Why I'll never buy another Toyota
 

Hi All

Just wanted to share my experience of dealing with Toyota. A summary is I had a direct injector seal pop and they would not cover it under warranty as I'd "shifted too fast at high RPM". Despite there being a software fix that would avoid this issue in future they declined to honour the warranty.
Anyway I took them to VCAT (basically a petty claims court in Victoria, Australia) and they folded before the hearing and covered the fix under warranty.

I then wrote to them to seek clarification if "high performance driver education and/or track day" participation would void my warranty. They refused to answer and called this type of activity "Misuse and negligence" according to their definitions.

I attach a copy of their letter. Read it for yourself.

Whilst think Toyota make great cars, that's not the point. I wasn't even annoyed that I'd had the problem - if they'd just accepted the warranty claim I'd be a happy customer who would have gladly returned. But instead they argued with me for months, wouldn't return calls etc. Basically they are a pack of ****s as far as I'm concerned and I'll never buy another Toyota car for the rest of my natural born life.

Sorry for your experience, that sucks.

I can tell you that lots of people using Toyota vehicles over the years have had warranty repairs on cars used in those modes of operation. And for what it's worth, the letter basically says, "We won't make blanket statements that will get us sued by unscrupulous people, and every case is different, because every situation and driver is different."

That's what I read between the lines anyway.

Completely reasonable if you ask me, and likely the policy of most auto manufacturers of a $30k sports car or similar.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_tjM8eEqUo"]Mazda commercial - YouTube[/ame]

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.

Exactly why i bought a brz instead , my local toyota dealer can't even succeed in fixing my camry.
So how could they possibly fix a subaru boxer engine?

Found this on the 'Singapore' thread. I wonder how Toyota describe the actions portrayed in the advert?


http://i44.tinypic.com/hu2d1v.jpg

Pass around the Kleenex ladies.

Not sure the warranty correlary you're attempting to make is here, as it isn't mentioned at all, but they sure aren't bashful about their engineering philosophy (or at least the marketing aspect of it).

It does bum me out a bit that their market share in general is so small to the general public. They do make great cars most of the time.

To be fair, advertising that this car is fun to push to extremes does not continue to say that they'll cover it under warranty if you do. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they're implying that you can feel free to do so with your disposable income. As someone in legal, the warranty read like many product in that you're covered for using the product under regular use and the rest is on you. I used to mod phones and test custom software and I had no inclination that they'd cover my warranty. Heck, Samsung advertises the water resistance of their phones but water damage is still not covered under warranty and I'd imagine it's the same with the newest iPhone. It's a use at your own risk thing. Products are made for rich people to use for fun disposably.

Toyota the company that engineered a cool sports car? "Awesome use your car!"

Your local service writer and regional rep? "We're not covering that"

Different entities, unfortunately one matters more than the other when it comes to keeping your car on the road.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/medi...th-advertising

http://blackflag.jalopnik.com/corvet...-be-1796070293

They advertised the fact that it has trunk space for a set of track tires, bullshit they didn't advertise this thing as track capable.

Edit: Here's a video currently on Scion's Youtube channel. I'm not saying they should cover everything, but using HPDE/Autox as an excuse is bullshit.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VBVMpK6BCk"]Scion FR-S Testimonial - YouTube[/ame]


Edit 2: Promo video advertising trunk space for tires and tools for track days with footage of an FR-S sliding around a track. (~2 mins in if you're impatient)


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yGntMe***M"]2016 Scion FR-S Walkaround [Exterior & Interior] (Scion) - YouTube[/ame]

If I were you, I wouldnt say I do track or autox. It is like telling your insurance "Oh I crashed on track and autox, and I want claim."
I do track too, but when I have problem with my car, I keep my mouth shut and claim my warranty, but I think they know my car is not stock cus the exterior told them so.
I had my rear axle replace cus the loosen axle nut under 36k warranty with no hustle.
Might as well to go to other dealership if having problem in the future.

I still cant see how they can advertise the car as track ready and even put a button in the car that says "track mode" and then deny claims based on the fact the car was driven aggressively on a track. Seems like a good attorney could make a case for false advertising.

Doesn't the FTC in the US regulate this sort of thing? Some one who has been screwed by their dealer in the US should file a complaint and see what happens.

There should be a middle ground someplace but since both sides on the issue want to dig in and have it all one way or the other it could be difficult to agree as to what that is.


The fact that the car is driven aggressively on the track should not be an issue if it is completely stock and as designed. I can see where mods could cause a warranty issue. If you change the tires and then blow an axle is it really the fault of the manufacturer? The car was designed and tested on the track in a certain configuration if you change anything out of that configuration then the responsibility for repairs should fall on you.


