Larson Volkswagen Service

I never come to the Volkswagen dealership because of how expensive and less caring they seem to be compared to locally owned VW shops. My assumptions were proved correct by my experience here over the last few weeks.
I came by at first to get a new key fob and have it reprogrammed. The day that I had it reprogrammed, my security alarm on my car became faulty. It would go off every 10 – 20 seconds unless I continuously unlocked it over and over.
I called and asked if I could bring it in to have it looked at, and she couldn’t get me an appointment until the following week (which happens, I understand that.) I recently moved as well, and she told me that I couldn’t take it to any other dealership or else I would have to pay an additional diagnostic fee, since I didn’t have it originally worked on there. When I came back in to Tacoma (I live in Spokane now), I went back to the same dealership. She tried to charge me $ 120 just to get it diagnosed, even though she originally told me I wouldn’t have to. I asked her to bring it to the manager to reconsider charging me for that fee, especially seeing as how the only time all this started happening on my car was the exact day they worked on it, and it seemed to have been caused by them. Luckily I got the diagnostic cost completely waived, but I feel bad for the person that wouldn’t have tried to fight or question that.
This place takes 1.5−2+ hours just to diagnose your car, which requires them to hook up a computerized machine to the car that tells them what’s wrong with it. At Mouse Meat (another local VW shop), it takes them about five minutes to do the same thing. If you’re going to this dealership, be prepared to wait a long time in the lobby! And if you get picked up and decide not to wait there for them, they’ll take even longer.
Eventually, my car was diagnosed, and they said my door latches were faulty. The woman chalked it up to my car being «old» (it’s a 2001) and said that with older cars those are just problems that I’ll have to face. Once again, I find it strange that suddenly the day they reprogram my locks they became «faulty» due to the «age» of my car. I’d like to reiterate that I’ve never had any problems with my door latches or alarm system in all the years I’ve owned my car.
Oh well though, perhaps they know more about cars than me, and I can accept that. But if that wasn’t enough, the cost to fix the car (after I waited over 2 hours for it to be diagnosed) totaled about $ 1,000 – for a problem I never had until I saw them!
Needless to say, I will avoid coming back to this Volkswagen dealership at all costs, and any other VW commercial dealership for that matter. I gave them 2 stars because they were generally nice to me, and washed my car for free.

I like take time thank everyone in Larson. Y’all been a truly a blessing to me. From Anthony Franco, Jenna Griffin, Sarah, and Justin y’all four thank you from bottom of my heart for being there. Ian the service manager is awesome manager he listens to the problems deals with them great compassion. Thank you Ian keep up good work. All sales staff and office staff are very friendly people. With that said folks I would trust all techs who work there and everyone I would highly recommend my service at any Larson dealership.

First, I would like to mention, I like my money and have a hard time parting with it, so when I have to let some of it go, I want to get the best possible cost without giving up on the quality.
Thank you Jenna Griffin, Ian, Maynard and Larson Volkswagen for your efforts in always providing me with the best services and prices I feel I couldn’t get anywhere else!
While in for service, it was discovered that my tires were in great need to be replaced. I hadn’t realized that I needed them because to my untrained eye they still looked so perfect. Boy was I ever wrong! Not only did I need new tires, but the correct tires for my car as well. (previously bought them from; lets just say elsewhere) never again! What a difference the correct tires can make! My SUV now runs so smooth and quiet that I can barely feel I’m driving it; it’s so fine!
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Oh, did I mention how happy I am thanks to Jenna Griffin, Ian, Maynard and Larson Volkswagen of Tacoma! Your the best!!!
Pam F.

So first let me start by saying they have almost a complete new staff in the front of service and they are amazing! I had been having an issue with my VW where when I would close the trunk the front cluster would tell me my brake light was out. Then after driving a bit it would go away, so I just figured that something was loose and as long as the fault went away I was fine. So for about 2 months this happened until the brake light was completely out. I was actually in Tacoma at the time (I live in Olympia) so I decided to take my chances and stop by the dealer. As soon as I walked in I was greeted, and when I informed them I didn’t not have an appointment and what my issue was there service manager (Ian) said that’s an easy fix! I’ll get my technician Eileen on it! It was done and I was on my way all within 30 minutes! Super impressed and will be telling everyone I see with a VW about the stellar service :)

I can’t say anything about their service since they apparently just blow people off when you try and make an appointment. I wasn’t in a place where I could make a call, so I tried to schedule an appointment for an oil change online. The online form said that someone would contact me. Nobody did. Waited a few hours and tried using their live chat. Someone responded right away, but after interacting with me twice (once to greet me, another time to say sorry that nobody contacted me after I requested an appointment online), they stopped responding.
Pretty much the most unprofessional auto service place I’ve ever encountered. After seeing their reviews, I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised and offended, and since they are still terrible, they obviously don’t care much either. Guess spending a lot of money on commercials and endorsements in TV is more important than actual customer service.

the worst service customer take my passat and I was told that I needed many things then take him to another place where the only thing he needed was an oil change
Try another place save you $ and you

Extremely poor service. I took my 2000 Beetle here in March (2014) for a new battery and when they checked my car they obviously found tons of other problems… 9 pages worth. All of the work total came to about $ 7,000. When I took my car to a different automotive shop they said they couldn’t find a single thing wrong with my car. He went through the same 9 pages Larson gave me and all of the problems were made up. Never going there again. If they can’t even diagnose my car properly then why even bother?

I took a 2000 Beetle that I bought for my wife in the other day because it had an issue with overheating. They had our car for over 2 hours and «found nothing» certain but wanted to charge us 1100 dollars to replace a timing belt and water pump. so I went to Autozone and bought a manual to see if I could find anything. I’m not saying I’m a mechanic by any means, but with 2 seconds of pulling off the engine cover I discovered a large incredibly obvious coolant leak. This seems like something that if I was able to find it so easy without training they should have definitely been able to see it. They also told us they drove it around to make sure it wasn’t overheating but our mileage remained the same as when we dropped it off. And to top it all off they bent the crap out of our front license plate. I know its just a piece of sheet metal but come on.

This place is really good if you want to be ignored or deceived.
The service manager will never answer your questions, he’s insistent that you bring your vehicle in and get it diagnosed. However, many times you are told that they were unable to replicate the problem or that they couldn’t find anything wrong with your car.
They will charge you an obscene amount of money and waste your time while doing it.
They advertise a free iPad while you wait, which I’ve never seen it offered and when asked about, they don’t have the key.
They aren’t pursuant of drug use and/​or paraphernalia in loaner/​rental vehicles which they want to charge double what a standard rental costs.
There have been several instances where they ran a car out of fuel and didn’t replace it or offer to replace it and instances where a car came back with dents, dings, scratches, dirty upholstery that it didn’t leave with. And good luck getting them to cover it.