Why I'll never buy another Toyota

[stevesnj]

Originally Posted by Hags86

I think it’s OK for Toyota to have some reasonable protections. They shouldn’t have to warranty the car under all circumstances. We know there are idiots out there...

If they said warranty is void if the car is used:
- For competitive motorsport. Fair enough I say.
- On offroad dirt terrain. Fair enough I say.
- Without due care and maintenance. Again, fair enough.

But my question was “will you void my warranty if I do HDPE?” and they said it’s “Misuse and neglect” as defined by the owners handbook. Really?

Here is how they advertised the car in Australia (quotes from their website):

The 86 shares DNA with some of the most exciting track-proven sports car ever made and it was tested on track at key stages of its development.

The car's performance was tested on gruelling tracks such as Fuji Speedway and Shibets in Japan and the Nürburgring in Germany

The 86 has been tested on tough test tracks like the Nürburgring to make sure it offers the highest levels of reliability and performance in all kinds of conditions.

But if you do HDPE then that is “Misuse and neglect”?

Remember the context here. I had a seal pop due to an engine leaning out at high revs on my second HPDE day and they would not warranty it, but a new engine map they released prevents this problem - sounds like a warranty issue. Hell, their policy is to not to even tell my why they refused the claim. Their response was "ask the dealer" and the dealer said "Toyota won't allow us to tell you why they rejected the claim". It's only one of the mechanics at the dealer who told me on the down-low that they rejected it because the car was 'raced' when it fact it had not been.

I just wanted to be treated with respect during the process. They refused to tell me why they rejected the claim (but eventually did honour it), invented a new policy on the fly (HDPE = misuse and neglect), etc. Like I said - great car, terrible company.

This car is advertised to use on the track to this day. I did contact Toyota once regarding warranty coverage when the car is used on the track as it's advertised to do. In the end Toyota corporate said that it's ultimately the decision of the dealer weather or not to cover power train,fuel, etc. items when the vehicle is confirmed that it was used on the track. If they say Toyota told them a certain thing YOU talk to the guy they talked to.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by stevesnj

This car is advertised to use on the track to this day. I did contact Toyota once regarding warranty coverage when the car is used on the track as it's advertised to do. In the end Toyota corporate said that it's ultimately the decision of the dealer weather or not to cover power train,fuel, etc. items when the vehicle is confirmed that it was used on the track. If they say Toyota told them a certain thing YOU talk to the guy they talked to.

Not sure how accurate a statement that is either though. The dealers have to get approval from Toyota or they don't get paid for the work. I suppose if they just didn't tell them then there would be no issue but at that point it is the dealer pulling a fast one in violation of the warranty agreement by withholding information.


As pointed out many times none of the advertising says "Use it on the track and maintain full warranty".

[Canehda]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Not sure how accurate a statement that is either though. The dealers have to get approval from Toyota or they don't get paid for the work. I suppose if they just didn't tell them then there would be no issue but at that point it is the dealer pulling a fast one in violation of the warranty agreement by withholding information.


As pointed out many times none of the advertising says "Use it on the track and maintain full warranty".

From my experience with Ontario Subaru dealers the dealer is the one who has to present the case to Subaru to get approval like what you said, however a lot rests on the dealer to accurately report the problem and the cause. From what I have been told by a GM of a local toyota dealer, they would prefer not to do warranty work as they get paid a Toyota set rate for the repair, they would much rather use that garage space to charge $100 on an oil change.

Although none of the advertising says that track use is explicitly warranted I have always felt that toyota and subaru simply lacked the real world engagement with the FRS/BRZ as a car to bring to the track that you see from other sports car manufactures. Companies like GM, Ford, Porsche, even Mazda will Track prepare your car if need be, I tried to have my local Subaru dealer do a simple "track inspection" for my car (required for track insurance) and the service advisor warned me that I would forfeit my ability to claim warranty...

I still agree with you that nothing explicitly says that the warranty covers track use, however I think that the definition of abuse which dealers point to should be more clearly defined so that there are no surprises for the consumer

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Canehda

From my experience with Ontario Subaru dealers the dealer is the one who has to present the case to Subaru to get approval like what you said, however a lot rests on the dealer to accurately report the problem and the cause. From what I have been told by a GM of a local toyota dealer, they would prefer not to do warranty work as they get paid a Toyota set rate for the repair, they would much rather use that garage space to charge $100 on an oil change.

