Trans Ocean Volkswagen

Reason for Visit: Service

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
This has got to be the WORST VW dealership I've experienced. I was confronted (yes, confronted...not greeted.) by this guy NORMAN...what a condescending character. I was there for the first time for an oil change, and he started selling me services that I didn't need. After I told him that I already had my scheduled services done elsewhere and didn't want anything else to be performed other than the oil change, his attitude got worse. Then he told it'll cost me $92 for the oil change. WHAT? $92 for an oil change? I've taken my car to many VW dealerships in the Los Angeles County for oil changes and they all cost between $38-$45. Not until I asked him several times why it cost that much that he told me that they use synthetic oil, which was not necessary for my car. I asked him what was the price for the regular oil. He pulled out a seemingly price list and viewed it with secrecy. He told me it'll cost $68 for the regular oil. As a customer, why would I believe anyone that hides their prices from me and expect me to pay any random price that he pulls out of his *SS?

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Reason for Visit: Service

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
I would not recommend this company to even my worst enemy and I have not even been to their dealership, live in Ohio, and from my telephone experience with them, think they must be crooks. We have a mentally challenged 34-year son for whom I am legal guardian since he is over 21. This company left a telephone message for him asking him to call back at 1-800-560-5800. Since I am legally required to handle his business affairs I called and asked who I was speaking to. They refused to tell me. I asked what company this was to be sure I had reached the number left on our answering machine. They said Volkswagon of Pasadenia which was the name of the company left. I asked why my son was being harrassed (three messages left) and I was given the biggest run-around ever. I was told by a George Ruiz that I should be in a mental institution. I was told by a Janice who claimed to be the Office Manager that no one called. I was told by a Roger Clemmons that it must have been a wrong number. I asked him "How could someone call our number in Ohio, ask for my son John specifically giving our last name (which to our knowledge there are only 16 in the entire US as it is so unusual) and not be correct. He only laughed. I was hung up on over 15 times by various individuals in trying to get to the bottom of this harrassment. Our son's identity had been stolen and someone has used his name to get credit and we get bills that our not ours. I wanted to be sure this was not another one. Volkswagon of Pasadena aka TransOcean Volkswagon obviously is one of most diabolical companies in the Volkswagon organization and really should be investigated as they would not deny that they hire illegal aliens.

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Reason for Visit: Service

I recommend this dealer: Yes

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
After reading all these bad reviews, I will have to be more vigilant in verifying my future service records. Overall, my experiences with Trans Ocean has been good, though I've had a couple of unresolved issues with my Jetta: right front passenger window still opens and shuts uncontrollably even after it was serviced free for some defect; my ABS light still flashes on and off, even after the guys "fixed" it. However, I mostly go in for my free oil changes and scheduled maintenance, and everyone is cordial. My favorite employees there are "George," as well as the old guy who shuttles me to work. I can say that a couple of employees do give off a sense of attitude. Besides that, they have always been on time, if not early on their delivery promise. I need that as a busy working mom.

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Reason for Visit: Service

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
I always trusted them with the maintenance of my passat since I bought it in 2002, because they seem to be nice people when you talk to them. But I just learned that you can't always trust people who are apparently nice. I took my car there for 40,000 mile maintenance; they included a lot of items that needs to be replaced and cleaned, which ended costing me about $900. This doesn't include the problem they found out: my CV boots need to be replaced because there are holes on them which will cost about extra $550. I asked the person if this should be covered under warranty(I'm still under warranty mileage and period), she told me no, it's tear and wear like breaks, NOT Covered. I said I would need to think about it. I asked different mechanics who quoted me much lower price, around $200-300. Before having any jobs done, I called VW Pasadena again just to confirm that if I have this job done by a non-dealer mechanic, it would not affect my warranty. I talked to a different person at the service department, and I asked again if it should be covered under warranty, this time the person said it should be if it's natural wear instead of caused by an accident. So I asked to talk to their service manager. Their service manager first tried to cover it by saying that it could be caused by running over a box on the road, etc, so that's why their advisor said it's not covered under warranty the first time. I told him that I never had an accident or have the car towed. He finally agreed that probably it's natural cause and should be covered under warranty. So I took my car there and they fixed it for free. The next day when I was filing my maintenance records, I found that during my 40,000 mile maintenance, they recommended and preformed throttle body cleaning which they did the same during my 35,000 maintenance. So I called a couple of dealers and asked how often this should be done. The answer I got is that it should be cleaned every 20,000 to 50,000 miles depending on the driving habit and gas type used. So I took the paperwork back to them again, the service manager couldn't give any explanation, beside their service advisor overlooked it. He had to agree to refund me the money they charged me for it last time.

I escalated this issue to their service director, and asked him if the part is not dirty, why their technician recommended cleaning it. He said, they recommended it based on the mileage, which normally should be cleaned around every 30, 000 miles, that's why they recommended it when I had 35,000 and 40,000 miles, and their service advisor didn't check the record which shows that it has been done at 35,000 maintenance. Basically they only said sorry that their staff overlooked it.

Then my question would be, 1. The technician only recommended it because it's about time, not really because the throttle body was dirty and needed to be cleaned. 2. Did the technician really cleaned the throttle body as they claimed on record, because it should be pretty clean since it was cleaned only 3 months ago.

