How has the dealership tried to screw you?

I lied, the coupon was $25 off of $445 :)

From the ad:

Keep Dad Cool This Summer!

Set Tire Pressure-27 Point Inspection-A/C Cleaning and sterilizing to remove odors-Perform Toyota HVAC foam cleaning procedure- A/C Performance Inspection includes 1 LB of refrigerant-Check Temperature-Check Pressure-Clean Condenser. Regularly $445.

Interesting... so I'm going to say they're probably charging something like 2~3hrs of labor? A/C refresh I think we charge something like an hour or 1.5hrs (it is a little time intensive because you have to wait at least 10min or so after each foam injection, then run the air with a counter chemical to make the vehicle safe to occupy again), and a full HVAC Recovery & Recharge w/ leak check is 1.5hrs. I wonder if they're throwing in a cabin air filter also? It's a bit of a better value than I originally assumed; it sounds decent on paper, would have to see the actual end result though.

I'm sure the 1lbs is only R-134A though, I doubt they're marking down R-1234yf; shit is not only expensive, but the machine forces you to basically take at least about 20 min to just evac, with a recharge it is like 40min minimum (if you're lucky) to finish a cycle... super annoying.
 
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Interesting... so I'm going to say they're probably charging something like 2~3hrs of labor? A/C refresh I think we charge something like an hour or 1.5hrs (it is a little time intensive because you have to wait at least 10min or so after each foam injection, then run the air with a counter chemical to make the vehicle safe to occupy again), and a full HVAC Recovery & Recharge w/ leak check is 1.5hrs. I wonder if they're throwing in a cabin air filter also? It's a bit of a better value than I originally assumed; it sounds decent on paper, would have to see the actual end result though.

I'm sure the 1lbs is only R-134A though, I doubt they're marking down R-1234yf; shit is not only expensive, but the machine forces you to basically take at least about 20 min to just evac, with a recharge it is like 40min minimum (if you're lucky) to finish a cycle... super annoying.


Are dealers using a declined AC refresh as grounds to not honor compressor failures under vehicle warranty?

I’m sure OEM is fine but retail Denso is NOT good. Had 2 compressor failures in 4 years (non Toyota vehicle).

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Are dealers using a declined AC refresh as grounds to not honor compressor failures under vehicle warranty?

I’m sure OEM is fine but retail Denso is NOT good. Had 2 compressor failures in 4 years (non Toyota vehicle).

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It would be the first I have ever heard of it. The A/C Refresh is just for trying to clean out the HVAC box & Evaporator Core fins. I don't see how that could catastrophically kill a compressor, not to mention Toyota has never asked about the refresh service.
 
It would be the first I have ever heard of it. The A/C Refresh is just for trying to clean out the HVAC box & Evaporator Core fins. I don't see how that could catastrophically kill a compressor, not to mention Toyota has never asked about the refresh service.


I must be thinking of residential HVAC but I imagined a scenario where compressor failure would be attributed to increased system pressures from dirty coils.


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You misspelled 'insufferable'

but I'm sorry to hear about your throttle body spacer and intake from that one dealership a long time ago and those two bolts you almost got overcharged for. I hope things get better for you in the future.

So you're just here to stir shite...good to know.

BTW...what was the title of the thread again?
 
So you're just here to stir shite...good to know.

BTW...what was the title of the thread again?

I mean I kind of slightly disagree with the title of the thread, should probably be "a dealership" or "How have dealerships in the past tried to screw you?" The way it's written just basically implies that "The Dealership" is some unified entity and typifies the relatively broad stereotype that doesn't really benefit anyone and is often born of an inductive reasoning fallacy and a lack of understanding of how the industry (the dealership side in this specific case) actually work.

I most agree with this person's statement:

...Typical dealer, some good, some bad, lots of indifference.

Most dealership personnel would fall under the good and indifferent category than anything else in my experience. You have plenty of people who try to do what they can to help/benefit the customer, but they're all still bound by corporate policies from both the manufacturer and the owning entity that runs the dealership (which are often heavily pressured to trump what the manufacturer may say). I have considered making a post somewhere maybe trying to educate and provide information, but I imagine no one really cares (and that's fine).