Although none of the advertising says that track use is explicitly warranted I have always felt that toyota and subaru simply lacked the real world engagement with the FRS/BRZ as a car to bring to the track that you see from other sports car manufactures. Companies like GM, Ford, Porsche, even Mazda will Track prepare your car if need be, I tried to have my local Subaru dealer do a simple "track inspection" for my car (required for track insurance) and the service advisor warned me that I would forfeit my ability to claim warranty...

I still agree with you that nothing explicitly says that the warranty covers track use, however I think that the definition of abuse which dealers point to should be more clearly defined so that there are no surprises for the consumer

I know it may come off I am defending the dealer actions but I am not. The car was clearly made to be tracked and as such they should at least have some limited form of warranty coverage. Unfortunately even if there was then people would just try to go beyond that and things would be back to square one. It is a sad statement that enough people have abused their warranty coverage that it comes down to an all or nothing sort of situation with the dealers.
A clearer definition of abuse would certainly help find the middle ground I spoke of previously but we are back to what people would accept and how many would try to go beyond that definition.
Hell, this very forum has a thread on it where the OP wanted to know if it was OK to "money shift" and felt that if he did it and the car blew up then it was a design flaw.

[TheRoops]

Originally Posted by Canehda

From my experience with Ontario Subaru dealers the dealer is the one who has to present the case to Subaru to get approval like what you said, however a lot rests on the dealer to accurately report the problem and the cause. From what I have been told by a GM of a local toyota dealer, they would prefer not to do warranty work as they get paid a Toyota set rate for the repair, they would much rather use that garage space to charge $100 on an oil change.

Although none of the advertising says that track use is explicitly warranted I have always felt that toyota and subaru simply lacked the real world engagement with the FRS/BRZ as a car to bring to the track that you see from other sports car manufactures. Companies like GM, Ford, Porsche, even Mazda will Track prepare your car if need be, I tried to have my local Subaru dealer do a simple "track inspection" for my car (required for track insurance) and the service advisor warned me that I would forfeit my ability to claim warranty...

I still agree with you that nothing explicitly says that the warranty covers track use, however I think that the definition of abuse which dealers point to should be more clearly defined so that there are no surprises for the consumer

Contract laws will tell you that clearly defining such terms is an easy way to put yourself out of business. That's why they leave it open to a case by case determination. The contract would be nearly 1000 pages just on that section.

[Lantana frs]

Im wondering if there has been any warranty work done on the car before this?

[007BRZ]

My Subaru dealer would have honored the warranty without question. They are not in the business to make unhappy customer, like Toyota does. I have owned 15 Subarus in the past 40+ years and my last two BRZ's. I have had one little problem on my 2013 BRZ Limited and they made me wait for a factory representative. My two rear tail lights would fill up with water if I went through a car wash. The day the rep came to see my car, I put some plastic gold fish in through the bulb opening and took the car through the car was twice. Needless to say they replaced my two rear light assembles,

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by 007BRZ

My Subaru dealer would have honored the warranty without question. They are not in the business to make unhappy customer, like Toyota does. I have owned 15 Subarus in the past 40+ years and my last two BRZ's. I have had one little problem on my 2013 BRZ Limited and they made me wait for a factory representative. My two rear tail lights would fill up with water if I went through a car wash. The day the rep came to see my car, I put some plastic gold fish in through the bulb opening and took the car through the car was twice. Needless to say they replaced my two rear light assembles,

See oddly enough my Toyota dealer would as well. It is not a Toyota vs Subaru issue and people from both companies have had issues.


They filled with water that bad? I have seen pics with about 1/2 inch in the bottom but never any that filled up. That would be bad for the electrical.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by TheRoops

Contract laws will tell you that clearly defining such terms is an easy way to put yourself out of business. That's why they leave it open to a case by case determination. The contract would be nearly 1000 pages just on that section.

