I'm Done with Effing Greedy, Lazy Tegeler Toyota

I want to share this cautionary tale to you. A few weeks ago, the check engine light in my truck came on. It was nearing 100,000 miles, so it was about time for something to go wrong in it, right?

So I took it to Auto Zone, where the guy hooked it up to their machine (for free) and gave me the problem codes that it spit out, which could mean one of three things:

1. a bad catalytic converter
2. a clogged fuel filter
3. a loose gas cap

Being that the truck is 5-years old and about to be out of warranty, I naturally assumed that it was the worst thing. So I took it to the local Toyota dealership here in Brenham, Tegeler Toyota. I dropped it off at lunch and asked the guy to give me a call once they had a chance to look at it and let me know what they found. No call. So when I got off work, Kristi took me up to the dealer and I went in to ask the guy what was wrong with the truck.

The guy came back and said that the catalytic converter needed to be replaced, which would be $1000. I bristled. I told the guy that I couldn't leave it (Kristi was headed to Houston the next day and I needed to pick up the kids), but I could bring it back later. Okay, he said, but it would cost me $60 for them to look at the truck.

What?!? I though. You're going to charge me $60 for hooking up the truck to the computer - something Auto Zone did for free???? But I payed the dirty rotten bastard behind the counter.

My truck was near empty, so I went and filled it up. The next morning, I noticed something strange. No check engine light. And its been two weeks since with no check engine light. It seems that it was a loose gas cap, after all. And that money grubbing, lazy son of a bitch at Tegeler Toyota in Brenham was going to happily charge me $1000 to replace my catalytic converter. I don't know if they're just slow and bored during the recession or if they need practice working on trucks while they're not busy fixing recall issues lately, but I don't appreciate this kind of bullshit.

So I'm done with Tegeler Toyota in Brenham. You don't try to screw over your customers, especially ones with blogs.