Hyundai of The Shoals — Local services in Tuscumbia

Terrible experience. Do not ever take your car to this service department. Brought my Hyundai Santa Fe in on September 8th, 2023. The motor was bad and needed to be replaced. Fortunately it was under warranty, so my wife and I decided to leave it at Greenway Hyundai. We are from Anniston. Alabama and we would have preferred to bring it back to our Hyundai dealer in our hometown. In hindsight, I wish we would have done just that. This service department is absolutely the worst. To begin with, they had my car for three months! 1/4 of a year! They told us it would take 6-8 weeks at the beginning. Since we were down to just one vehicle between us, I had no other choice but to buy a used car so my wife would have a vehicle to drive. It’s a good thing I did. They ended up having my car for twelve weeks! They initially told my wife the motor was under warranty and that we would only need to pay for a new timing belt which would be around $300. We were fine with that. However, after 12 weeks of waiting, they called and said we would owe $600 for new belts. We assumed that the new belts would have been a new art of a new motor. After discussing this with the manager, Noah, he reduced the cost back to $395. I discussed this with Noah on Thursday and told him I would be up Saturday to pick it up. I then asked, “So, are you sure it is ready to go?” I don’t want to drive all the way to muscle shoals and it not be ready.” He assured me it had been test driven and would be ready. Upon arriving on a rainy Saturday morning, I went inside and paid. Another young man (Ashton) gave me my key fob and we proceeded to leave. Upon finding my car in the parking lot, it was apparent something was wrong. The key didn’t work. I went back inside thinking he gave me the wrong key fob. Ashton took the key fob and went outside to try his luck. It was at this point he informs me the battery must be dead in the key fob and he would be right back. He returned in a few minutes and said he replaced the battery and (with tax) it would be right at $10…. I replied, “You have got be kidding me!” “I need to talk to your manager.” He went inside to retrieve the manger but returned momentarily to say the manage was busy but they would just replace the key fob battery for free. So, I took it and went back to the car. But, despite having a new battery in the key fob, the car still wouldn’t open. The real reason? The car battery was dead. Finally the manager, Noah, came out and said they would have to replace the battery. I then asked Noah (who I talked to on Thursday) how was the battery dead when it was test driven on Thursday? He replied, “Sometimes a battery can die if it sits for a while.”

I thought to myself: “yes. A battery that has sat in an untested car for 90 days may just do that.”

Noah and Ashton proceeded to change the car battery. I’m pretty sure they knew I was not happy because no mention was made of the cost. So, I stood in the rain and watched them replace the battery. Once they finished, I did thank them for putting in a new battery and my wife and I left. As soon as we began to drive away I noticed the check engine light was on. I prayed nothing was wrong and that they just didn’t reset the button. As soon as I got the car back home to Anniston, I took it to my Hyundai service department and asked them to please inspect everything as I was really skeptical about the quality of work that greenway had done. Superior Hyundai of Anniston found that the service light was still on because greenway had failed to reconnect the oxygen sensor. There was also a factory recall that greenway could have taken care of, but they didn’t. So Anniston took care of that. All I can say is how disappointed I am with greenway. Very frustrating experience with a service crew that is either incompetent or apathetic. Apathy would infer that they are jerks. But they weren’t really unfriendly. So, I will have to say they just just be incompetent then. Whoever owns this dealership, should be...

This is the absolute worst dealership. Everyone is incompetent and nobody follows through with what they promised.

On May 26th, 2021- I started the process of purchasing a 2021 Tucson Sport with Brad. I let him know that I would be purchasing through the Hyundai Circle (Employee) discount. The pricing was already set so I only needed the title app to give to my bank for financing and to pay the $1,000 non refundable fee to take the car off the lot. On May 27th, I paid the $1,000 and was assured the title app would be emailed over. I text Brad my email for accuracy. I was also asked about my address. I told them, I would be registering the car in GA because my residency is still in GA.

On May 27th, I had not received it. I followed up only to find out he emailed it to the wrong email…even though I texted it to him for accuracy. He assured I would receive it shortly.

On May 28th, I still did not have the title app. I followed up several times. Brad had conveniently been off so I called the dealership and gave my information, only to find out on the second call that the admin lost my information and hadn’t given it to whomever should have been sending the information. My bank even called 3 times and they also gave her the run around. Finally around 2pm my bank was able to get the app to finance the vehicle.

If you’re in the business of selling cars, why is it so difficult to get the process going for a sale?

On May 29th, I drove from Birmingham to Greenway, 111 Miles to pick up the car. I let Brad know I would be there by 2 PM but would give him a heads up If it’s earlier. I ended up arriving a little after 1, but I let Brad know beforehand (about 15 minutes).

