My daughter bought one of the first Toyota Sienas off the assembly line about 7 years ago. She loves the car, but she will never buy a Toyota ANYTHING again because of poor, arrogant, overly-expensive service by the dealers (three different dealers in the upstate NY and Bergen County, NJ area).
In the beginning there was the constant pressure to buy stupid options from Toyota. The $90 First Aid Kit comes to mind — little more than a box of band aids with the Toyota logo on the box. She refused to buy the car on the lot because they insisted that she also purchase the band aids. (Do they honestly think that any mother of 3 active boys does not already travel with band aids in her purse?)
So, she ordered a different car from the dealer in the color she wanted WITHOUT the band aids and waited 3 months for it. As soon as it arrived, they tried to pressure her to take the dumb First Aid kit anyway. That experience was followed by repeated little recalls to fix this, or that, minor problem that should have been caught before the car was delivered to her.
Then there was the flap about the tires that seemed to wear out too quickly. The dealer was making her have them rotated (at high expense) every 10,000 miles. Ridiculous. I have another friend in Wisconsin who had the same problem with her Toyota dealer and Sienna van.
Now that my daughter’s van has 90,000 miles on it, the cable that operates the automatic sliding door suddenly snapped. It costs $1900 to have it repaired in NY. Plus they put the car up on the lift and told her she had another $2000 worth of repairs that had to be done immediately. She had just had this car inspected elsewhere, and it had been given the green light for another 10,000 miles before any further maintenance needed to be performed. My daughter told the dealer just to disconnect the cable and she would operate the door manually, and she had to fight with them to do that.
Then, she pointed out that a seat belt on the rear captain’s chair was worn and frayed and ready to break. She inquired about a new one and they gave her a price of $150 with another $150 to install it. She ordered the seat belt and paid in advance. When she went to the dealer to have it installed, they jacked her around on the installation price, changed the time of check in and check out and tried to charge her $300 labor for installation. To add insult to injury they told her that Toyota would probablly have provided the belt and installation for “free” since it was a safety issure, but they wouldn’t because she had taken the car to another garage for oil changes, etc. The reason she has her oil changed elsewhere is that Toyota charges 3 times as much as her more convenient local garage.
Furthermore, she has had 2 friends at 2 different deallerships whose husbands have been in charge of the repair department. They have confided to her privately that the dealerships are all like that — high pressure on the maintenance guys to sell add ons and unneeded repairs.
She loves that van, but she will never do business with Toyota again. This business with teh seat belt was the last straw.
You must be talking about the local Government Motors dealer in my town.
They have a very bad reputation for doing those things.
i dont like some of the dealers either ; thought the last one actually was pretty decent. Bought car over internet/email with about 9% disc off msrp and sale went down smoothly just as promised.
i am quite fortunate to have an independent toyota-certified mechanic whom i know personally. Will use him instead of dealer even for first 2 free maintenances that now i will pay for. Everyone should try to find an independent mechanic thru church, work or friend. Keeps the good mechanics busy with good cutomers.
I have had FOUR Honda Civic’s never a single problem with any of them
I will go buy ANOTHER one just because I want to thank them by being a loyal customer
Never felt that way about any other prooduct- except maybe Bostonian shoes- when I realized I had a 15 year old pair of shoes (worn daily and re-soled 4 times) I took my whole family out to get a pair each
The Magnuson - Moss act forbids dealers to void warranties due to having 3000k services or any other services done by non dealers.
There are independent garages certified to do warranty work.
Taking the van back to the dealer is her problem, nearly all of them gouge on service after the sale, it’s where the bulk of their profit is made.
So long as she keeps receipts to prove conformation to required service intervals and the oil is to manufacturer specification, there is absolutely no reason having her oil changed at her local garage has anything to do with anything as far as warranty.
They’re lying to keep her and their markup rolling in. Again, it’s not just Toyota, most are like that. Some Toyota dealers themselves are better than others in this regard, too, so it may pay to look around at different ones in her area, if she just feels better about dealing with a dealer, despite the widespread issues with dealer service.