an adversarial relationship with you but unfortunately this is something that is not covered by Toyota, it is an internal problem in that part, and when we own something goes bad we must take responsibility for it. If I do not hear from you I by 5 pm will take the appropriate action. Bye."
He had been told by me already, and my service rep. also knew, that I was out of State and was scheduled to pick up my truck 2 days later, so I simply found the phone number for Toyota Corporate Complaints and contacted them, thereby opening a case against the dealership.
Upon my return home, I emailed the Gener read more