I found these out after double and triple checking, I can’t imagine how many times I was ripped off during the years I always trusted them.

I would never recommend anyone to use their service, because they simply not honest people.

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Reason for Visit: Service

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
I recently went in for an oil change and was shocked to find out they had doubled the price since the last time I was there. No joke: $90 for an oil change. Can you say "bend over"?
Then again, why should I be surprised? The service dept at Transocean has done nothing but give outrageous, bloated estimates for the last 3 years.
The day I purchased my used Passat from Transocean they installed an aftermarket battery in the vehicle (I have the invoice to prove it). Volkswagon's manual clearly states this may cuase problems. And it it did. 2 years later my ABS light started blinking. Brought it in to get it checked and it turned out there was wire misfire between the battery and the ABS computer, rendering it useless. Price of repare: $2000. And this was a "dealer-only" repair. How convenient.
Transocean took no responsiblity for the misfire despite the fact that it was directly related to the faulty battery that they installed. After haggling back and forth and talking to the manager I was able to get a VW battery installed at no cost. The $2000 repair was recently reduced to $1300. Still outrageous.
I have contacted VW of America with my complaint. It remains unresolved to date.

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Reason for Visit: Service

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
I bought my car here through the Costco "hassle-free" type program and worked directly with the sales manager on the sale. I had a very good experience with him. (As a side note, the interaction I first had was with a floor salesman was not so good. He was a bit pushy and “slick.” He quoted me a price for a CD player extra that was several hundred dollars too high, which I discovered when the sales manager --not knowing about this previous interaction-- gave me a different price.)

However, I would never go back here now because I refuse to deal with the service department again. I last went in for for a recall repair to the electrical switch for the hazar lights and an oil change. (I happen to have a coupon for free oil changes that was provided to me by the sales manager because my family had bought cars here three separate times. No more though, my mother got her most recent Volkswagen in Glendale and has been happier with that relationship.) Norman, the service mgr, looked at a supposed notation on my service record from 10 months prior regarding the timing belt. He came out and listened to my engine and said that he could hear that the swing-arm tensioner for the timing belt was binding, and that could cause wear and early failure of the timing belt. He said that he WOULD NOT take my car in for the oil change unless I agreed to a $500 repair to the timing-belt tensioner! …because he did not want to be responsible if it broke while at their shop.

My timing belt had less than 20k miles on it (I had it changed by another, more honest mechanic.) There are still no unusual sounds coming from my engine. I have had this checked out by another mechanic who found no issues. I have continued to drive my car around without incident.

I would not buy another Volkswagen here because I do not want to have to deal with the service department ever again. I am going to forego my free oil changes and pay for them somewhere else because I really do not trust those guys at all now.

As I indicated, this is not the first incident I have had with them. Another memorable time my “check engine” light came on and I brought it in to them according to the manual. It turned out that the cap to the gas tank was not screwed on tight enough. They charged me $80 to tighten my gas cap!

If necessary I would suggest you deal with George in service, and stay the hell away from Norman. But regardless, to me it seems apparent that this place is not being run with an emphasis on integrity in their customer service.

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Reason for Visit: Sales

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME GOING TO TRANS OCEAN VW IN PASADENA.<br>They are TERRIBLE!<br><br>We dealt with FOUR different people. I cannot recall the main sales guy who helped us intially. He is the only nice one. We could tell he even thought everyone were crooks. He was going to help us get a cd changer from another store at cost...really cool.<br><br>Anyways, we went in wanting to buy a certified pre-owned car. Found one we loved.<br>Short version is: we went on a Friday night and after having to deal with Kevin (big guy, with fuzz-like mustache). We left furious with how weazley and rude he was.<br><br>Returned Saturday after speaking with Long on the phone, him saying we could get the same deal as we had discussed the night before.<br>We get there, drove 50 miles, btw...Long pushed us on another salesperson! This new one, Andy Tran, was the worst! Talked over us, kept repeating himself, avoiding answering questions. <br>They wouldnt stick to their word about the discussion from the previous night. Kevin completely LIED about what he had said.<br><br>GRRRRRR! I would rather pay thousands more and go somewhere else!<br>I wouldnt trust them with servicing either from all of the posts Ive read.<br>Read up on them at www.vwvortex.com. Search the forum archives and read up!<br>

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Reason for Visit: Sales

I recommend this dealer: Yes

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
KC and Dave made everything fairly painless. I did have to ask them to drop $100 of the invoice because I did not want to pay for detailing and gas. Dave dropped it without much discussion. <br><br>So far, Dave has been extremely helpful in assuring that the only problem so far, a loose antenna mount, was resolved promptly and without any pain and suffering. <br><br>The repair department people strike me as extremely professional and courteous. The car is running great so far (only problem - my wife keeps taking it leaving me with the Mountaineer!!!).

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Reason for Visit: Sales

I recommend this dealer: No

My Review of Trans Ocean Volkswagen:
This dealer is widely known to be one of the worst VW dealers in SoCal, and my experiences there bore that out. I went there specifically to buy a car from the only competent people there, the internet/fleet dept. After spending an hour dealing with someone who insisted that the person I was there to see didnt work there, and at times insisting that there was no fleet dept., I was finally able to see them after demanding repeatedly. All in all, I would not want to shop there if I wasn't using the fleet department, and if you value your time at all you won't either.

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