Just returned home from the dealership for the first complimentary oil change for a new Santa Fe. This is our second new car purchase there, the first was a Palisade. I'll lead in with the positive part; our salesman, Jon, is top notch, great guy who was a pleasure to deal with on both vehicles, no pressure and everything a sales guy should be. The sales department is great and this should no way reflect on them.
Now the negatives.
The service department is a nightmare. It is like a morgue, no personality and no smiles. Contacting them has always been difficult, constantly leaving a message and never a return call. Back to today's incident. Since we travel nearly an hour to get to the dealership from our home, we usually schedule things on a day off. We have learned that service always takes twice as long a they say so we always ask for their courtesy shuttle to take us to a restaurant or movie to pass the time, which is about three miles away. This time they didn't have one available so they gave us a loaner to drive ourselves since we were going to be there for five plus hours. We were also informed that they were down a tech so that it would take longer than originally scheduled. They asked us to top off the tank upon our return. Since we only went three miles, we didn't feel it necessary. They told us it would cost us $10 if they had to do it for us.
We returned the vehicle and parked it outside with their other loaners. They asked us to go back out and pull it in to inspect it. Normal protocol, but lazy that they couldn't get it themselves. It was brought in and parked on a ramp where we were told the tank went down 1/8 of a tank of fuel after going only six miles round trip. We asked to have them park it on level ground so that there was an accurate gas reading. Upon being on level ground, it was only down 1/16 of a tank. Remember, this is only six miles, folks. I thought it was suspicious since a Tucson gets 25 MPG city. At $2.99 for six miles, the math comes out to 60 cents. In my anger, I went and filled the tank, and surprise surprise, it took $5.01 at 1.6 gallons meaning it hadn't been topped off to begin with. Don't fall for this, folks. Park on level ground BEFORE going up the ramp, because it took me getting to the gas station for the needle to go up again. In discussing with the girl in the parking lot, she informed me that the $10 would be charged to my card on file because it is a cost to the dealership.
My suggestion to the dealership on their loaner policy is to give a minimum mileage and if the customer goes over, then they are responsible. Not to mention, we didn't ask for a loaner, we just wanted the courtesy shuttle to take us down the road to a movie, where this would have been all avoided from the get-go.
So, folks, this is how Towne treats their customers who have bought two vehicles in four years. Again, we love the sales department. They get a grade of A, service gets an F. read more
