At the beginning of this rotation, the RX-8 made a visit to the dealer, Galpin Mazda in Santa Clarita, Calif. Erin Riches took care of this task, and wasn't too happy about the experience, as she suspected a Ferris Bueller's Day Off reenactment occurred while the car was in the hands of the service department. From her detailed notes comes this account: "I took the RX-8 in at 7:30 in the morning on a Friday (I had an appointment). I finally got to talk to a service advisor at 8 a.m. after waiting behind a pair of Lincolns, and asked for an oil change, tire rotation and the TSB fix for the oil level sensor (I brought the printout with me). I expected this routine service would take a couple of hours, so I didn't bother asking the advisor for a time estimate.
"Three hours after dropping the car off, I still hadn't received a call from the dealership, so I called them. It turned out that they were done with the oil change, tire rotation and a recall that came up for the airbag. But, said the service advisor, it's going to be another three hours until they finish installing the new sensor! I politely told him that in the future, it might be a good idea to give working people who drop off their cars a little heads up on how long a particular service is going to take — especially when they've come in for simple maintenance and an apparently minor TSB." Erin surmised that "it's possible that their slowness had something to do with the fact that this had been just a Lincoln-Mercury dealership until a couple months ago when Mazda sales and service was added. The service advisors seemed a little befuddled by the RX-8 and the Mazda 3 that pulled up behind me."
After another three hours, Erin still hadn't received a call from the dealer so she called them to inquire about the car's whereabouts. She was told that it was ready and when she got there to pick it up, was handed a bill of $46.89, which was pretty close to the original estimate. Everything seemed OK until Erin reviewed the paperwork after arriving home. "I saw that the RX-8 had been driven 23 miles during the service appointment. Scrutinizing the receipt, I saw that the service advisor translated my comment about the 'low oil' light occasionally coming on when the oil wasn't actually low into: 'Customer states that after oil changes, the oil light comes on.' This is totally inaccurate, of course, since the car had never had its oil changed until now, but this 'misinterpretation' allowed the dealer to justify road testing the car before and after the new parts were installed. Driving 23 miles in this area would put you well out of the city limits, so I'm guessing that somebody decided to take the car to lunch and for a joyride. You don't expect this to happen when you take a $30K car in for service, and this is reason enough for me to want to avoid using this dealership in the future."