Putnam Toyota Review By A K.

Meh. I've been waiting a very long time to check out and test drive the Scion FR-S. My family and I have had multiple Toyotas through the years. After doing some online research, I paid Putnam Toyota a visit a few weeks ago to see if they had an automatic FR-S onsite. I'm well aware of Scion's Pure Price model (no bargaining) and am pretty efficient when it comes to shopping. I walked into the dealership and spoke to Nader (sp?), who let me know that the one they had onsite was a 2013 manual. I then asked about when the 2014 would come out, and he said sometime in January. He wasn't very friendly and was kind of condescending...maybe because I look really young, and I'm a woman? Who knows. At any rate, I went onto the Scion website later that day and sent the dealership an email, asking them to get in touch with me when the 2014 version would come out. Lo and behold, Eric, an internet manager there, emailed me back right away and said that a 2014 FR-S with my exact specifications was in a port, and could be delivered to the dealership that very week. I made an appointment with Eric to test drive it the following weekend. Eric was friendly but got defensive with me when I questioned him about Toyota's recall and safety track record. When I asked him about the Prius' safety issues, he said that no Priuses were recalled at all and that the situation was a result of companies like Ford targeting Toyota. Whenever I asked him a question, he was either defensive or condescending. Finally, towards the end of the test drive, I asked him if there was anything else I should know about the car and he kind of brushed me off, saying that it's pretty basic. The next day, I got a voicemail from Nader, who said that they had a 2014 FR-S at the dealership. Hello? Don't you salespeople talk to each other? The reason why that 2014 FR-S was there in the first place is because I took the time to email your company about it. I was prepared to make the purchase despite my poor customer service experience, but I'm glad I changed my mind. Instead, I'm going to take my business to another Toyota dealership in the Bay area. --- I updated my rating from 2 stars to 3 stars. Andrey, a General Sales Manager there, reached out to me a few weeks later via email to see if I was still interested in purchasing the FR-S. I let him know that I had changed my mind. Even so, he responded immediately and encouraged me to come back in the future. In all of my email communications with Andrey, he was friendly, polite, and excited. I wish that the customer service there was a bit more consistent!