Upon arrival, the car was still very dirty and not ready for me to drive off the lot at all. I sat in the office with Brad, signed paperwork and then waited 30 minutes to meet with someone named Logan.

Logan went over all of the extended warranty options with me. (I’d like to point out here that at this point, I already had a check in hand from my bank). Once Logan went through the options, I let him know I would be waiving the extended warranties. “Oh, you’re trying to stay within a price point?” Then he proceeded to brush everything off and complete my paperwork. Once completed, I went back to the office with Brad and was given the keys.

IT WAS AT THAT POINT THAT I HAD TO ASK “Does anyone want the check to pay for the car?” Brad looked 😳 at me with confusion and so did Logan. They were going to let me walk out without paying for the car. Nobody even listened to me say multiple times say I had outside financing.

Now, fast forward to today June 22, I am in GA trying to register the vehicle only to find out I have the wrong paperwork AND they’ve sent the information to Birmingham to be registered after I MADE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR I would be registering the vehicle in Ga because I do not have residency in Alabama!

I have called 4 times already today. Mrs Wanda the receptionist said I had the right information only to correct her that I did not. She then got an attitude and said she would have someone call me back. I called back 45 minutes later and was hung up on twice. The 4th call back, she just yelled HOLD ON! before transferring me to Logan.

Logan was just as aloof as he was the day I purchased the car. He asked me if I had a co-signer and how I paid for the car as if he wasn’t there when I was. I reiterated my issue and I believe he realizes he messed up…he said “let me figure this out and I’ll call you back.” When I hung up, someone else called me back and said Logan wasn’t answering her calls to try and fix this and that she would try to see how they could fix this. That was over an hour ago.

So again, this dealership is very incompetent. Do not purchase anything from here. Logan downgrades you as if you’re the problem when he really doesn’t know how to do his own job. If this is rectified in a timely fashion, I will update but history proves it won’t be.

Their...

So I have previously given a great review, and over the last year have grown to find some... Idiosyncrasies... Great things still apply, but the bads have grown to outweigh the goods and we will not be going here again...

Bad things first...

Heads up on service: "shop fees" are not included in initial quote (so plan an additional 20-25% on top of estimate to cover them). I couldn't quite believe this, but the desk folks confirmed that this was what I needed to do in the future for their service (to do them justice: they removed this after I kept asking how this wasn't in initial quotes, etc, and then told me that I needed to plan for these (again, above and beyond quoted price) for future service)... Tax isn't included in quotes either, but I was given a heads up with this one when they presented the quote to me.

Heads up on "gas and go" additional maintenance plan: many of you (who are way smarter than me) probably already know this, but it doesn't cover all scheduled maintenance, simply oil changes (and tire rotations, I believe, though not balancing). Also, for my 2021 Hyundai, they wouldn't do the oil change when the vehicle service light went on. They turned it off and told me to come back in another 6 months... Pretty frustrated by this, TBH: we were led to believe that we were getting a plan that would make it so that we simply have to add gas to the car, and they'll take care of everything else (e.g., oil, scheduled maintenance, etc). This has proven to not be the case. For those of you who love reading the fine print, this is a place to definitely do it! For folks who are just looking to get the right plan and move on, I'd be a bit skeptical (and if you ask questions, ask to see the answers in the policy manual so that you can use it later). I'd also plan for a list every recommended maintenance scheduled for your vehicle for the life of the plan your considering, then go through that list and ask which (if any) are covered over that time. The answer will, of course, be "oil changes" (and this was a VERY expensive plan to only cover oil changes once per year (as again, they send you back home if you come when your vehicle says to)).

Heads up on "diagnostics": There have been several times where I've been told after a 2 minute check (literally) "we can't find anything, come back later". They'll reset the lights or sensors and - sure enough! - the problem will appear again soon (twice as I was driving home from the dealership). For one problem, I revisited three times for the same issue (a tire sensor) until the problem was examined closely and correctly diagnosed/permanently fixed (THANK YOU to the tech who took the time to actually do this! An older grizzled guy who said "alrighty, I'll figure out whats going on"). I'll just say: plan to potentially be here often if something goes wrong, especially if its not an obvious problem and you get a tech who doesn't feel like working. Also, plan to explain to your boss that yes, I know this same car issue is the reason I missed work last week, but it STILL hasn't been fixed (this became a running joke around my work).

Ok, now for the goods:

Comfortable waiting room with snacks, juice, coffee. I've been in here a LOT over the last year, so I'm glad its pretty comfortable. Fast enough WiFi to watch Netflix...

Other than needing to be in the shop so much, I've...