Not saying that there aren't bad dealerships out there, but as I pointed out earlier in the thread; we're not really seeing the whole story or picture here, just the OP's narrow view and faulty correlations. This dealership could certainly be trying to nickel & dime him for repairs, I'm not denying that. But I also don't see any pictures of the leaks/repairs needed (granted, not ever dealership does that), nor do I see an effective breakdown or notes for each of the recommendations (again, I do recognize not all dealers do that either). I'm not familiar with every repair order/multi-point system out there, so I can't say one way or the other regarding his phone's screenshot (we have an email thing we do; maybe this dealer has some fancy app you can download?); but I can say that they should have been provided a copy of the repair order, the breakdown of the costs associated with the recommended work, and a copy of their multi-point inspection. As it stands we're supposed to take the OP's word and a screenshot that doesn't really give us a whole lot of context or evidence to back up with they are saying. I'm just trying to take the wider angle on this than simply dismiss either side's points; I've worked in this industry enough to know that it's got it's scummy bits.
 
I mean I kind of slightly disagree with the title of the thread, should probably be "a dealership" or "How have dealerships in the past tried to screw you?" The way it's written just basically implies that "The Dealership" is some unified entity and typifies the relatively broad stereotype that doesn't really benefit anyone and is often born of an inductive reasoning fallacy and a lack of understanding of how the industry (the dealership side in this specific case) actually work.

That's deep, however, my shared experience was neither in 1 trip nor was it at just one dealership. It's been a constant at the local dealers in my area over an extended length of time and across all departments so one could say the big bad Dealership, which has earned the stigma applied to it, is pretty universal.

Yes, it is very true that people tend to share their negative experiences more readily than they will share their positive ones which is somewhat of a shame. To date, I have had no such positive experiences that would warrant any sort of feedback as the "not bad" trips were just that, not bad. Nothing of note stood out, the employees did their job and everyone went home at the end of the day.

I have extrapolated that you are or at least were a Toyota tech and I have no doubt it gets tiresome listening to and reading people's constant complaints and bashing. You seem to be one of the few that knows what you are doing and actually cares enough to do it properly. I applaud you for that and only hope that you are able to pass on your knowledge and skills to those who come after you.
 
[MENTION=699679]Pavement Tested[/MENTION]

It's more that I have been hearing the same tired old spiel of "mechanics/dealers/shops/anyone who isn't me or my buddy are crooks" for decades and a lot of the reasoning and hypocrisy (because ultimately if every mechanic is just screwing you over, then how is your vehicle getting fixed?) is just silly most of the time. It's very funny to me to hear 20-some year olds regurgitate the same tired old lines and outdated thinking that my 70yr old customers do; in both cases, they're usually extremely off the mark; but it all gets recycled anyways.

I see plenty of customers who will balk at our recommendation for work, go get it done at some place like Les Schwab or their "licensed mechanic buddy" and then end up having it towed to the dealer because said shop/person did such a horrifyingly shoddy repair and/or they clearly cut so many corners you're left with a circle. But who ends up getting blamed for that? The dealer of course... because we're the ones who let said customer go somewhere else and get their work done? I've had customers blame us for stuff other shops did; i.e. "well my U-Joints were fine before I brought it here, I just had an oil change done at Valvoline and they said everything was fine! You're just trying to scam me!" meanwhile the U-Joint is so ****ed the driveshaft has to be replaced because it literally ate into where the end caps press in.

Like I pointed out to the OP and a fellow poster later in the thread; the correlations they were making were thin or misguided based on what was given to us. Others balked at the price of replacing all the shocks, in my opinion I think the dealer underquoted him and did not include all the parts he may need because he has an XREAS system on a possibly high mileage vehicle (which I went over why that quote would be so expensive), but none of us can be sure because we don't have the breakdown for the quotes. Usually replacing an XREAS system is something like 5~6hrs (3hrs for the fronts, 1hr for the rears, and an hour for the lines and center dampener; maybe some additional time if the vehicle is rusty) to replace all the lines, center dampener, front, and rear shocks; I will also throw in a recommendation for an alignment afterwards because it can be changed a bit even if you mark the LCA bolts and such; they're rarely exactly the same as they were and even a couple tenths of a degree of difference in Camber/Caster will impact toe far more noticeably. I think the last 5th gen XREAS replacement I quoted out was on a '15 Limited with 110k and all 4 shocks were just blown; came out to something like $5k? The majority of the cost was just parts, those components are just astronomically expensive, so the customer asked what it would cost to do like 5100's or just a stock set of shocks; we gave them the quote and I don't remember what they ended up going with.

