BEWARE - Mazda of Toronto Service Dept

Been a lurker around here for years, and as my retired, senior mother is now living in the T dot when she asked for a recommendation on where to have her car serviced I immediately suggested she go to Mazda of Toronto.

There is an issue with my mothers 2.3 motor that MOT has confirmed would require replacement - she is still within her powertrain warranty. Only problem was that she did not do all her oil changes at Mazda, and the Service Advisor Bob told her she would need all the oil change receipts from 56K to current. Not ideal, but oil shops all keep records. I spend a week tracking down all her oil change receipts as she's misplaced the bulk of them.

She hands in the receipts and Bob tells her that they'll submit them to Mazda Canada and they should hear back within five business days or so.

She's called the dealership three or four times over the last two weeks and is told that they are still waiting to hear back from Mazda, and they will call her as soon as they do. Today she gives them a call and is told that MOT never gave any paperwork to Mazda Canada. Rick, the service manager as I understand it, doesn't like the look of some of her oil change receipts.

To be fair, my mother gets her oil changed at a tiny little shop up by her Cottage and I'm pretty sure they're still rocking Windows 95 and the receipts look like they came fresh off of Wordpad. I get it, they look a little unprofessional. So, you would think if they were concerned they would call the shop and check with them about whether or not the car was serviced there? No, according to Rick (whom I had a call with this morning), that is not 'his job'.

He tells my mother that he REFUSES to submit the paperwork to Mazda Canada as he does not believe that they are legitimate. At this point, my almost seventy year old mother is pretty confused. She calls Mazda Canada and asks them what to do as she is concerned that her car will end up past the warranty point while everyone drags their feet (currently at around ~95K/100K for warranty). Mazda says as long as MOT opened an work order for her, that would cement her claims status and it wouldn't be a problem.

Again, she is on the phone and this time Bob tells her that he has been specifically instructed NOT TO OPEN A WORK ORDER.

What the hell kind of place is this?? How in hell is this even remotely acceptable?

Be warned, Mazda of Toronto service is AWFUL. I don't even understand how they can run a shop like this!

Can any recommend a reputable dealer in the Mimico area for my mother? I can't even believe this is happening, it makes absolutely no logical sense to me.

Ryan

Try Westowne, a little closer to home....granted I've never had warranty work done by them. Avoid Gyro as well.

Budd's is a bit of a drive but I love the service I get there with John Boot aka @Booter22. I only go to Erin Mills Mazda for parts because I know the parts guy now, never would go there for any work since the horror stories I have read.

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Originally Posted by Mr Wilson

Try Westowne, a little closer to home....granted I've never had warranty work done by them. Avoid Gyro as well.

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I have owned two mazdas now and they have only seen Westowne for service. Just this past week Westowne reminded me that my headlights were foggy and I should come in and have them swapped out and it would be covered by warranty. Yes, they called to remind me of warranty work!!

4 years ago when I was driving my mazda 6, they noted rust forming on the window frames. I did not even finish asking the question before they took me back in the shop and looked up the month my car was built. When they noticed it fell within the 5 year corrosion warranty, parts were ordered and replaced next day.

Call Westowne and ask for Rob. Tell them what happened at MOT and I am sure they will help your mother out.

Your comments seem very consistent with others experiences at MOT. I fear that if Jeff The Biz left MOT they would likely go out of business based on customer experiences. ;)

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Originally Posted by pwdunmore

Budd's is a bit of a drive but I love the service I get there with John Boot aka @Booter22. I only go to Erin Mills Mazda for parts because I know the parts guy now, never would go there for any work since the horror stories I have read.

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Thank you Sir!

we also have service loaners, so if she needs wheels while the repairs / replacements are being done we can make the arrangements! @ralexander feel free to contact me via pm if you would like to further discuss

Service wise, I have had good experiences with Maple Mazda, and more recently with Whitby Mazda. Whitby Mazda has been great for me, and @JD@WhitbyMazda has been easy to deal with.

yes Rick has a hat that most ppl like to call an A$$
worst person ever to deal with

Rick is easily the worst person I've ever dealt with from a service perspective. I bought my Mazda 3 from MoT in July of 2007 and instantly had problems with Rick and the service department at that dealership. I won't get into specifics (look at my post history for the full story somewhere), but I am amazed that that man still has a job. It shows that the owner of that dealership just doesn't care. As long as the dealership is making money (and it always will, as it's a high traffic area), the customers can go to hell. Once the car is sold, they just don't care. Mazda Canada doesn't care either. It's one of the reasons I will probably not buy a Mazda again.

I've had decent experiences with Maple Mazda and Avante. For a while (Back in 2007-2008) I was taking my car to the one in Newmarket and had good experiences there as well. ddddd

I appreciate the feedback from everyone. I had an additional conversation with Rick and he suggested my mother make an appointment to bring the car in and check the engine for oil sludge. Seems a reasonable request, but why wasn't it made two weeks ago? Frankly at this point I'm not interested in ever stepping foot inside of MOT again

I will follow up on recommendations and hopefully find someone who is there to help their customers and not fight them/lie to them at every turn.

Ryan

my previous Genwon ms3 had the smoking turbo issue, Maple Mazda replaced the turbo under warranty with hand-written oil change receipts written by my illiterate mechanic back in the days. So, I believe this is BULLSH*T.

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Originally Posted by S.F.W.

Service wise, I have had good experiences with Maple Mazda, and more recently with Whitby Mazda. Whitby Mazda has been great for me, and @JD@WhitbyMazda has been easy to deal with.

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Thanks Ami! Speaking from personal experiences, its not really the dealerships call as to whether the receipts are legit or not. I've seen some sketchy ones myself, but its Mazda Canada's call to honour them or not. Ultimately, it would be Mazda Canada paying for the repair after all.

I concur to all of this

I guess the snowballing of poor post-sales service has begun. Westowne was pretty decent with my old 3.

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Originally Posted by Mr Wilson

Try Westowne, a little closer to home....granted I've never had warranty work done by them. Avoid Gyro as well.

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Personally, I'd avoid Westowne. They tried to pull a fast one on me once. I walked & never been back....... f**king thieves.

I also had a bad experience getting my scheduled maintenance done at MOT not too long ago... left extremely dis-satisfied... After I paid the bill, no one would even acknowledge me to answer questions about my service. One of which was my undercoating... How does one go about taking their undercoating/rust package to another dealer? I've been told that I can't because they all use different companies, and my contract is dealer specific.

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Originally Posted by boyracer

Personally, I'd avoid Westowne. They tried to pull a fast one on me once. I walked & never been back....... f**king thieves.

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They didn't earn the nickname 'stealerships' for nothing =/

I wonder if my logs + oil filter boxes + reciepts + oil reciepts + dates and mileage would pass. After all, the manual itself says you can change the oil yourself lol... hmmm

I've been to MOT a few times after going to Scarboro Mazda previously.

Louis is nice, and good and friendly. No problems with her at all.

Bob likes to push for an upsell to the point where it gets potentially deceiving. I asked for a standard 88k oil service and I was offered a "full service" or the minimum. It turns out the "Full service" is basically everything they can throw at me with coolant flushes and all the unnecessary stuff. Frankly, to imply that the Mazda service schedule is some how less than "full" is deceiving. I had to clearly specify I only want what is listed on the service schedule and nothing more. I'm sure I would have been offered a blinker fluid flush and a turboencabulator rebuild if I were female.