After about 4 months of shopping for a reliable and practical used vehicle, on January 2, 2026 I…read morefound a 2020 Avalon at Beaman. I spent maybe 30 minutes with the salesman and was as easy to deal with as a buyer could be. I took the car on a test drive and found a nearby private mechanic to do a pre purchase inspection, as well as checked the Carfax report and it had been serviced regularly at Toyota of Cool Springs at every required interval. The PPI said it was great.
I bought the car and had the money wired. Pretty easy. The windshield did have one observable crack in it, when I purchased it. Which is an issue I personally was able to overlook. I should have made a bigger issue out of this, but I didn't.
On January 4, 2026, less than 2 days and 100 miles of driving the car, I pulled into a parking space at a slow rate of speed (5mph) and the whole dash lit up and scrolled through about 3-4 mechanical errors (photos included) including the power steering failed completely and I was unable to turn the wheel. I had to work out of town the following week and was unable to get the car to the dealership immediately. I was able to schedule it about 2 weeks later.
I took the car back to Beaman Toyota and the errors didn't replicate so the service tech told me not to worry about it.
About a week or two after that I scheduled an oil change and went back to Beaman Toyota. The service tech was happy to tell me that I needed over $2600 of servicing on my 30 day old vehicle, including brakes, spark plugs, even hood lifts that were about $600 themselves. I had also bought a few oil changes with my vehicle purchase and the technician tried to charge me for that too ($150). I had no receipts for my service package because I assumed if I bought the car and the package from the same dealership I was having the car serviced... it makes sense that it would be recorded there. Again, my mistake. The service technician was a bit condescending and offered to show me his computer screen showing that I in fact did not have a service package that I knew I had paid for and again insisted that I pay the $150 for the oil change. I asked to speak to a manager. He went off for about 10 mins, leaving me standing there, and came back saying I did have a service plan, but because I had bought the car so recently (60 days he said) that Toyota doesn't update their systems to reflect the packages that quickly because people don't usually bring them back that soon. However, according to the Carfax and the dealership listing of the car, someone put a few thousand miles on it while the dealership had it listed and I ended up getting an oil change sooner than expected. But I digress. I took that opportunity to again explain to the service tech that I had again in fact just bought the vehicle about 30-40 days and about 2,000 miles prior and it was absolutely absurd that I needed over $2600 of repairs on it already. He didn't care.
Flash forward to July 2026 and about 6 months of ownership. I take the car back in for another oil change. I opt for new tires, which the (different) tech told me was a "buy 3 and get the 4th for $1 sale" going on. I selected the tires which he said came out to just over $1100 even with the "sale". I had priced the exact same tires at Costco earlier that week for just over $1000 or a $100 savings over Beamans little $1 for a 4th tire sale, but I was already at Beaman and wanted it done without the hassle so I took their deal. I also asked them to look at the power steering. Overall this was going to be a $3200 servicing, not counting the oil change (see aforementioned oil change pre purchase).
I got a rental from beaman and drove back to work, advised that my tires would be in later around 1pm. It was 6am, so I was grateful for the rental. About an hour later they called and told me the power steering sensors needed to be replaced and it was about an $8,000 job at 11.5 hours, in addition to the $3200 that I had already authorized.
This is absolutely absurd and fraud. He said he would see if his service manager would do something to reduce the hours of labor and came back and said it would be about $7000 overall. I told them to go ahead and do it, to just make it right. The next day I filled up my rental and drove down to get my car when they called me and said it would be ready. When I got there, it in fact was not ready. It had a new set of error codes the tech said. They needed to clear them and I could wait. I waited about 10-15 minutes and the tech came back and said I needed to get back in a rental. That my car wouldn't be ready until the following day.
The technician calls me back after I leave and tells me I need a new battery for $275 more, to make the error message clear. At this point, I really don't care. I'm already getting fleeced. I add it and I pay about $6900 overall for the 6 month ownership servicing of my Beaman Toyota used 2020 Toyota Avalon ($24,000 OTD cost in January 2026).
