Chicagoland Toyota dealer service - who's decent?

I have had good luck with Schaumburg Toyota's service department, although I have no experience with their sales department. Their service dept. is open until midnight on weekdays, which is convenient for me, and they are technically competent and their service operation is pretty much by the book. I do almost all routine maintenance work myself, so I don't use their service department that often, but when I do, the dealership is walking distance from my house, so I've walked back and forth when I leave one of our cars there.

We have been purchasing Toyotas and Lexus from Bredemann in Park Ridge (around 15 vehicles in our family) since 1989, when I arranged Toyota employee purchases through them. Although I no longer qualify for employee purchases, we still get great treatment from them. It probably helps that I refer a half dozen friends and acquaintances there every year.

If you're willing to spend the time haggling, you might get a better deal through Schaumburg, but if you want to avoid the brain damage, you may prefer the experience at Bredemann.

Thanks Ray! What luck--that is one that's a fairly close distance from me. I'll be purchasing from another dealer for a variety of reasons but yeah, unfortunately the Toyota sales staff there in Schaumburg felt like walking into shark infested waters. Quite a good ole boys scene, unfortunately. The reviews out on the net of them are also abyssmal with respect to sales culture. Takling with other dealers, the reputation up in Schaumburg in sales is that it's a bit of a churn and burn scene versus family owned operations.

I've got an in with a dealership elsehere where I'm dealing with invoice or below pricing, including incentives, and am confident I'll do well there. I hear ya though--I've been that route before where one dealership did one up another on price, but I ended up wishing I'd given the business to the other place to reward them for being less smarmy to deal with.

But I'm delighted to hear positive reports about Schaumburg's service department from a multi-Toyota owner. This I think seals the deal for me with my present decision--I suspect I'll be a Toyota owner soon.

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I have to wonder if the buyer at that dealership gets better service from the service dept. I recall many years ago when a friend bought a Buick in Los Angeles, and went into the Santa Barbara Buick dealer for service. The service writer wrote in large letters across the service request invoice "BOT". So my pal asked what that meant. The service writer looked at him with a dead pan, and said "Bought Out of Town". (Indicating to him that he'd get no special treatment or consideration perhaps reserved for local buyers at that dealership.) Anybody think this sort of thing still applies?

It does at some dealerships, but not at the dealers we're discussing. When we moved to the area from the East Coast, we had no problems, and haven't had any since even though our vehicles were bought elsewhere.

I don't get warm fuzzies from their sales department, but I've had nothing but great service from the service department. Send me an e-mail when you're ready to bring it in and I'll give you the names of people to see during their day and evening shifts.