I guess my point is that a lot of people are quick to cast stones or assume guilt without actually taking a second to step back and see the forest for the trees. I try to approach things from the perspective that there's always 3 sides to a story; two subjective interpretations, and one objective reality. I just like to make sure that things are fair, if the dealer ****ed up, they ****ed up; but sometimes it's the customer not being informed or communicated with properly.

I had a lady stop by our dealership some Saturdays ago because she was deathly worried about her leaking 4th gen V6 4Runner with about 200k on it. Apparently she had been quoted a giant bill for resealing the timing cover & other maintenance work and she didn't trust this specific dealership over the mountain because every time she's gone to them based they were very dismissive, flippant, and overall more interested in getting her to approve the work than explain why she needed it (based on listening to her account of things). She was out of town and worried that her 4Runner might suffer damage due to the leaking oil and had to drive back over the mountain soon; I happened to be on my day off doing some work on my own vehicles and walking by overhearing the conversation with a writer and fellow tech. I poked my head under her car to check for a rear main seal and took a quick look at her timing cover (very much a timing leak, all of Bank 1 was just caked in grime from a typical leak between the block, head, and cover) and looked at a couple other usual culprits. Talked to her for a bit to get a rough idea of service history (aside from the timing cover leak and an axle starting to leak she keeps up on the services) and explained to her what the timing cover reseal work entails, why it's expensive (labor intensive job vs. parts intensive), and then took her vehicle in the back to top it off and give it a quick look over to verify that she'll make it over the mountains. Gave her an extra quart of 5w-30, some paper rags in a bag, and let her know to properly check the oil level, as well as to keep tabs on it; start with every time she fills up for gas and if it looks like it's not going down that fast, maybe go every other fill-up and just top it off when it gets near the minimum line.

Now the point of this story isn't to stroke my own ego or to say that my dealership is better than anyone else or even that I am a good mechanic (I personally think I'm average at best); rather, my point with this little tale is to highlight the difference being informed makes. My coworker and I told her basically the same thing that the prior dealership did, she's got a leaking timing cover that's been leaking for a while and that we would recommend resealing it and that it would be thousands of dollars. The difference is that I spent 10min of my time (I let my coworker off the hook because he was in the middle of something when he got called over) talking to the customer and explaining to her what was involved in a timing cover reseal and what other costs could be involved due to the age/mileage of the vehicle. We also went over some maintenance that she can do as well as what work she should consider prioritizing for the best bang for her buck if she wanted to keep the vehicle. That 10min took her from being an uninformed, worried, and suspicious customer to her deciding that the next time she was up in our area she would schedule an appointment to have us look over her vehicle and determine what work it needed and have us repair her car, because she felt that she had more confidence in our customer service and repair work than the other dealership. Keep in mind all I did was top off her oil and answer her questions, she's still getting quoted a lot of money for the same job the other dealership recommended; but because she's now more informed she understands what that money is going to and why we're recommending such an expensive repair.

Anyways, sorry I got off on a tangent. To be clear, I don't really get offended by people ragging on dealerships or mechanics in general; it's a forum dedicated to a bunch of SUV owners not technicians, I knew what I got into when I joined., :tongue1: I just try to do what I can on the forums to scratch my itch for interesting issues and to help inform and educate you guys so you can keep your 4Runners running awesome; like I told the lady "my job is to do my best to keep my patients alive... that being your car. :lmao:"

As for dealerships stealing stuff? That's disgusting... we've had a couple porters and/or lube guys over the years get caught stealing dollars or items from customers vehicles. Let's just say they were asked to tender their resignation immediately and on one or two occasions my service director was even kind enough to give them a head start while he called the local law enforcement's office. I do not understand the mentality of someone who steals stuff out of a customer's car; like do you genuinely think that a customer is not going to notice their personal belongings missing after you worked on it? Seriously...
 
