So I bought my used 04 (5700 miles) 3 weeks ago. I decided to take her last week for the recall work and to fix the glovebox (it saggs about a quater of an inch on the far left side) I called to make an apointment and it all went fine over the phone.

Today I get there (8 am, I am NOT a morning person) and it starts off badly from the beginning. The first service guy tells me he "can't give me a print out of the reflash" I said "thats bull, I know it can be done and is done commonly, if you can't do it I'll take it to another dealer" then he dissappears while I am checking the dent and ding report for the car (i have a small ding on the hood and one small ding on the back bumper)

When I return I am greeting to "scott" the guy I spoke to on the phone, he then tells me that I can have a print out of the new flash but not the old current version. I say "thats fine" and proceed to tell him again about the glove box .. he then says OH you are out of warrenty I can't fix alignment problems - I say What?? its just at a year old, and he says that the alignment warrenty is only good for one year 12k miles and that my Inservice date was 9/24/04 -- I say I know that, (i had already check on that info) and I say are you freaking kidding me? 4 DAYS ... your killin me on 4 days when I CALLED and made this appointment BEFORE the 24th... he gets an attitude and says its not him its mazda .. I say whatever and that I want my keys back I'll take it somewhere else.

So then I am driving down the road getting more mad as time passes and I decide to call the service manager. Ray Shannon at Galpin Mazada of Van Nuys - CA, the talk went well , I said I was upset for being told two diffren things about the read out, about them not offering to fix the glovebox ... etc etc etc and he said that "in situations like yours we normally keep the car, do the work we can do and contact the mazda rep to see if we can fix it" and I say well A) your rep did not even mention trying to fix it and B) I called before the 24th and he should have told me OVER THE PHONE that I needed to get it in ASAP he then says tht the rep did not know the inserive date of my car and I said thats BULL cuss I gave him the vin so he could check to see if the recall work had been done. Again he gave me some lame excuse and I said whatever. He then asked me if I wanted to bring the car back in and I said, its normally not to bright to sit down at a table with a waitor after you ahve already critized him to his boss and he said "we dont hold grudges here, we can't get better if we dont get feedback" and I say well call the rep and let me know what the say, if you can do the work then I'll come back in. He call me an hour later and says he can get it done and that I should come in tomorrow at 7:45. So .... we will see how it goes ...

by the way the rentals they give YUK are the ford focus and the Protege. I'd much rather have the Protege .. I drove a focus once. .. POS imho...

anyone else have such issues with their dealer?

Also what flash version would I have now if my factor ship date was 08.01.04?

(also the first guy who I talked to, the one who said he could not give me the print outs, said that my rough idle was "normal" and that he had the same car. I wanted to say, hey if its so "normal" then why doesn't EVER RX8 idle rough.. its about 50 50 from what I've read here. Also what upset me a little was several tiems the reps asked me .. Why do you want the read out.. WHAT DOES IT MATER WHY I WANT IT? ... its MY CAR that I paid for and I want it) I mean crap...

(I did on the phone with Ray say, look I just bought at 25k dollar car and I feel like I am getting KIA service... he didn't like that to much!)

sorry for the rant guys!

Cheers

 

Hey I feel your pain...galpin has to be the worst service department of all time.....had problems everytime I bring it in....good luck!

 

do you ever take it to any of the other dealers? we have like 5 within a 20 minute drive ...

 

I took my 8 in last weekend to West Covina Mazda, Lincoln and sum other **** company. And I had a shitty *** time with them too. I first made an appointment online on a Wednesday for the upcoming Saturday. I never once got an e-mail or a call back. Later called and asked for the guy who handles all the internet work, and ended up being the manager! WOW! Anyways, so he apologizes and makes my appointment. I tell him I need my recall work and theirs a bulletin for my brakes. He didn’t give a damn what I was there for, all he wanted to hear was WHEN I’ll be at the dealer. So I get their, and I speak to sum guy who does all the service inquiry and I tell him its my first time here and I just need an oil change, tire pressure light is on, breaks need to be changed ( I showed him the paper) and I said I need any other recall work. He looked up the info and said the car was their like 2 weeks ago when I got the tranny fixed. I guess CARMAX sent it to them. So he said all the recall work is done, so he can’t do the brakes, but he can CHARGE me $40 to LOOK at them…WUT THE HECK! So I tell him its ok just do the oil and tires…MAN! Horrible *** service! I totally know how you feel. If you find a good dealer to go to, PLEASE!!! Let me know!

 

haven't yet but I plan on trying Thousand Oaks....that's the next nearest to me...

 

let me know how it goes

 

Of the two service writers at Galpin, Scott seems to be the lesser of the two evils. Neither one offers great service. After I called corporate last year because they refused to do the upgrade flash to my car (this was before the required recalls), they became much nicer to me.

My primary car is a Lexus and Galpin Mazda needs to take some lessons from them. My Lexus dealer has never refused to do anything and is always very courteous. I guess Galpin is used to $14K Mazda 3 buyers... not $30K RX8 owners.

 

yea scot.. is uhh... o.k ... eh.... i finally got them to do the work i requested after speaking to ray.. they didn't even do a very good job with the glove box. yuk ... i guess thats life...

 

All of this for a quarter-inch sag in the glovebox and not getting a print-out of the flash? I could understand this level of frustration with a major failure like the engine blowing and them not hurrying you in... but not for a minor glovebox problem.

 

Jay - if they give you an issue about doing something that takes 2 minutes of their time, do you not think they will do the same for a big problem? My requests were simple and easy to fullfil and I had the right to make both.

Thanks for your input though, it definitely advanced this dicussion here.

cheers

 

Hey, Crewshell, I have some recommendations for you:

I don't know where Studio City is in California, but I live in So. Cal. and I have been to almost all Mazda dealers around here. We bought my car at Heritage Mazda of Huntington Beach. The car salesmans there are complete CROOKS. However, we have met just about the best service manager you can have. If you can go down their ask for Rob in Service. He has helped us out so much and hooked us up many times. Stay away from Irvine Mazda at all costs.

Another good dealership is Tustin Mazda in the Tustin Auto Mall. Ask for Mickey. He is the nicest car salesman you can ever encounter. He told us to go over 100 mph to get a feel for the car on our first test drive! If they had a deal like the one we got at Huntington Beach we would have bought the car there.

If you can come down there, tell these guys about your situation and I am 99.9% certain they will help you out.

Good Luck man!
Tell us how everything works out for you.

-nzarnow

 

Thanks Nzar! : ) If anymore problems creep up I omight head on down there