Loving My Car Dealership

Yes, you read correctly. I LOVE my car dealership, Toyota of Lake City. There are a couple of reasons.

First, let me highly recommend the service package offered when you buy a car from the dealership. It costs about the same as JiffyLube if you count up how many times you'll get service and what that costs there, but there are added benefits that I had no idea I was signing up for when I got my service package. I've been in four times now since purchasing my car.

• The first time I went in, they found an issue with a part that needed to be replaced. It was under warranty, so it just cost me an extra 20 minutes in the waiting room (with wifi, so I could surf the net while I waited).
• The second time I went in, they added foam to my front dash to decrease road noise. It was fixing a known issue and would take extra time, so they drove me to work and spent the day on the car, so it cost me the inconvenience of riding in their carpool to work.
• The third trip in required some new belts and windshield wipers, but they are included in the service agreement, so I didn't have to pay for them. I just needed to approve the work. Those are just little things, so it didn't even take any extra time.
• The last time I went in (last Friday), they did my 25K maintenance, so it took a little longer than normal. The found that the water pump was leaking, so they also replaced that. It was under warranty, so I didn't have to pay for it. Because they found it before it was a real problem, I will also never have the inconvenience of the car quitting on me because the water pump failed. I also told them that my tire air pressure light was coming on, but that the pressure was fine. They checked it and found the nail lodged in my tire. I actually had to pay for the tire fix, but I avoided the inconvenience of walking out to my car to find a super low tire that would make me late for work and finding out about the nail that way.

The service folks are so nice and I always feel like they're doing just a little extra to make sure that I have a good driving experience.

The second reason that I love my car dealership is because they like to do the right thing. Last year, we heard about an elderly sister in our ward who had some issues with folks who were providing some care for her. They got access to her bank account and proceeded to buy three cars. They went to my car dealership, Toyota of LakeCity. Of course, the dealership was thrilled to sell them the first car. When they came back the next day to buy a second car, the dealership thought something smelled fishy. They refused to sell the second car and asked the people to return the first car they had purchased the day before. They gave up two (and what could have been three) sales to do the right thing. They also reported the people for abuse and helped nail the case against those folks who were taking advantage of someone who needed protection.

I know most people hate car dealerships and car salesmen, but I want everyone (all three of you) to know that there are some really good dealerships out there who do the right thing and make their customers have great experiences.