4 years ago
Staff are polite, nice and helpful. Showroom looks...
Staff are polite, nice and helpful. Showroom looks great. Service accommodating for appointments and are flexible if you arrive early.
But I am very disappointed with service. I bought my car from Griffin and have been coming to them for years for routine maintenance and services, even after moving away from the area. I usually overlook little things that may go wrong but it's happened too many times now.
The "brake fluid low" light came on and they assured me they had topped it off and the fluid was not low. Car has not leaked anything at all (ever), light was still on and one of their techs got in my car to try to reset it to get it to turn off - it was quite obvious that they were unfamiliar with the car and had no idea what they were doing. I told them to forget about it because I had to leave. I checked when I got home.. brake fluid was low well beyond the sensor. I filled it up myself and the light went off. No problems since then, still no leaks. Brake pads get worn, fluid goes down, fluid needs a top off. Should be extremely simple.
After a routine maintenance, I was informed that my tires need to be replaced and they tried to get me to order a new set. Intending to do a bit more research, I checked the tread myself after getting home, they were still okay. Next maintenance (more than 6k miles later on the same tires), I asked them specifically to check tire tread. They told me there was plenty of tread left and whoever told me to replace my tires were being dishonest. Hmm.
The thing that finally put me over the edge: one of my lug nuts was missing after a tire rotation. If I cannot trust someone to torque my lug nuts, let alone at least TIGHTEN THEM so they do not come off, I cannot trust them to work on my car. Maybe they completely forgot or lost it, who knows, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they just missed tightening one. But something as simple as properly putting a tire on a car is rudimentary and this is unacceptable to me.
I have also had the unfortunate incident of being talked to by a tech at Griffin in a manner that conveyed they clearly thought I hadn't the faintest idea how anything on a car works. After finding out that I rotate and swap my own tires, the SIMPLEST thing, their outlook and tone with me changed. Nevermind that I have also swapped engines, built cars from scratch and also engineer powertrains as a profession... where I design systems to make sure that every single part is torqued every. single. time. on. every. engine. But I guess I don't look the part. Oh well, nothing to be done there.
I hoped to bring business and customer loyalty to Griffin but I'm sorely disappointed that I will now be back to doing my own car maintenance and will have to consider a different place of service if I ever want to have the convenience of someone else doing simple maintenance for me again.