Bad Customer Treatment by Kobus Benadie and Ruan Pretorius at Halfway Toyota Honeydew

I have had the worst experience with this dealership and what pains me is that it is the only one that is closest to my home and work. In April 2023 my Toyota RAV 4 VX 2020 model started heating up on my way to the baby clinic, luckily I was close to the dealership which prompted me to drive in and get it checked to see if there was anything wrong. I was told that I had to immediately leave the car with them so that the technician can check and give feedback. The Service Advisor introduced himself as Ruan Pretorius.

They called me in the following day and expressed great concern with car, there was indeed a technical fault, as a woman I did not understand half of what the technician was saying and l called my husband to engage with them in my presence. It was then decided that this was an insurance case, the insurance accessor came, evaluated and sent the report to the insurance and the claim was declined stating that the fault must be fixed by the dealership. Meanwhile my car was still parked at Halfway Toyota Honeydew.

Eventually in August I advised Ruan to quote me privately because it was continuous back and forth emails between him and the accessor while I did not have a car. I accepted his quote and waited for another 2months to get the car. He said the parts were not available in South Africa and then there was another issue with the car that he needed to check. Everything regarding the collection date of my car suddenly sounded suspicious until I told him I would bring an independent mechanic to come and see what is still outstanding with the car. I did that and the very next day the car was available for collection.

Please note that when I collected the car Ruan said he had already done the 30 000 service on it only to discover at 45 000 that he had actually forgot to do so and they advised me that they would do a double service on the car.

After taking the car, we then realised that the boot cover was torn and sagging into the spare wheel "well" which led us to discover that the spare wheel was actually swoped. The car came with a full wheel and they put in a biscuit wheel. The bag of the spanners was also swoped, it was not the original, this one was greasy, had paint and was dirty.

I called Ruan immediately and told him this, and he said he would look into it, my husband also went in to talk to him and he told him the same thing. As he kept delaying, I sent Ruan an email and requested footage to see where the car was parked and how my things were ****** from my car and replaced by the wrong ones. He kept ducking and diving about the camera until we went to December holidays.

In January - February 2024, he kept telling me stories and eventually offered to buy and replace the tyre. When this did not happen, in March 2024 I called the dealership and asked for the GM of the dealership's email address, I was given Kobus Benadie's email address who said he was not aware of everything I had stated and asked for time to investigate. Meaning that Ruan never engaged anyone at the dealership regarding this matter yet when he spoke to me he kept referring to his manager, even on written emails he was referring that the matter was being managed by his manager.

Two weeks later I demanded a meeting with Kobus and when I got there he pretty much rediculed my claim by trying to prove that there is no way my car had a normal tyre becuase it could not fit. He made an example by putting my back wheel which has a meg rim which would obviously not fit whereas the spare tyre only had an original rim. I even called my husband onsite when this behaviour continued and I could see that he was not offering me any solution but trying to disregard my claim. He eventually promised to find a spare wheel with an original rim so that we can prove my claim. While I was still at the dealership with Kobus he never once called Ruan to explain in front of me what really happened. It showed that he was protecting him and they had already decided on this matter.

To date he has not done that and I have never received any feedback from this dealership since.

Today I took my car for 75 000 service and Ruan was avoiding eye contact with me and made sure to keep himself busy until someone came to assist me.

It's appalling to see that such employee behaviour goes unpunished aat this dealership and disappointed at the fact that I do not have proof to open a case of vandalism of my property in their care becuase I was never given access to footage.