Bob Russo

Review of Gale Toyota

I just purchased a certified preowned Toyota Plug-...

I just purchased a certified preowned Toyota Plug-in Prius from Ted Laraway. Everything went OK with the sale but post sale has been poor at best.

This is a plug-in Prius, it certainly would have been nice if the car was charged when I picked it up.

Since this was a preowned car, the Entune was registered to someone else and Toyota wouldn't register it to me. This was on a weekend so I sent Ted an e-mail using the address on his business card and it bounced. So sent the Gale Toyota Facebook account a message - never got a reply.

I called on Monday and spoke to Ted who had no idea what I needed to do. I told him his e-mail bounced and he kind of giggled and said he needs to set that up. Don't put your e-mail on your business card if it doesn't work.

I spent a lot of my personal time going back and forth with Toyota sending my sales receipt to them to finally register it to me.

It turned out someone from the dealership was driving the car; he should have known to delete the registration from his account. This is another example of poor customer service.

I didn't notice this until later as I was removing the Gale Toyota license place frames; but it appears that Ted had a problem getting the plates off my old car as they were damaged. The corner where the screw is was ripped. Thanks for that Ted.

The first rain I drove in I had to replace the windshield wipers. They were clearly very worn out and didn't work.

This is not what I expect from a Toyota Certified Preowned car purchase.

But wait it gets better. When I purchased the car it came with a year of service free. I was clear to explain that I didn't live local and was assured that I could bring it to any dealer. They gave me the special form to give to the dealer. The first time I took my car to get service, they wouldn't accept it. They sold me the wrong service plan.

I had to call Gale Toyota and they had to call the dealer and agreed to pay the difference. This is just SOP for this place.

With the Certified Pre-Owned, I received a year of road side assistance. I also had purchased Entune and that comes with roadside assistance. I locked my keys in my car and needed a locksmith. I called Toyota and gave them the VIN number and they told me I didn't have roadside assistance. I explained that I had it 2x but she wouldn't help.

I had to call a local lock smith to unlock my car and when I called Toyota back to get reimbursed, they couldn't explain what happened to the account. I'm certain that it was how Gale Toyota screwed up the account from the beginning.