I've been a customer for over 6 years, and this latest experience will make me never go back. About 3 weeks ago, I had a random grinding noise come up on my car. Took it to get checked out, they found a lose heat panel, ok great! Took the car home, and the grinding noise came back two days later. I got under the car to see what it could be, and saw a lose panel, put some tape on it to hold, and brought it in the next day. They looked at my car, called me and said they don't even see the lose paneling, well that's because I TAPED it!!! I had to tell them exactly where the tape was. I also got the 150,000 mile service done which included oil, tire rotation, fluid check, and brake inspection, but again, the grinding noise was mistaken for a lose panel. My grinding noise continued to happen over the weekend. Brought in my car on the following Tuesday, was told it was my front brakes and rotors needed to be replaced and left my car over night. Thankfully they were able to get me a rental for the night. Picked up my car the next day, and was told the grinding noise was taken care of, this was Wednesday evening. Wednesday NIGHT, on the drive home, grinding noise once again!! Beyond frustrated at this point!! I brought my car back on Thursday because I thought maybe it was me hearing things, nope even my best friend kept hearing the noise, and this time it was worse. When I brought the car in, I took the service associate for a ride, he heard the grinding noise before we even pulled out of the parking lot. I was told that it would get looked at and they were going to keep it over night again. When I came by on Friday, I was told that the grinding noise was gone but they couldn't find anything. I didn't like what I was told and had them keep it another night to look further. The grinding noise only happened when I braked, there's only so many components to a braking system so figure it out. Brakes, rotors, or calibers, and since the front ones had been fixed, maybe check the back! On Saturday, they told me they had checked the brakes and they looked fine and they "cleaned" them. The service associate, assistant manager, and technician had apparently driven my car and no one heard the grinding noise. On Saturday night, I heard the grinding going home, heard it Sunday morning going to church, it continued to get worse on Monday, and I refused to take it back to Toyota. At this point they had my car a total of 6 days, and couldn't find the problem. I ended up taking my car to a service center in Ashburn, rode with the mechanic, and he immediately heard the noise, and said "it's coming from the back" I left my car with this service center on Tuesday night, by Wednesday morning, I was told my back brakes and rotors were shot and because of the damage, the calibers needed to be cleaned. That quickly the grinding noise was gone! I had the service center keep my old rotors and pads so I could visually see, and the one pad was actually so bad that it had been angled in on my rotor going metal to metal. The rotors were completely scraped! Somehow Toyota missed this!!! The mechanics said that if Toyota had truly inspected my brakes, they would've seen the pad immediately!!! This is a HUGE safety concern!!!!!!! Because of this, they've officially lost my business.
Sarah Kyle
Oct 4, 2018