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Man, with how much money I paid the Jeep dealership over the years I had my Jeep, I wish they would have screwed me!
 
[MENTION=66389]BlackWorksInc[/MENTION]

I was being genuine when I made comment on you being a tech or mechanic. I don't know if the term "tech" is viewed as a lower level grade of mechanic or not. The posts you make are, more often then not, very helpful on the the subject asked than those made by others. I didn't mean for it to come off as sarcasm if it did.

You perfectly illustrated the need for a quality customer service based operation in any business model. The customer is not always right and they should not always be coddled and have their butts kissed. Most customers providing patronage to a business aren't experts and view the folks at said business as the experts. Far too many places do not take the time to explain details and often come off as "just wanting your money". The automotive repair industry is particularly known for this due to the lack of knowledge of the average car owner on how their vehicle works, what is prone to failure and typical preventative maintenance practices. I believe one of the culprits in this is the disconnect between the service writers and the mechanics. I've found that many service writers are not equipped with the knowledge or experience to properly convey to the vehicle owner what issues exist, why they exist and why it will cost what it does to repair it. The blanket then drops on the dealership and all departments become the devil. I have a tendency to ask very technical questions and the service writer is often not equipped to answer it. "Crosspollination" can go a long way in this area.

The dealership stereotypes exist for a reason and it's very difficult to avoid the stigma when virtually anyone who owns a vehicle has to go to the dealership at one time or another. Again, people will always be more willing to share their poor experiences than their good ones and that drives the perception of the "dealership experience" in general. If dealerships were all bad they wouldn't exist and the percentage of properly services or repaired vehicles going out the door far surpasses that of the "horror stories". I'll submit that I do not believe the dealership is "out to screw me" and actively makes attempts to do so when my vehicle, or anyone's vehicle, is there. All I know is that in my experience, trips to the dealers in my area, whatever the reason was, have been mostly poor ones with the remainders being unmemorable.
 
… you pay $40-50k for your 4Runner, only to have another man’s name on your hatch. Why doesn’t the dealer put my name on the wall or something? Especially for all that. I can pay $500 and get my name on a brick at a hospital, or $50 and get my name on a brick at a school.

I have nothing against my dealer. But it has always been my practice to remove the dealer plates and install a thin, unadorned black or chrome (depending on my vehicle) license plate frame. And nowadays remove the stickers the dealer adds to the bumper or hatch. After paying them for a car, I’m not about to supply them free advertising for the life of the car.
 
I went for my free "Toyota care" oil change, and found oil all over my brand new $300 Odyssey battery and dumped all over my nice clean engine bay. I reached out to the dealership and their solution after I told them I'd never be back to their service department was to offer me a "free oil change" on top of my other free one that I never used. Needless to say I never went back and changed my own oil after that. They also rotated my tires and gouged the powder coat on my brand new wheels with their impact driver.

My wife got her Subaru's oil changed at her stealership, and the tech left an oil soaked rag laying on top of her battery terminals just waiting for a spark to catch the whole car on fire. Needless to say we were not pleased finding that either
 
Let me swing this thread slightly in a different direction with my personally experience(s). 1. yes ive had shops (dealer, chain, and independent) try to get squeeze extra money from my pocket with trivial or questionable things. 2. being a shade tree mechanic and having built my own hotrod (91 mustang with an LS1) and generally doing all my own maintenance and repairs to every vehicle ive owned. ive come across some stuff that made me scratch my head and stand back and think; damn if this happened at a shop i would have been extremely concerned about the morals of the shop.

My biggest example is my ex wifes Golf VR6. FYI i hate VW's because of all the issues i fixed on this car. Anyhow it had a coolant leak issue that i figured out quickly (a cracked thermostat housing). However as soon as that was fixed and went for a test drive we started getting a vacuum leak code and a fuel pressure code. Long story short, the coolant repair didnt cause any of the other issues, it was just a coincidence. After several days of going through the car with a smoke machine, changing hoses, vacuum valves, fuel lines, and troubleshooting various things i fixed them. It was a long slow process because they werent bad sensors or mechanical parts that had specific codes. Like i said, even someone with my experience would be suspicious had all this happened at a shop as there were no fuel or vacuum codes prior. Sometimes sh!t happens. So if you have an odd experience at a shop or feel like your being taken for a ride; thats not always the case.