Oh god can you imagine such a contract?
"Should the owner exceed the rev limit by greater than .87 RPMS all warranty work on the following components shall be null and void"
Be a guaranteed installation of an engine and driving monitoring and recording device in every car!

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by TheRoops

Contract laws will tell you that clearly defining such terms is an easy way to put yourself out of business. That's why they leave it open to a case by case determination. The contract would be nearly 1000 pages just on that section.

Which makes threads like this necessary to warn potential buyers that Toyota and Subaru may not stand behind their product like Porsche and BMW and others do.

Hell my dad's Mini cooper is on it's 3rd set of brake pads provided by the dealer free of charge, they're well aware he's tracked and autocrossed it and BMW/Mini offers contingency money for winning SCCA events with their cars.

Toyota also offers SCCA contingency money for SCCA Pro-Solo events (autox with a heads up drag race start) by the by...

https://dk1xgl0d43mu1.cloudfront.net...pdf?1486486770

[stevesnj]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Not sure how accurate a statement that is either though. The dealers have to get approval from Toyota or they don't get paid for the work.

I'm just stating what Toyota warranty person said. Toyota doesn't have a say, it's up to the dealers.

As pointed out many times none of the advertising says "Use it on the track and maintain full warranty".

And none of the ad's say "If car is used on track this may affect warranty".

[stevesnj]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Oh god can you imagine such a contract?
"Should the owner exceed the rev limit by greater than .87 RPMS all warranty work on the following components shall be null and void"
Be a guaranteed installation of an engine and driving monitoring and recording device in every car!

It may be a matter of statistics and percentages. Let's say they sell 3000 cars per year, what statistically will the driver use it for, what are the chances of the driver driving the car hard on the street, what are the chances of the customer driving the car on the track and out of that how many drivers will take the powertrain to the limit enough to cause some type of failure and be in warranty period.

It's probably why they don't have a large contract like that, too many variables and maybe 10 failures on track per 3000 cars. That's something a very huge company with lot's of money wouldn't want to get involved with. Too much litigation.

[Canehda]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I know it may come off I am defending the dealer actions but I am not. The car was clearly made to be tracked and as such they should at least have some limited form of warranty coverage. Unfortunately even if there was then people would just try to go beyond that and things would be back to square one. It is a sad statement that enough people have abused their warranty coverage that it comes down to an all or nothing sort of situation with the dealers.
A clearer definition of abuse would certainly help find the middle ground I spoke of previously but we are back to what people would accept and how many would try to go beyond that definition.
Hell, this very forum has a thread on it where the OP wanted to know if it was OK to "money shift" and felt that if he did it and the car blew up then it was a design flaw.

100% agree on the abuse of warranty, I worked for an insurance company and the more detailed the wordings the more loopholes open sadly!

From my experience in insurance when you have a word like "abuse" its so vague that it makes it easier to just label any action because abuse is such a subjective term, one could say simply riding the clutch once a month is abuse and another could say that its okay to launch the car by dropping the clutch lol

At the end of the day like you said in a previous comment its all about what dealer you get, sometimes you can get a shit dealer when it comes to tracking and sometimes you get one that supports you, its a complete crapshoot and I don't think you can blame the manufacture. I will never buy a Subaru not because I hate subarus in general or anything that Subaru Canada ever did to me but because the dealers in my area are generally shit

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Canehda

100% agree on the abuse of warranty, I worked for an insurance company and the more detailed the wordings the more loopholes open sadly!

From my experience in insurance when you have a word like "abuse" its so vague that it makes it easier to just label any action because abuse is such a subjective term, one could say simply riding the clutch once a month is abuse and another could say that its okay to launch the car by dropping the clutch lol

At the end of the day like you said in a previous comment its all about what dealer you get, sometimes you can get a shit dealer when it comes to tracking and sometimes you get one that supports you, its a complete crapshoot and I don't think you can blame the manufacture. I will never buy a Subaru not because I hate subarus in general or anything that Subaru Canada ever did to me but because the dealers in my area are generally shit

When shopping for the wife's car I checked Dealer Rater to see which Subaru dealer to go to. The one here in London got great reviews, the ones around KW had poor reviews and the one it Stratford apparently worships the devil, eats babies and are single handily responsible for all the evils of the world.