Rob Griffiths

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.

  

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!

Don't you just hate it when you get unexpected surprises after having a vehicle serviced? Consider for a moment my MCV (that'd be short for Midlife Crisis Vehicle), a 13-year old Toyota MR2 Turbo. I owned a couple of these cars earlier in my single-guy existence, and I recently found an amazingly pristine 1994 example at a reasonable cost. After some discussion with my wife, she OK'd the purchase, and I've had it in the garage for a couple of months now. For a car with 100K miles on it, it's in great shape--no dents, door dings, rust, or interior damage. Looking at it, you'd never guess the vintage or the mileage; the previous owners were meticulous in their care, it seems. About the only thing wrong with it was the airbag warning light on the dash was constantly lit.

So I finally made an appointment with our local dealer to get that problem fixed, and to do some other routine maintenance activities (I had them give the car a good once over, as it was its first trip to service under my ownership). They had the car for two days, waiting on a part to fix the airbag problem; they called me tonight and let me know everything was done and running fine.

Just before closing, I got to the dealership, paid the bill (ouch), and started driving the car home. As promised, it was running fine, and all seemed good. It was then I noticed that the previously-pristine interior was no longer. The passenger seat, whose leather was in showroom condition, now sported an oily stain and a puncture wound! Below, the image on the left is the "before" shot; on the right, the "after" shot I took tonight. Click either image for the large version, which will make the damage plainly apparent.

  

The "before" image is a bit blurry, as I wasn't intentionally shooting the passenger seat when I took those pictures. Still, it's plain to see that there wasn't a puncture in the leather, and it's somewhat obvious that there's no stain in the "before" shots.

Needless to say, I'm quite irked with the dealer at the moment. I called and left a polite but firm message with my service advisor, who had seen and commented on the quality of the interior when I dropped the car off. Hopefully they'll do the right thing tomorrow and agree to have the seat repaired or replaced as necessary. I realize the car is nothing but a physical object, but when I pay someone to provide a service, I clearly don't expect that they will damage other things in the process of handling whatever the original scope of work covered. To me, that screams of a lack of attention to detail, and it makes me quite scared about what other "little things" they may have overlooked in working on the car.

No real moral to this story, other than to always carefully inspect your vehicles after a service stop--preferably with the service advisor at your side, making sure things are as you expect them. I'll post an update (not that any of you necessarily care, but I feel better venting about this kind of thing! :) ) once I hear back from the dealer tomorrow. Grrrrrr.