A while back (the last time I brought a car in for service) I had several issues. I had brought in my 2008 Escape. It had left with the vehicle report card full of green checks, one of which was indicating my battery was in perfect health. Days later I get in my car, turn it on and have no AC or radio. I drove home 25 miles in 90+ degree weather with out AC. Then I go to work the next day. I try to leave and my car won't start. Turns out I have a dead battery. That was incredibly interesting considering days before it had been noted to be in perfect health. I bought a battery and installed it myself. At that time I had submitted a customer satisfaction survey regarding my experience, which was not a good one.
I do give you some credit. My survey was followed up on. It happened to be a very bad time because it was right around when the Bastrop Fires were occurring. I had sworn never to use Riata again.
My family places a lot of value on keeping business local and supporting the businesses in the area we live. My family pointed out that Riata had tried to make it right, though the timing had been poor for us. So when it came to needing an oil change in my F-350 Truck and at the same time being the in the market for a vehicle I did decide to give Riata a second chance.
My experience has not improved. I dropped my truck off and asked for the parking break to be checked. I received a phone call saying they checked my break, but to find out what was wrong with it they'd need to send it to the back to take things apart. I asked how much that would cost. They told me $20-25. Okay.
About 1.5-2hrs later I came back to test drive a Ford Focus Hatchback (which had been at the top of my personal list of cars I am interested in). We worked with Ted. He had little to share when talking about the car. When we came back, we had an uncomfortable wait in his cubicle. The numbers he threw out there for the Ford Focus Hatchback SEL were higher than the numbers my Dad had gotten from the Ford dealer in their hometown for a Titanium series. On top of that, Ted told us the sales tax is 8.25% - not true, State of Texas says it is 6.25%. It is important to trust the person you're giving your money to. I can not say we felt that way at Riata today.
(Back to the service department). I went back to the desk because it had been quite some time since we had dropped the truck off. I asked if there was any update on my truck, estimate of when it would be finished. The receptionist was very short and rude. We left to go check out cars elsewhere. About 5 minutes later I get a call from Riata about my truck (I would have waited there if they'd just told me when I was there). They said to fix the parking break we were looking about $900+. I decided to put that off to another time and just told them to go ahead and finish it out.
My husband and I went to pick the truck up a while later. The receptionist did not lift her head to greet us or to say, ""Just one moment."" We waited for her to look up. The bill was higher than I expected it to be. I asked to see the charges. The receptionist gave me one page. It only had information about the oil change. I asked to see ""the rest of it."" Then she gave me the page that said $55 for my parking break. I told her that on the phone I had been told it would be $20-25. She pointed us towards a man in a blue shirt. I told him and he changed the price from $55 to $25. We paid and left. The feeling that leaves me with is that the service department tried to take advantage of me as a woman and over charge me.
When I got home there was smoke and the smell of burning rubber coming from my back wheel wells. I can guarentee that before having Riata work on my truck, smoke was not coming out my wheel wells. My truck was running fine. I had driven it to work daily last week.
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