If you are that paranoid you should learn to work on your own car. I simply enjoy (usually) wrenching on cars and saving money by DYI'ing it. I feel a lot of people on this forum blame "the lazy tech kid" for issues that are human in nature. No one is perfect, mistakes happen and while it may be irritating and extremely inconvenient, you cant write off every shop or mechanic as a POS crook.
 
No one is perfect, mistakes happen and while it may be irritating and extremely inconvenient, you cant write off every shop or mechanic as a POS crook.

This is how I see it as well. There are a lot of shops out there that do great work. Unfortunately, dealers are always held to a higher standard because they are supposed to be the experts. You pay a premium for a car that is dealer serviced and manufacturers market them as the experts, so it's expected that they know everything and fix it perfectly every time.

It's on the consumer to say no to them trying to make money for their AC refresher coupons like I mentioned or suggested services. Unfortunately, most car owners know nothing about cars. Us complaining on a forum when we know a little something isn't their target customer anyway, but they don't know what you know when they walk in. They have a sales job to do and follow what their owners tell them to do.

My experience at my local Toyota dealer (Toyota of Morristown in NJ) has actually been pretty good. The sales process was actually nice and the one time I went in for service for the fuel pump recall and oil change everything went well.
 
Most annoying thing for me was getting a number of things done at 120k miles, and ending up with 11 hours charged in one day. The other really annoying thing was being told I didn't need brakes, then going on a 600 mile trip with the Scouts, and coming home to find that the new grinding noise was due to not having any pads, and the calipers being used to stop the car. That was the right rear. The service guy did make it good, replaced all the parts for free on the right rear, and gave me a 20% discount on the standard brake job price. I did recommend that he go back in the service area and slap the tech that said I didn't need brakes when I went in before the trip.
 
Most annoying thing for me was getting a number of things done at 120k miles, and ending up with 11 hours charged in one day. The other really annoying thing was being told I didn't need brakes, then going on a 600 mile trip with the Scouts, and coming home to find that the new grinding noise was due to not having any pads, and the calipers being used to stop the car. That was the right rear. The service guy did make it good, replaced all the parts for free on the right rear, and gave me a 20% discount on the standard brake job price. I did recommend that he go back in the service area and slap the tech that said I didn't need brakes when I went in before the trip.

I mean... that's not just Toyota. A lot of brands have been going with "Long-Life" fluids and stretching the service intervals to make their vehicles look better up-front for maintenance costs. But at some point you do have to do all that maintenance and for most brands you have big services around 60k and 100k/120k. With the new direct injected Toyotas, they recommend the iridium plugs be replaced every 60k which is a "downgrade" from the usual 120k they were before (though weirdly enough NGK/Denso for their non-factory plugs barely recommends 60k... was something we were talking about in a thread in the 4th gen section).

As for the brake pad thing... Man, I wish we could just train lube guys (the turnaround for them is so damn high you barely get to learn their names sometimes) to be accurate with brake pad measurements and to change our multi-point system to stop forcing brake pad service recommendations at 50%. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to call the service writer to have them double check with the customer if they want their brakes serviced at 6mm or 5mm (fronts usually start about 12mm, rears usually start about 10mm for brake pads). It just irks me because I won't give a "Yellow" recommendation until about 4mm (Toyota specifies about 2-3mm as "Needs to be replaced now") and that is usually followed with a "brakes getting close to replacement spec, recommend attention soon. Then of course you get the upsells from lube bay where every now and then you're like, "who the hell did the inspection on this car? You wrote GREEN 8mm on the fronts!? They're rubbing the damn wear indicator and you can see the pads are unevenly worn!:mad2:" Which totally doesn't make us look like idiots when we have to call the customer back to correct our mistake and then ask them to spend money and leave their car longer with us.

So yeah, I would be absolutely pissed if that happened to me because someone couldn't use a damn gauge properly. Glad they did right by you in the end though. While it upsets me when a product doesn't work out of the box or if a company messes up; I do maintain that I will give them the opportunity to make it right and let them earn my loyalty as a customer.

