Bad Experience at West Ashley Toyota SC

The nerve! The greed! I can only imagine how angry you must be! I really hope he doesn't get that price for his #9. I had an auction on watch on EBay that was a #9 put up for auction by a dealer. I wasn't buying, I just watched it for kicks. His #9 got up to $29,300 and ended unsold because the reserve had not been met.

I can start to appreciate my local Toyota Dealer (Fernelius in Cheboygan, MI) all the more as I read about experiences like yours. Our 2004 was MSRP and the dealer stopped by work (small town) to find out if our purchase experience went ok, to ask if we had any specific questions he could answer and to apologize because he wasn't there when we took delivery.

The good guys are out there - don't give up!

 

Sorry to hear that....

Jeeze! I paid $1000 less than the ebay price for my car. Greed is bad! That dealer is obviously only thinking short term. I guess they dont realize that word travels fast, far and wide, esp with the internet :computer: I am sure they will be seeing less customers in the future, and scratching their heads not understanding why. :twisted:

shona

 

one salesman i spoke to in WV said that they have been selling a lot of their cars to folks in DC, where they are getting as much as $10K over sticker!! he claims there is one dealer who has a dozen prii on their lot with that price on them...

sheesh.

 

so much for capitalism.

I wonder if Toyota are getting any of this extra cash to recover costs for their innovation. I bet NOT!

 

time to start calling all the dealers within what you consider to be a reasonable driving distance. Then sell the Honda privately.

 

The first Toyota dealership I visited in my pursuit of a Prius was West Ashley. That was around the end of February. At that time, they wanted $ 3K over MSRP. My next visit was to Stokes-Brown in Beaufort. They wanted straight MSRP which was fine, but they had no cars. I was 12th on their list with a fully-refundable $ 1K deposit which projected to a December delivery of an '05. My third stop was Chatham-Parkway in Savannah. I took delivery of a black #7 in 4 weeks, sitting third on their list. Again, I paid MSRP. My salesman, Brandon, projected no more than a 2 month wait. It turned out to be just a bit less than 1 month. I had to be flexible on color, accepting a black when I wanted a Tideland. I love my Prius and have been pleased with the dealership. As for West Ashley, what goes around, comes around eventually.

 

I'm the General Manager at West Ashley Toyota. First, I apologize for the experience that you had that time even though I wasn't here at the time. That doesn't excuse the experience you had, but I felt a response was warranted because I'm afraid people might not come to West Ashley Toyota because of the experience you had.

We have a new management staff, we're responsive, believe in educating our customers on their vehicles, and we have the largest stock of Priuses in the Charleston area. We want to be your resource center for your Prius. Please give us an opportunity on your next Prius purchase.

All the Best,
Bob Benson

 

The most powerful word in the English language is "NO". If you don't agree with the salesperson (automobile or otherwise), just say "no" and walk away. Salespeople don't make any money on things they can't sell. Buying a Prius is not like buying that Mona Lisa. There are plenty of hungry dealers, and currently plenty of Prius automobiles to choose from.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - You Don't Get The Deal You Deserve, You Get The Deal You Negotiate.

Keith

 

Whoa, a 4 year old thread comes back to life.

 

Obviously a precursor to the zombie uprising...

 

I wonder how much business was lost in the last four years because of this initial thread and why did it take four years for the Mgr to apologise, was there a big shake-up? New ownership? If so, saying NO works. 3 cheers for Capitalism.

 

Personally I'd give Bob credit for being up front and trying to reestablish goodwill for West Ashley Toyota.
Gary

 

Mr. Benson,

Welcome to PriusChat.

I commend you for coming here to lay to rest any residual resentments or
ill will remaining from an incident some four years ago.

Things have changed a lot since then, especially in the last few months.
From all reports, today its a buyer's market. I guess you could say the shoe
is on the other foot.

To clearly demonstrate your renewed committment to customer
education,and presumably satisfaction, would you state clearly what your
dealership policy is now as to pricing relative to MSRP?

 

Must be nice to get an apology from Bob Benson. I got my sub and amp stolen while my car was being serviced there and to this day haven't gotten an apology. They did finally reimburse me after bugging them about it enough, but an apology would have definitely been nice too. I think it is hilarious that they are going from site to site pretending that their new management is any better than their old and claiming that they have such great customer satisfaction. I don't have a Prius, but just wanted to let everyone know that things haven't changed as much as they want you to think they have and to be very careful if you decide to try and do business with West Ashley Toyota.

I bought my scion last September and it took them until December to finish certifying it. Their salesman John was very rude and pushy. He lied to me numerous times about paperwork and about my car being serviced there. The first thing he said to me after I bought my car was, "It is about time, that was like the damn Olympics." Bob Benson had someone else give me the check for my stolen items. He never once called me to apologize for my stolen items or all of the bad experiences I had there. He didn't even apologized when he saw me at West Ashley Toyota. The most disturbing thing about this situation is that my father was told by Bob Benson that they were under the impression that I was picking up my car each night, which I wasn't. They didn't even know where my car was! I had to bring my car in 5 times because they didn't service it correctly and even their PR person named Heather never returned our calls about the stolen items. She ignored us and the problems she was so concerned about helping us with after that incident.

I never got a survey about my purchase and experiences at West Ashley Toyota, which I found very surprising because I thought Toyota was all about customer satisfaction and always sent them out. It makes me wonder if that is why West Ashley Toyota's customer satisfaction rates are so high (so they claim)... maybe they just don't send surveys to unsatisfied customers.

 

One bad experience at a dealership can sour a person forever.
Now with the internet, everyone knows about it!

I had a very bad experience dealing with a Chevrolet dealership over 30 years ago. And it was not even my car, it was my grandfather's!
Soured me on Chrevrolet forever between the dealership and the quality of the car.
Had a bad experience when I was looking for a Ram pickup in 96.
almost bought a Ford instead. Nothing against the Ford, but I really wanted the Indy Ram, and did buy one, elsewhere, and still have it.
Dealership problems with both area Subaru dealers soured me on Subarus.

You think dealers would learn, and monitor their people more...........

 

Don't buy cars from them they are very nasty and they do not respect thier customers. They are nice to your face and rude behing your back be very careful. Dont allow them to fix your cars just dont go thier. I have personaly seen them treat customer and the cleaning people like shit.

 

We cleaned the building at west ashley toyota and the treat us like crap . We have seen were they leave keys in the cars out side the leave doors open and they put news paper all over the floor. They are very nasty. I have also seen were the just throw your people's information in the trash with your social security with thier driver licence number all of your personal information. Stay away the manger who are husband and wife are crazy! Just be mindful

 

Thank you kind sir, I applaud your demeanor!
All the best,
BOB BENSON
p.s. if you ever need anything you contact me, communication is a wonderful thing.

 

No matter the circumstance, if I were to show you the palm of my hand and have you study it for 10 minutes, if I take my hand away you could probably tell me everything in great detail about my hand right? Yes, you probably could. However, until I turned my hand over you could not describe the entire hand. Yes, there are two sides and the fact is, the husband and wife you are upset with, own two dealerships, account for over 80 families, they work 80 hours a week and run a dealership in these times. I have never had them say a crude thing to no one. Please understand that nothing is personal, it is business. As to the accusation that we throw personal information in the trash is just not accurate, we shred every document that has privacy information on it, this I assure you. The interesting thing is, if you felt that this was happening, why didn't you report it to the management staff before being replaced? Instead you want a stage to make these accusations, this is nothing more than ill will, I certainly understand anger, and I wish you luck with this emotion. I have found that when I point a finger, there is always three fingers pointing back at me.