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The dealer does the right thing

  • Auto

Here's the promised update to the bad auto service call. I took the car back to the dealer last Friday to look at. I was glad I happened to have taken a picture of the passenger seat after purchasing the car--I printed that, as well as new pictures I took of the damaged area, and took printouts with me. The hole in the seat wasn't even an issue; he saw clearly that it was new based on the photos, and they gave me no grief. On the stain, he asked me how I knew it was from the service, as it could have happened any time. I then ran my finger through it, and showed him the still-moist residue that came up with it. That was the end of that; they agreed to repair the seat for no charge.

Repairing perforated leather is far from simple, from what I understand. Our dealer outsources such repairs to a company that comes in once a week, so the car went back to the dealer this morning. When I picked the car up this afternoon, I was duly impressed--although I can see where the repair was made, it really takes a big photograph to make it obvious. From any distance at all, it looks completely normal. Compare the images below; the one on the left is the damaged post-service shot; the one on the right was taken tonight, about 20 minutes ago.

after-small  after-big

Certainly at that size, the repair is invisible. Click the image on the right, though (caution - huge image!), and you can see the fix. It's not nearly that obvious in reality; the flash and close up really bring it out. I was amazed they were able to repair it that well--especially given the age of the leather seats. They also cleaned it up quite nicely. If I look very closely, I can see just a small bit of remaining discoloration, but nothing like what was there before, and there's no more residue when I run my finger across the area.

So thank you, Beaverton Toyota, for doing the right thing, and doing it well. The fact that they have a to/from free shuttle service made taking the car back about as painless as possible, too. Fun fact: the shuttles (Toyota Sienna minivans) serve a 10-mile radius, and they have two of them. Through September, they've racked up a total of 65,000 miles doing nothing but short local-hop round trips!

1 thought on “The dealer does the right thing”

  1. I\'m verry happy for you that you fixed the damaged place in the car so well and free of charge!!! You know, when we visited the emirates and stayed in the Dubai hotel, something happened with our car in the parking place of the hotel and its service defaulted our car perfectly and also gratis!!! What a good service is there!!! :)

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