Genesis Dealer’s Catastrophic Oil Change, Botched Fix Pushes Infuriated Owner To Lexus

Automakers offer warranty coverage to help customers feel confident about their purchase. Some offer far more generous coverage than others but in reality, coverage only comes into play when something goes wrong. For one Genesis G80 owner, his dealership experience has all but eliminated his faith in the Korean brand. It involves a ruined engine, a sub-par fix, and then a low-ball offer on trading in his now-damaged car.

What happened?

“Everyone makes mistakes,” was the first thing that came to mind for a customer named Mike (who prefers to be identified by his first name only) when Huffines Genesis of Plano, Texas, admitted to overfilling his G80’s engine with oil, which caused it to fail. He told Carscoops that the dealer did its best to reassure him about the situation. Genesis assured him the damage would be covered under warranty and his car would perform as well as before, albeit with a brand-new engine under the hood.

Read: Toyota Dealer Saddles 2024 Land Cruiser With $15K Extras Including $3K Windshield Warranty

In theory, that sounds great, but it took the dealer some two months to get the engine swap done. One might believe that with all of that time, it would be perfect. According to Mike, sadly, that wasn’t the case. Despite warranty repairs costing in excess of $18,000, the problems were far from over.

Now, the car rattled, vibrated, and lost its serene and peaceful nature. “Substantial shaking is translated into the seats and steering wheel, and the mirrors all visibly shake,” the owner wrote to the dealer. “I do not have videos of the rear-end noise, but can reproduce it on demand and would be happy to do so on a test drive with a service advisor.” Now, it wasn’t just the engine that had issues but the rear differential as well.

Image Credit: Mike M

Huffines Genesis told Mike that it would be two months before it could address those concerns. Understandably, more than four months into this dealer-created ordeal, Mike wanted to move on. In his first letter to Genesis Corporate, he says that a dealer manager told him “pick any car on the lot and we’ll put this behind us.”

Dealer Gives Him A Lowball Offer

When he did, the dealer then offered him $28,000 for his vehicle. That didn’t sit right with Mike, who quickly found other dealers willing to offer more. He says that one employee at Huffines even told him to sell it privately if he wanted more because it was a small dealer and couldn’t compete with larger ones. That’s odd since it ultimately did just that and provided Mike with a $36,000 trade-in value that he accepted.

More: $70,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom Had A $79,000 Bill From One Service

In exchange, he picked up another G80, this time a 2023 model, for $47,000. In essence, he’s paid around $10,000 to get a slightly newer version of the car that shouldn’t have ended up damaged to begin with. Somehow, this isn’t even the end of the story either. After the transaction was over, Mike sent the car to get a paint protection film.

The technician doing the work noticed something alarming: this G80 had undergone previous bodywork. Additionally, it had a mismatched tire, overspray on one body panel, masking tape still stuck to a quarter panel, and the seam sealer under the rear edge of the hood was coming apart. According to Mike, this discovery marked the beginning of the end regarding his relationship with Genesis.

Moving On To Lexus

As of May 20, he’s returned the car and was in the process of picking up a Lexus GX550. “Everyone makes mistakes. That said, this is a LOT of mistakes, and Genesis corporate, especially, does not care at all. I literally had Genesis corporate tell me yesterday that since the demo was technically a used car, they couldn’t really do anything now,” he told us.

Genesis provided the following statement about the situation.

“At Genesis, the customer is at the center of every decision we make, and we aim to deliver a seamless and elevated experience at every touchpoint. In this customer’s case, our local retail partner provided a number of options with the aim of driving a satisfactory resolution to his concerns. A full buyback of the first vehicle purchased was provided upon the customer’s request, and a second pre-owned vehicle was offered as a replacement… We are disappointed that we were unable to satisfy this customer’s needs and will continue to work with our retail partners on improving our customer experience. “