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Y'all gonna love this!

Carried the wife's '21 Highlander in for a oil change and tire rotation this AM. I marked the rear tires before I left home with small R & L ( R-right, L-left). When they finished and pulled it out I eased out and the R and L were still on the rear. As I was standing there one of the service advisors came by . I told him they hadn't ben rotated, he's I'll pull it back in and take care of it. So I go back inside , in a minute the shop foreman cam in and asked me to come outside. The two tire rotation guys were standing there. Now I hadn't lost my cool yet , was on my best behavior . The shop foreman said my guys say they rotated your tires, I said they haven't . One of the tire rotators spoke up and said "we rotated them, I did the right side , he did the left." I said your a liar! The shop foreman said " did you just call my techs liars?" I said yes I did , I marked the tires with a small mark before I got here. I took off walking toward the shop and the foreman was mouthing all the way. I was getting pretty hot by then. We got to the Highlander , I showed them the marks and he asked you sure you marked the back! Now I'm getting red hot! I said just rotate the tires , put the lettered tires on the front. I headed toward the big roll up door and said I need to leave before y'all have to call the police on me. I was 30-40 feet away and the foreman was behind me and mouthed something , don't know what he said but he flipped my switch. I started toward him screaming , he heads back in the shop. I head to the waiting area, after I walked around a bit to cool off. I was setting there a few minutes the service manager came in and asked what kinda car it was , everything in the shop is on video and he'll check. I told him I want to see the film if you see they had the tires off , cause they put them back on like they came off. In a few minutes the shop foreman , the Service Manager and another boss man were huddled around the computer screen. I go in there and the shop foreman says they didn't rotate your tires, No kiddin' . He starts saying how sorry he is , and is gonna go back and chew on them and all , how they made him look bad . The service manager told him next time let's look at the video first , said sorry gets up and leaves. I've been doing the tire marking thing for years , this is the first time this has happened. Boy's mark yer tires!

If the techs were slick they'd have said , hey we didn't rotate that one , we had another Highlander back there and flat missed yours, we'll get right on it! But NO , they dug that hole deeper. I bet the shop foreman , will be watching a lot of videos going forward.

Not a surprise. We had a sienna van few years ago. Wife took it in for service with maybe 20,000 miles at the most. Told her radiator was empty shot and we needed a new one. I told her to tell them fill the damn thing up and mark the level I would check when she got home. 4 years later we sold it with the original radiator still going strong. Just because it was a woman they thought they could pull that chit. No telling how many times they do that crap. I never went back to that Toyota. It was Toyota in Cleveland Tn

Yup, I change my own engine air and cabin air filters , change oil and brakes too on our trucks and 4 Runners for the whole family . Those women were bringing vehicles in this AM and the service people were bringing in what looked like perfectly good air filters and the women were "sure whatever it needs. "

High country sucks. No way I’d let them work on anything, but I’m a mechanic and do all my own stuff anyway. They left the drain plug loose on my buddy’s truck. Lost oil pressure going down the highway and locked the motor up. Long story short, they finally admitted it and tried to say they would put a junk yard motor in it. His truck was low mileage lol. He threatened legal action and they wound up buying a new long block for it.

My wife was bad about not wanting to wait on me to change her oil. She took her car three times to the oil change place on county park road for some dang reason. The maintenance light would come on and she would swing it by there. Well the oil pressure light came on one morning at start up. I checked the oil and it was fine. Drained it, took the skid plates (both) off to change the cartridge oil filter. The filter was twisted and sucked flat. Same WIX filter that I put in four oil changes ago. You should’ve heard that conversation between myself and the owners of that place.


They all suck and lie. Same with boat dealerships.

I hate stealerships. The other big one here in town, you know em, tried to tell me I needed a $750 differential service and a $550 brake fluid service when I had one of my trucks there for an oil change and tire rotation. The truck had 45k miles on it and the young girl at the service desk insisted that I needed those other services. I told her she NEEDED to get one of the H boys out there so he could buy my truck back if all that stuff was worn out after 45k miles. She wanted me to sign a paper saying “customer refused recommended service”. I didn’t sign it and I haven’t been back.

