Quote:
Originally Posted by tawood
Hi all,
I've noticed a common theme among the dealer/vehicle problems here, and my own experience has shown it is true...
It appears the Toyota Dealers are much harder to deal with than other car makers. My own Toyota experience has been a difficult one to say the least: My truck has been a real lemon yet you will not find anyone who babies their truck more than me (I'm that guy that you see doing 60mph on the interstate, 5 mph on the dirt roads, has towels on my mats on my carpet, and cuts the suggested maintenance intervals in half)...yet every time I have a problem, the dealer is quick to either dismiss or blame me.
I was thinking I needed to change dealers, yet nearly every comment on this site by others seems to be similar to my own experiences. I am hearing people afraid to change their own oil for fear of warranty problems. I keep reading about people constantly being dismissed by the dealer, only to call Toyota, meet a rep, and then be dismissed by them as well (quite a few posts listed in the top 20 right now express this). Even posts about being carefull towing because the dealer might try to prove you towed too much and void the warranty.
I've owned at least 1 new truck by each of Ford, Dodge, and Chevrolet, and even with the biggest lemon of them all (a Chevy Colorado) I never ONCE had a dealer accuse me of causing the damage, or try to void my warranty...NOT ONCE!!! My Toyota dealer, on the other hand, has tried to blame me EVERY TIME!!!!!
What gives?
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The only dealers I've had problems with was Lithia Chevrolet (now Peterson Chevrolet) in Boise, Idaho. They tried blaming me for a transmission failure at a little over 16,000 miles on a Chevy Cobalt, after I had mentioned the grinding and shifting problem on the previous 3 trips to the dealer for oil changes, and they did nothing. The only thing I used the car for was driving to and from work about 30 miles for about a month and a half and the rest of the time was driving in town about 8 miles per day. The car was never abused as a matter of fact it was still in excellent condition and it looked as if it had never been driven. I hardly ever drove it because the trunk opening was too small to carry equipment around in. Turned out to be the worst car, and dealership I've ever delt with, and will never own another Chevy because of the experiences I had.
The Toyota Dealership (Tom Scott Motors) Nampa, Idaho has been great. Haven't had a single problem with Toyota.