Steet Toyota

Reason for Visit: Service

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Steet Toyota:
I bought out my Aunt’s lease on a 2004 Toyota Camry on 9/14/2006. She has been a customer of Steet Toyota for 25+ years and purchased/leased in excess of 9 automobiles; using said dealership exclusively for all maintenance and repairs.

My husband and I who reside in South Elgin, IL, only having the weekend to facilitate this transaction, flew to NY to take possession of the Camry. Upon our inspection of the vehicle, we immediately observed a grossly inferior paint job that was performed by the SteetBody Shop the month prior (8-2-06) when the vehicle was involved in a collision with a deer and required hood and fender repair. The entire paint job had numerous obvious “fish eyes”. The Steet Body Shop manager, Shane Laufer said he agreed that the job should have never left his shop and to leave the vehicle and he would redo the bodywork. That offer was impossible since we had just the next day to make the 12-hour drive back to Chicago to report to work Monday morning. Mr. Laufer then gave us he business card writing on the back that the bodywork had to be redone and signed the card. He told us to take the vehicle to a Toyota dealership in Chicago for the bodywork and the 2 dealerships would work out the cost. My husband and I left happy and confident that the repairs would be done in our Chicago dealership without any problem. We couldn’t have been more mistaken.

When we took the vehicle to our local dealership, Elgin Toyota, they too agreed that the bodywork was deplorable and would have to be completely stripped and redone. They also noticed that the color was mismatched, blend was improper and the bumper was not installed correctly. They prepared an estimate and communicated that to Steet Toyota. Joe Steet then refused to take any responsibility for the problem with the vehicle that left his shop with such inferior workmanship. My husband tried speaking with Mr. Steet directly, only to be verbally assaulted by him. My husband was sworn at and told by Mr. Steet that he never wanted to hear from us again and that he made no money on the transfer of the Camry from my Aunt to us and thus felt no obligation to work with us.
We then went to Toyota Corporate and opened an official case against Mr. Steet and his We then went to my aunt and asked her to intercede for us with Mr. Steet since she had such a long-standing relationship with him and his dealership. He told her he would made everything right with us but those were empty words which produced no actiondealership. But after many phone calls and hours of explanations to corporate representatives we were again disappointed. Toyota Corporate has no power over individual dealerships and although they had conversations with Mr. Steet on our behalf, , they had no enforceable power against him and our case was to no avail.

Therefore after exhausting all possibilities at a resolution to our plight, we are turning to you, if for nothing other than informing the Toyota consumers in the Yorkville area. When they are shopping at Steet Toyota let them keep foremost in their minds “Buyer Beware”. Unless Mr. Steet has a profit to be made by the transaction the consumer is embarking upon with him they should not expect any service after the sale, they should expect to be lied to and sworn at and treated with utter disrespect and disregard.

That doesn’t sound like a shopping experience anyone would look forward to or expect to have. We certainly didn’t. But perhaps our experience might save some unsuspecting consumer from making the same unfortunate mistake we did; dealing with Steet Toyota!

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Reason for Visit: Sales

I recommend this dealer: Yes

My Review of Steet Toyota:
After having an unsatisfactory experience at a local dealer (Romano Toyota) when looking for our Sienna, we were referred by a friend to Steet Toyota, although it was one hour away. I send an internet request to Steet, which was recieved by David Smith, of internet sales. He was courteous and did not pressure us, using none of the previous disturbing sales tactics that have preceeded in the many years we have purchased vehicles. David and I were able to agree on a reasonable price, and then preceeded to the dreaded trade-in conversation. Driving the one hour to Steet to have my vehicle inspected, I was surpised to be presented with the first trade-in offer that did not insult me in the past 25 years. We firmed up a deal in 10 minutes. Granted, I had done considerable research prior to our contact, and knew exactly what we were looking for, but working with David was like buying from Saturn -- all dealerships should be so accomodating. The icing on the cake was when David told me that he would deliver the car to our front door -- which he did! Finished the paperwork in our family room. <br>Greg, the sales manager was also nonthreatening and courteous, telling us that even if we didn't make a deal, he promised we &quot;would not leave with a bad taste in our mouth.&quot; Ted, the business manager, needed a few reminders to fax info our our insurance agent and credit union, but once reminded, he responded promptly. <br>Overall, we would definitley access Steet Toyota again for future purchases. And it goes without saying that Toyota is an excellent product. We hope that Steet Toyota is as good to David as he was to us.

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