I also always mark my tires when I get them rotated. Caught the local Tire Engineers pulling that crap a couple years ago. Before I left I checked and they had only rotated one side. I told the service manager and he told me I was wrong, they did rotate all 4 tires. I told him bulldoodoo, and do you know why I’m calling bulldoodoo? See that little white mark there? It should be up front, not in the back where it was when I brought it in. He apologized and pulled it back in and rotated them.

Heard some bad stories on them too. They put conventional oil in my daughter's Honda , it requires full synthetic. Hondas will let ya know if it's the wrong oil, screws the VVT up. BTW, I'll service that diff and change the brake fluid for 1/2 their price.

Well played sir. I’ve used the dealership for all my oil changes and tire rotations since I bought the truck new. Last oil change at 38k I did it myself because I was headed out of town and didn’t have time for it to be at the dealer half a day. Had a Napa filter on it(not the worst thing in the world but I would expect an OEM filter on a new GMC). Put a Wix filter and 8qts of Mobil 1 full syn in for 60% of the price. Milwaukee impact, a jack and some stands and rotated the tires in about 10 minutes. Sent in an oil sample to blackstone with a note if they had any correlation on metal levels and lifter failures, as these trucks like to eat them. Haven’t gotten the results back but spent about the same money and will have a little more peace of mind.

The whole service industry is a joke making it hard to trust anyone, the takeaway is just what you did do something to test their integrity.

I don’t blame you for getting sideways, I’ve done it myself.


I do the service work on all my stuff unless it has the “free” service deal when it’s new.
During that time, I make sure I take the vehicle and not my wife.
I also mark the tires & oil filter and check all the air filters before I take it to be serviced.
I’ve had to show the marks on the tires a couple times.
The mark on the oil filter paid off once at Lexus of Birmingham and I had to show out.
They probably have my picture on the wall in there after that one. 😁


When did they come up with the bullshitt about changing the brake fluid?

Hell if I know. That was the first I’d ever heard of it. Almost 100k miles later, it’s still running on the original fluid. I guess it’s a miracle my brakes still work?? 🤷‍♂️

The first time I heard it was in 2020. That was the first new vehicle I had bought since 2010.
Brake fluid wasn’t a wear item in 2010. 😁🤷‍♂️

Some vehicles have it in their service schedule , but not till bout 100K miles.

Brake fluid is hydroscopic. It needs to be changed, but as long as the system is sealed it should be good for a long time.

I understand that, but brake fluid replacement was part of the “recommended” service on a Lexus GX 460 with 30K miles.
That was the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing.

Good for you...

Those a’holes screwed up a brake job on my Tundra few years ago. They recommended turn rotors and new pads. When I left noted vibration when I hit breaks getting off freeway. Fast forward 6-7 months and that vibration had become a full on shake. Was in Stevenson hunting and took it to a guy I trust and he says the rotors were warped that they probably did so when they turned them. He gave me hell about it, told him I’d never kept a truck long enough to need new brakes, I just thought the vibration was them getting broke in.

They almost had to buy me a new motor 1 time because they put the wrong oil filter on. If it hadn't been for a friend that worked there at that time that knew how to get in contact with me I would have been stranded in monsoon rains that day. I had a free oil change when I purchased a used car there so it seemed an easy thing to do considering the weather. Never again.

Bought my current truck from High Country. I had heard good things previously and they had what I wanted in stock, so I drove right past Sand Mountain Toyota to get there. (I've heard otherwise since and have my own story now.) I got there around 10:30 am and a little before noon all of the test driving, haggling, etc. was done and it was paperwork time. They kept screwing it up or claiming that their new software had thrown it out. It was literally a few moments before sundown when I drove out of there. I started to leave once about 4:00 pm and they insisted that it was the final redo. I have 800+ credit, a large down payment, and wasn't trading anything in, so it should have been easy peasy. Actually the issues had nothing to do with financing. It was all warranty, title, etc. Twice during the following weeks, they had to send a driver to my home south of Boaz to get papers re-signed. I won't go back to HCT.

I took 4 polaris tires in with a new set of tires to be put on and since these tires were over 12 years old I wanted to make sure they put new valves stems on. Well, I decided to put a mark on each valve stem and only had some white touch-up paint to use and it was easy to see.
Service guy said absolutely we will use new stems. Came back later to pick them up and I could see the white paint from across the shop.
He said they used new and I showed him the paint. He said sorry and hollered at the kid and 10 minutes later the new stems were in and a discount was applied to the bill.