Victory Toyota — Attraction in Seaside

BEWARE: Unethical business practices. I purchased a car for cash over Memorial Day weekend. We tried to negotiate a bit, and they only came down slightly — supposedly because I was paying all cash. They also tried to make it seem like features already on the car (like the roof rack) were being “thrown in.” I didn’t push back too hard; I had just lost my Hybrid RAV4 in an accident that wasn’t my fault, and these cars are hard to find. It wasn’t my favorite color and the deal wasn’t great, but I needed a car. We worked with Rob, a friendly salesman — no issues there. When we arrived (driving from Sacramento), there were signs everywhere advertising a reward with purchase: options like a $500 gift card, paddle board, or Target grill. I asked Rob if we qualified; he said yes, then handed us off to Sean Welch for the final paperwork. While signing, I brought up the deal again. Sean confirmed, gave me a form to choose my reward, and I selected the $500 gift card. I even asked about pickup since I’m not local; Sean said I could have my parents (who live nearby) pick it up. I signed for it and left happy with the car. Fast forward five weeks: no word on the gift card. I called, only to be scoffed at and told a manager would call me. No one did. I emailed Sean — no response. Called again, spoke with a manager who claimed they weren’t authorized to give me the deal because I “already got a deal on the car.” When I said I signed for it, he promised to follow up. Again, no call. Weeks passed. I emailed Sean again — silence. Eight weeks later, I tried once more; a sales rep kindly said a manager would call. A manager eventually called, promised to pass along my info, but no one ever followed up. Then my parents stopped by in person. They had been present for the entire signing with Sean. At first, he claimed not to remember anything, but once they brought up our conversations (about local schools, my family’s law enforcement background, his traffic ticket), he suddenly “remembered everything” — except me signing for the gift card. Convenient. Bottom line: this dealership is shady. If they had simply told me up front, “Because of your purchase price, we can’t include the gift card,” I’d have been disappointed but dropped it. Instead, they dodged calls, ignored emails, and pretended not to remember what happened. I paid $39k+ in cash, and they’re playing games over a $500 gift card. I won’t be buying another car here, nor will my family. They’ve lost our trust completely. I’ll also be filing a complaint with the BBB. Whether this is about poor ethics, anti-law enforcement bias, or simply dishonesty, it’s...

Please read I had an excellent experience leasing my Tacoma from Victory Toyota. It started with a phone call asking for the sales manager and ended with me owning my first truck!

Last Friday I reached out to the dealership asking for the sales manager. I spoke with Ray and explained that I never have owned a truck and that I wanted to see if I would like driving one. Ray invited me to visit the dealership and introduced me to Daniel. They had a Tacoma ready for me to drive. Daniel was really good at showing me just what I needed to know to enjoy the drive and even let me take it to my house to show my wife and to see if it fit in my driveway. We live about 1.5 miles away and have a small curved driveway.

Upon returning to the dealership Daniel explained the available options and also the packages. Daniel went through the benefits of the different available packages and also went over the current inventory. Ray then joined us and we went over some leasing options. Ray said he would find the truck that worked best for me even if he had to go to another dealer to find it. I went home and met them the next morning to work out a deal on a truck they had on the lot. After we shook hands on the deal, Daniel facilitated the application and Ricio, the finance manager, prepared all the paperwork and had me driving my truck home in short time. Ricio was great at answering my finance questions and explaining the process.

The gist of it is that I met 3 professional people that were incredibly respectful of me and my needs as a customer. I didn’t feel pressurized to make something happen that day. It was all about the relationship. Ray, Daniel, and Ricio were top notch! The relationship made the deal. The numbers didn’t hurt either ;) Daniel is an excellent salesperson with great knowledge of the product and an excellent skills in relationships.

My experience exceeded all expectations and I love my new Taco!!! Mike...

Was very disappointed with my experience at this Toyota dealership on 7/26. Service technician Kyle said my alternator was fine last week 7/19 and I just needed a battery replacement, turns out that was not the case. When I took my car in again less than a week later, they were able to finally find out what the issue was ( car needed alternator replacement) and gave me an estimate of 1.2k for the replacement piece and labor. Kyle then told me he could give me a 15% off discount bringing the final price to 1k. Service manager Todd was not helpful and told me himself he called the Toyota in salinas to ask how much they were charging to replace an alternator to see if it was the same price as them (it was not). After, Todd told me he could take $100 off, making the final price to replace my alternator $900 including the piece and labor. I still thought this was very high and called the toyota in salinas to see what their alternator replacement fee was. They gave me a much fair price for the same service at $794. I was utterly shocked at how Victory Toyota wanted to charge me 1.2K for this service, and decided to take my car to Toyota in salinas. I had a fantastic honest experience there and would recommend them over this dealership for any service!

Follow up:

After my first encounter at Victory Toyota, I spoke with Kyle Trudell about my experience and let him know I was not satisfied with the first service I had there. Kyle took the time to call me and make things right. I appreciated Kyle’s honesty and his friendly customer service demeanor is the only reason why I would return to this Toyota. The service department manager is lucky to have a gentleman with great customer service...