I recently purchased a 2019 Toyota Tacoma from Robert Larson Toyota of Tacoma in Lakewood, WA. At the time, everything seemed like sunshine and rainbows but today, I’d like to share with you the story of how purchasing my dream truck turned out to be possibly the worst buying experience that I’ve ever had and how I was scammed by this dealership.
Let’s start from the beginning. I had just purchased a 2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback from this dealership and felt that I was in the position to buy another vehicle. I wanted to buy my favorite truck and that is the Toyota Tacoma. So, I returned the following day and went through with buying it. The overall purchasing experience was not bad. Everything went through, I purchased the truck and thought that it was all good.
After purchase, things started to slowly fall apart and issues came to light. The first thing was the condition of the truck at delivery. It had this dirt and gunk all over the body. From what I was told, new vehicles arrive with a protective wrap that is removed at the dealership. When left over time, the wrap develops dirt along the edges and that’s what it was that I was seeing. So they took the truck back and “detailed” it again only for some spots to be overlooked and there to still be gunk on the truck. I was told to not worry about it because when I bring my car in for Cilajet, the technician would have to completely detail the truck and all of the gunk would be gone.
At this point, I have to step back and talk about Cilajet. In short, this is a paint sealant. The manufacturer, of course, makes a lot of claims about their product and how amazing it is. I never heard about Cilajet prior to buying the Corolla and the Tacoma. I’m one of those people who don’t believe in extended warranties. I buy the vehicle, gamble with what I get and usually that works out. But surprisingly, because this is my dream truck and I intend to keep it until it breaks down, I bought all the important extended warranties. I bought a warranty to protect the mechanical components. I bought a warranty to cover the tires, keys, dents and dings. I bought a warranty to cover all the electrical because a lot of the truck is electronically controlled. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to fix the truck myself if something were to happen so better to be safe than sorry. I essentially bought all the warranties to cover the internals of the vehicle. At this point, all there was left is the to cover the cosmetics. This is how I was sold on Cilajet. When I was in the financing office, I was told that if I got Cilajet, the entire truck would be protected from scratches. As in, if I got a scratch for ANY reason, even if someone comes up and keys the truck, Toyota would take it in and fix the issue. I made sure that this was the case before buying and made sure that multiple people heard what was being promised. I wanted my truck to be protected from scratches. I was assured that this is so, so I purchased the Cilajet. Well, shortly after contacting Cilajet itself, I found out that this isn’t true. Cilajet will cover nothing near that. It’s a paint sealant so it’ll cover defects that relate to that subject. You can do your own research but just know that they don’t cover scratches like what I was looking for and was told. So, that was the first major red flag. Funny enough, when I purchased all of these warranties, I was told that if I ended up not wanting them, I can come back any time and get a pro-rated refund. Well, can you guess what was non-refundable? Cilajet.
Another issue that I had with the Cilajet was that it wasn’t applied properly. I’m no expert on this but from what I’ve seen, it’s applied like a wax. You put it on the paint and buff it in. Remember earlier when I told you about how there was gunk from the protective wrap on my car and how it was supposed to be cleaned when I got the Cilajet applied? The gunk turned out to be an indicator of the poor application of Cilajet. I was looking at the car after Cilajet was applied and remnants fo the gunk was still there. This shows that the Cilajet wasn’t thoroughly applied. I had to schedule for reapplication but I think that they just redid the spot that I showed them, the spot where the gunk was because the first time around, application took 4 hours. This time along with other services, it took less than 2 hours. I have my doubts about what was actually done. Since I paid for it, I would love to have the Cilajet properly installed but again it has to be buffed into the finish. A car only has so much clear coat. I don’t want them to keep going at my finish especially when I don’t know what’s actually done since the technician can’t get it right. As far as the Cilajet, it is what it is. I took a major loss by paying the hundreds for it and I can’t do anything about it now. But the problems don’t stop there.
I was checking out the Tacoma and noticed something weird. My driver window wouldn’t fully go up. It was siting just below the weather stripping and there was a noticeable gap. When I touched the window’s glass, it was actually loose. It shifted around easily. I checked the other windows and this wasn’t happening anywhere else. This is concerning because I’m in Washington. This state is known for the rain and having a window that doesn’t close all the way isn’t exactly what you want. There was actually a big thunderstorm the night that I noticed the gap and I had to tape the window up. Imagine that, taping up the window of a car you just bought.
After noticing this, I began to really inspect the car. I removed the front bumper license plate bracket and noticed that it was hiding a deep gouge in the bumper. I went under the frame and more gouges and even surface rust. SURFACE RUST ON A BRAND NEW TRUCK?!?! ON THE FRAME!!!
Let me also point out that the truck only has about 100 miles on it. 50 of which was before I even bought it, from other test drivers. Even in the 50 miles that I’ve put on it, I’ve had to go back and forth from the dealership about 7 times to deal with all the issues so I’ve only done about 20 miles worth of personal driving. Can you imagine having these kind of issues when you’ve only had a car for 20 miles?
At this point, I was done. I took the truck to the dealership and showed them the problems. They scheduled me for the next day. The window was fixed and the minor Cilajet reapplication was done. I asked about the frame and the bumper. Well, it turns out that this truck was a dealer trade. This means that they got the truck from another dealership to sell. When Toyota of Tacoma got the truck, they didn’t do an exception on it like they were supposed to. I assume that they just looked at it, said yeah it’s a new truck, its good for sale. They sold it to the next person that wanted it and that just happened to be me. They admit that they didn’t do an inspection, but said that nothing can be proven about the damages. They can’t prove that the other dealership cause the damage, the can’t prove that it was damaged at their dealership and they can’t prove that I didn’t cause the damage after purchase. I can understand this train of thought, but had Toyota of Tacoma actually inspected the vehicle, we would know where the damages came from and under who’s ownership. At the end of the day, because they didn’t do a proper inspection, like they are supposed to, they didn’t know about the damages so they couldn’t tell me about it. I bought this truck without knowing it’s actual condition and because of the dealership’s mistake, I’m paying for it. I now have to get the rust removed and treated. I now have to deal with a damaged bumper. Now, instead of looking at the Tacoma and being happy that I got my dream truck, I see it as a reminder to never buy from Robert Larson Toyota of Tacoma again.
There’s something else that I wanted to mention that didn’t fit into the timeline of the story above, so here it goes.
When I purchased the Tacoma, I got in the transaction a genuine Toyota bed mat. They didn’t have the mat in stock so ordered one in. It arrived and had chunks missing. It was as if something scraped really hard against it and took pieces out. I requested an exchange and they ordered another in.
The second mat arrived in even worse condition. Between the rubber layers of the mat are metal cords. The second mat was so damaged that the cords were visible in many locations. This is a problem because the cords could damage whatever you put on the mat. I requested for another exchange and the parts representative told me that “I can exchange it but I don’t know if it’ll be any better”. When I heard this, I was just amazed by the response. I was amazed that the quality control of this product was so bad that the rep didn’t think that it could get better than a mat that had the metal cords exposed.
Nevertheless, I wanted to see for myself so they ordered in a third mat. At this point, I told myself that I’m just going to take it no matter what. Well, it’s definitely not perfect. The third mat arrived with a bunch of discoloration and stains. It was a mess, but I took it. The dealership was obviously not going to take care of me.
It should also be noted that with all of these mats, the dealership never bothers to contact me when the mats arrive. I had to call back everyday and ask if the mat was available.
In hindsight, these experiences should’ve been a red flag and an indicator of the quality of service to come.
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