~
[MENTION=699679]Pavement Tested[/MENTION]

You're fine, I got where you were coming from. I was just stating my opinion and airing my grievances a little is all. It's a shame but because of the cyclical nature of the stereotypes it also affects how a lot of mechanics/technicians/grease monkies/wrench bangers/etc. (I prefer magician or wizard, but tech or mechanic will do most times :P) deal with customers, particular the "Forum guys." I know plenty of good mechanics who have had such a horrible time with people who get their information from forums that the moment they hear "I read/saw on the internet" they just shut down and go to a default "uh-huh... yeah... uh-huh" mode which only makes the customer feel unheard and justified that the dealership is looking to scam them. Like I said, it's just this sort of cyclical nature of things that keeps this cat/dog fight going... one of the reasons I joined the forum was to see for myself how bad it was and when I saw that a lot of things just came down to poor information/misinformation/communication of information I just started posting stuff to help people out and educate them.

~

Oh! I totally forgot my own recent (well, my dad's technically) piss poor Dealership encounter. He was having issues with his '19 Infiniti QX80 when he was up here earlier in the year; some weird stuff going on with his infotainment unit (by the way... Nissan/Infiniti if you're listening? WTF is wrong with you guys? Why the hell did you design those things like that!?) so I suggested trying the local Nissan Dealership in town. We scheduled an appointment over the phone explained why he was coming in (to have the unit diagnosed and hopefully repaired) and checked with them if they could do that and if they would be able to liaison with Infiniti for the warranty side of things. Scheduling told him it should be fine, they do it all the time, and all he'd have to do was sign some paperwork when it came down to it.

So we wake up earlier on a work day (because he needed me to give him a ride back, they had no loaners) we go to the dealership, wait in line for a service writer and start getting the vehicle written up. While he's there dad figured, I need an oil change and alignment anyways; get to the end of the process about to authorize the repair order and the service writer is like, "alright that'll be $170 for the diagnosis." My dad and I are both like, "huh? I thought you guys said you didn't have to charge us and that you'd handle the warranty claim with Infiniti?"

(Now to be fair here before continuing, we work on Lexus vehicles a lot in our area; we do occasionally do warranty work, but for us the customer has to contact Lexus and get prior approval and then submit what we charge them for reimbursement. This is all the customer's responsibility and we will tell them that when they schedule the appointment and when they show up to check in, NOT at the end of the process when they're about to authorize the repair order and have been led to believe they have no responsibility.)

Suddenly the writer changed tune and was like, "I mean our techs can look at the vehicle, but we can't cover anything under warranty because we're a Nissan dealer. We pointed out that we understood that, but were told over the phone that you guys handle the warranty claim so there wouldn't be need to pay and get reimbursed, we verified with the scheduling department when we made the appointment, specifically because of that assurance. "Oh yeah, no... you have to go to Infiniti to get it covered, so we can have the vehicle done by end of day if you sign here." He didn't even bother to mention or direct my father to a support hotline or how to talk to Infiniti about reimbursement for warranty work; just assumed we would pay him and figure it out later...

Needless to say we were both cranky and just took the car and ended up scheduling with an Infiniti dealer 3hrs away and made a day trip of it on the weekend. It was a small thing and a long-shot (like I said, we both were aware that the Nissan Dealer would most likely not warranty work on an Infiniti without issue; but they insisted on the phone they did it all the time) and to have to wake up that damn early, to get strung along was just infuriatingly bad customer service. They could have just told us on the phone to contact Infiniti first before scheduling so we wouldn't waste our time.
 
Our local Toyota dealership offered us an obnoxiously low trade in value for my wife's cherry condition, low mile Corolla. I sold it myself for way more.

I forget the numbers but it was more than insulting, it would have been highway robbery and they would have inked the deal with a smile on their faces.
 
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Our local Toyota dealership offered us an obnoxiously low trade in value for her cherry condition, low mile Corolla. I sold it myself for way more.

I forget the numbers but it was more than insulting, it would have been highway robbery and they would have inked the deal with a smile on their faces.

It's always insulting the number they give you on trades. Take whatever blue book you see and it will be 50-60% of that.
 
Oh wait I forgot one…

In the finance office I asked about Toyota warranties and they tried to sneak in a Hendrick product without telling me it was a different product.


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