Holmes Tuttle Ford — Local services in Tucson

My 5/6/21 Email I sent to Holmes Tuttle Ford Sales Rep (Martin "Marty" H.) summarizes my experience with this dealership: "Marty - This has been a very negative experience dealing with you . . . Over the last couple of decades, I have bought several new cars; the last three new cars I purchased were done online/via email and all were completely transparent where the dealership and salesperson immediately provided an itemized list of every single cost via email so I could make an informed decision, and proceed to have a fair and informed discussion with the salesperson and dealership management. These were positive car buying experiences. My dealings with you were the exact opposite; you have still refused to provide me an itemized list of costs/pricing, gave me varying prices, and essentially told me to take your final inflated price without ever providing me an itemized list of the charges because you feel that your cars are in such high demand that apparently you don't feel the need to be fair and transparent with customers by actually providing an itemized list of costs (after I had already requested an itemized list of all costs/pricing numerous times). You and your dealership quoted me three different prices within the span of about 24 hours ($29,895, $30,445, $30,988) and then your final email told me the final/"non-negotiable" price would be $34,693.91 (without ever providing me any itemized accounting of all the costs from how you got from your three different prices ranging from $29,895 to $30,988 to the final "non-negotiable" price of $34,693.91 - that seems to be the textbook definition of deceptive, un-transparent, unfair actions toward a customer). My dealings with you (as a representative of Holmes Tuttle Ford) has by far been the worst, most negative experience I have ever had with a car dealership. I politely asked three separate times for an itemized list of costs/pricing; you never provided them and then gave me a final "non-negotiable" ultimatum on the inflated mystery out the door cost of the car. I am so disappointed in my experience with you and Holmes Tuttle Ford in Tucson, AZ."

Not surprisingly, the sales rep (Marty) never responded.

Thereafter, I received a stock "customer service" email from a Chris M. at Holmes Tuttle Ford asking about my experience with the dealership and how he could help. On 5/18/21, I sent this email to Chris M.: "Hi Chris. My intention was to buy my new mustang from Holmes Tuttle from the beginning of my car search. However, since I was treated so poorly by the Holmes Tuttle Salesperson, I bought my new mustang from another dealer that actually provided me an itemized list of all the costs based on my first email request (unlike the Holmes Tuttle rep who: never provided an itemized list of costs after numerous polite requests on my part, never apologized or offered any justification for refusing to provide a customer with an itemized list of all costs, and disavowed the itemized costs quoted by Holmes Tuttle via the TrueCar/Consumer Reports website which is how I bought my new mustang). I will forward the email interaction with the sales rep that reflects that he refused to give me an itemized list of costs and never offered any explanation for his poor behavior. I understand that there is a shortage of raw supplies (such as computer chips, etc.) and the market for both new and used car is very hot and demand/prices are high, but that's no excuse by this sales rep to arrogantly burn bridges with customers as demand will not always be this high and there are always other choices to buy vehicles (i.e., I chose another dealer solely due to the poor treatment by the sales rep at Holmes Tuttle). Is it Holmes Tuttle's policy to train their sales reps to refuse to provide an itemized list of costs via email inquiries generated through online buying sites such as TrueCar/Consumer Reports?"

Again, Holmes Tuttle never bothered to respond...

