I sent the following email to Advantage Toyota: Mr. Ball and Mr. Urian, I am sending this directly to as it appears your website "contact us" link is not owrking correctly. Will you please read my note and forward to the appropriate party? Thank You, On March 16, I brought my 1999 Toyota Camry in for service. I explained to Twila that it was very hard to start periodically. I also told her the battery was only 9 months old. I left it there, rented a car from Enterprise, and went to work. When I called after 1PM, I was told the battery needed to be replaced along with battery cables for $220. I told them not to do any work as I would take the car to Wal-Mart (where I had purchased the battery and have them do a free replacement). I came back to your shop, paid $73.45 for the labor and rental car. I then drove to Wal-Mart. Once at Wal-Mart, they tested the battery, letting me know that it tested good. They looked at the test that was done at Advantage and said they did the test wrong there. They explained that Advantage used the wrong CCA in the test and said that If the incorrect numbers are put into the tester, the test will read incorrectly as it is basing the results on incorrect input data. I called Advantage and explained this to several people. No one accepted responsibility for the error or admitted that entering the wrong CCA into the tester would make a difference. The associate at Wal-Mart insisted that it would. I was now between a rock and a hard place. Wal-Mart saying the battery was good and Advantage saying it was bad. Wal-Mart agreed to replace the battery with a new one. They took complete care of my concerns but assured me that they did not believe the battery was the problem. While they were replacing the battery, I called Advantage to speak to a manager. I wanted to be sure to let someone know that a technician had made an error and should be shown how to do the test in the future. I spoke with the service manager, Bill Tracy. I explained to Mr. Tracy what had happened. He was VERY annoyed with me and continued to cut me off as I spoke. Telling me he is not a service technician so he could not diagnose my problem. I told him that I just wanted to be sure someone was aware of this incident. He continued to act annoyed and then said "Mr. Wolfe, what the heck can I do for you?" This was said in the MOST condescending tone. I was speechless. He said Mr. Wolfe, are you still there?" I said I cannot believe he would talk to a customer like that. He said he just wanted to know how he could help me, still speaking in a very condescending manner (VERY CONDESCENDING). I ask him if I could speak with his manager. He said that he had no boss, that he was the owner of the company. I then said I am sure that there is nothing he will be willing to do for me. We ended the call at that time On Saturday, I drove to Fairmont to visit family. The car was very hard to start while there. I went to Advanced Auto. They checked the battery and the alternator saying they were both good. Upon leaving Fairmont today, (Sunday, 3/21/2010), the car barely started and sounded absolutely terrible. Fortunately, it started. Upon arriving in Barboursville, I took the car directly to Firestone. They tested the ignition system, letting me know the starter was bad. They replaced the starter and the car is starting and running fine now. I have had all my Toyota's serviced by Toyota Dealerships (Autonation in Denver until 2001and Rice Toyota in Greensboro until 2009). I have always had GREAT service. It is not the least expensive but I have always been satisfied and the vehicles have run GREAT. It has not been until today that I have taken the car to a third party service org. I am writing this to let you know how disappointed I am with your service department and especially how poorly I was treated by management. Technicians will make mistakes sometimes as they are people and people do make errors. Even though this should have been diagnosed on the morning of 3/16, I am NOT upset about that. I am very concerned though, about how the situation was handled after the error was discovered. The manager should have apologized, said that he would be happy to have the car looked at again, and taken care of this situation. Instead, he brushed this under the rug and refused to correct an error made by your company. Is this what I should expect from Advantage Toyota? Is this what Toyota expects? With all the bad publicity regarding the acceleration problem with Toyota vehicles, I expect that everyone at Toyota would address every concern quickly and be sure that everyone knows a mistake was found and corrected. Obviously, your service manager needs to be trained on the proper way to address service concerns. Now to answer your service manager's question: "What the heck can you do for me?" Well, I believe you should refund the $73.45 I paid Advantage Toyota. You may have performed work on my car BUT you did it incorrectly, you did not offer to correct the problem, and your manager/owner was beyond rude. If you do nothing, it really won't matter. This situation is nothing important in the grand scheme of things. As a new member of this community (my wife and I are relocating here), I can assure you that word of mouth advertising will not be happening by my wife or I. Finally, I plan on forwarding this letter on to Toyota as well. I hope you will respond appropriately to this concern before Toyota contacts you to see what you have done to take care of a customer whose last 4 vehicles have been Toyota's (1992 Camry, 1995 Corolla, 1999 Camry, 2002 Siena). I am currently shopping for my 5th Toyota, which I hope will be an Avalon.

G. W.