This is going to be a long one. I was recently talking with my dad and he was telling me how he went to get something done on his truck and ended up with a lot more problems then solutions, now this was not at a ford dealership but it reminded me of the struggle and pain I went through as a new car owner. It was July 2017, and I owned a 2007 Ford Mustang which completely checked out, no issues, no problems, and I loved it. In July I received a recall notice for the driver side airbag and me being the naive new driver reacted as such, " oh i should get this fixed right away". I take my car down and they have my car for about an hour and they told me it would have taken three but I just assumed they wanted to get out quick due to it being a Friday Night. I go back to the dealership Holmes Tuttle and get in my car with the paperwork and everything set. I start it and plug my phone into the aux like I always did and the stock radio would not recognize that my phone was plugged in so I went back inside to have another appointment to have my radio checked. I come back that Monday and drop my car off again and I sit and wait this time in their waiting area and an hour goes by and I get my car back. I get in to check the radio and still not working and now my A/C is not working either. But clearly they were using it because the vents were all open and the knobs were all moved from how I left them. I also notice a scratch in the passenger door which they did admit to doing. I go a whole week with this scratched door, no A/C and no aux radio. I then head back to drop my car off and they tell me it will take a week to repaint the door and I am not old enough to borrow a rental car so I was clearly upset. I spoke to I believe he was a manager by the name of Daniel Mendez and although he may or may not remember me; I remember him. He talked down to me and acted as if I did not know what I was talking about. Although they admitted to the door, they did not admit to the A/C or radio claiming that it was just an odd occurrence, a coincidence that it happened while the vehicle was in their possession. A week has passed now and I was about to receive my car hoping that maybe they fixed my A/C and radio as well as my door but I was incorrect. Frustrated by the matter of this I once again spoke to Mr. Mendez and he took my car and checked everything in it with his diagnostic team. I am stuck at Holmes Tuttle once again from I believe 9AM to 4PM. After all this time he comes up to me and says well the A/C is fried and the part to replace the piece would be including labor just under $1000 and as for the radio we are not sure what has happened but fixing the stock radio would cost $500 so it would be a better idea to go aftermarket. At this point I'm done with my Holmes Tuttle experience and leave and vow never to come back after a total of 6 visits. I went to Audio Express and paid $343 for an aftermarket radio and the A/C was still not working. I go a full year without A/C because I did not have the money nor patience to let Holmes Tuttle touch my car again. Finally, a full year has passed of going to other places to find the fix and none of them working along with the summer heat, I cracked. Driving every day in 105 degree heat with no A/C causes a lot of issues and health related concerns so in August of 2018 I drove my car back to Holmes Tuttle. Defeated as I was I went to the service center and asked to check my A/C because it was not working and they found the same problem that Mendez had told me a year ago and I paid the estimated $1000 to get this fixed. I hope if anyone reads this they can sympathize with me on the journey I went on with this dealership. Don't ever expect to see me at your location...

I've used Homes Tuttle for most of my service work over the past few years and have typically found them to be very quick and responsive to my needs. Unfortunately, I reached out to them today, 2/15/21, to see if they could fix a front end alignment issue and properly balance the tires on a new 2021 F250 that I had just purchased and was told the earliest I could get it in was 3 weeks (March 8th). Or I could just leave it for 3-4 days and they would work it in. Though the service advisor was polite, he was unable to offer any other more timely solutions to fix the truck. I personally find these timeframes to be unacceptable, especially when the alignment issue causes excessive wear on the tires. It is for this reason that I've lowered my previous 5 Star rating down to 2 Stars.

This my third update to this post. I took my truck back in for warranty work approximately three weeks ago. The service department has improved on each of my visits. I was greeted promptly and was able to get my truck checked in and leave within 10 minutes. My service advisor, Mike, even offered me a loaner vehicle. Mike kept me informed throughout the process about the repairs to my truck and got them completed in a timely manner. Overall great job by the service department. I will definitely use them again and will recommend them to my friends.

An update to my earlier post. After making my original post, I was contacted by Mr. Jason Davis from the service department. He apologized for the calls not being promptly answered and asked if I'd be willing to give them a chance to work on my truck. Since they were willing to reach out to me, I was willing to give them a chance. I dropped it off the evening prior to my appointment and it was ready for pickup by late the following afternoon, which was a quick turnaround in my opinion and the work quality was good.

I met Mr Davis and my service manager while I was there and they were both nice people and professional. My feedback for the dealership would be this. Everyone I dealt with was professional and appeared to be very busy. However, I didn't find the service area in general to be very personable or outgoing. When I pulled up in the service lane, I wasn't greeted by anyone and I wasn't really sure where I needed to go to get the truck checked in. I finally went inside and found a person with a name tag on and asked them how to get the truck checked in. He went and found a service adviser who helped me out and got me taken care of. The following day, the service adviser call and gave me a rundown on what was done and when the truck would be ready. His call was appreciated and very helpful. Due to my schedule, I wasn't able to pick it up until the following morning after it was ready. When I arrived the following morning, it was almost a repeat of my check in situation. I wasn't greeted by anyone and I had to go inside and ask questions of people with name tags until I was pointed to a person was able to help me out. Overall, the service department was able to get my truck in and out in a timely manner, but it wasn't very personable and I felt more like a number than a customer.

Since they did reach out to me and do timely repairs, I've changed my rating from a 1 star to 4 stars.

I've called the service department five times over the past two days to schedule service on a recall and a minor issue on my 2017 F-150. Nobody answers the phone on either their 800 line or the direct line. I'm not sure what's going on, but I guess I'll have to drive across town to get my service work done. ...