Driving aggressively and making a mistake that causes damage are not the same thing. You can drive hard on a track and never have an issue or you can slide the car into the grass or miss shift and blow the engine. Should the warranty cover these instances? Contrary to popular belief warranty costs are not eaten by the manufacturer but passed onto the consumer. People complain about how much new cars cost but then want their screw ups paid for. I for one do not want to pay for guys that damage their cars at a track.


Little doubt that for every person that was "screwed by the dealer" there is at least one that did or at least attempted too screw the dealer for repairs on issues they created themselves. How many time have we read "turboed my car and blew the engine so am going back to stock for warranty" on here? It is a two sided issue and not just a case of the evil company picking on the poor little guy.

How would it be false advertising? They aren't advertising their bumper to bumper track day warranty, they're advertising a car. Many high performance products are capable of things that aren't covered by the product's warranty.

Overclocking computers is very effective when done properly and also is usually not covered under the warranty, yet they still inform you on the box that it is capable of overclocking. You're confusing what you would like versus what they offer.

The terms of the warranty are not required to match the capability of the product, no matter how much we would appreciate it.

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".

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 :iono:

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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 :thumbdown:

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.

No more whine with the cheese needed on this thread.

Well if that is the case then there are a shitload of people that the dealers lied to and said they had to get approval. Maybe if they didn't care if they got paid for warranty work that would be the case but I doubt many do it for free.

The Renault must have been a hell of a deal with those extras
http://wpmedia.driving.ca/2014/04/ro...y=70&strip=all

Audi wasn't quite as good with their promise
https://files1.coloribus.com/preview...mall-79704.jpg

Ford really targeted a specific demographic in India (the ad is real)
https://raeystorybank.files.wordpres...in-trunk-1.jpg

If you bought one of whatever this is you end up with a car full of beautiful women
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-r4uq2Dkl9.../s1600/ADs.jpg


Should we be upset because there are not huge fireballs every time we walk away from the car?

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EQoY0jC2uyo/maxresdefault.jpg



Advertising is advertising and if people take it all literally they are in for one hell of a disappointment most of the time.

I wasn't before, but now that I've seen it I kind of am.

Hmmm well after catching my self up here I have to say that BMW next door won't cover a warranty if you track the car and the m3 and 335i are often shown being tracked in their advertisements the same applies for Audi and Porsche I am afraid infact I was told many times by my service advisor at Subaru to just never mention that I tracked the car and that I was just a really big fan of rally hence why my car looked the way it did. But I never did and I got a warranty short block.

However staying more on the Toyota specific topic, we have had customers come I with "stock" cars that have all sorts of can phase position codes from retarding timing and have helped out however we never had a customer outright say they tracked the car or tuned it the one dummy who did was told to go else where for his work from now on.

It's subjective I guess but essentially when you go in and say you have rod knock you can either tell them you did donuts in a parking lot for and hour or went to a skid pad or that you where taking and exit all I am saying is you don't need to tell them the scenario more than "customer said car began to make loud knocking noise while turning"


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I didn't. Their assessment of it being 'raced' came from fast shifts at high RPM.

No, but is does say 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

Maybe the warranty processes are different between countries but my dealer was awesome during the process. They though Toyota HQ were be asses, they made a bunch of useful suggestions to get this fixed. Their hands were tied.

I've got no problems with them making exclusions for track, but you need to be clear about that upfront. Not rely on a bullshit definition of it being on a racetrack as automatically 'misuse and neglect'. Have a look at the photo from the Toyota website. The driver is wearing a helmet on racetrack. You can't, based on some arbitrary bullshit, decide that is now 'misuse and neglect', especially when the problem is fixed by a new ECU map.

"Tested on the track" does not necessarily mean "use it on the track". They also crash tested them so does that mean it can be smashed into a wall and be covered by warranty?

I 100% agree that it can be deceiving when the pictures and videos of tracking the are used for promotion but not that does not mean they are falsely advertising or anything since it was indeed TESTED on a track.

What other choice do we have? I'm sure you bought something in your lifetime that worked as advertised? Beer, Snowshoes, etc?

My point exactly also. Put that little * next to the fancy ads as a disclaimer. I don't see that, Toyota advertises this car can be used on a track with NOTHING stating using on track non competitively will affect warranty. Toyota themselves told me the dealer has say on if the issues of coverage because of track use. I keep repeating that but it seems to not be clear even when I got the word from Toyota themselves.

____

A certain tuner can fix that issue.

Beer is advertised that if you drink it you will be surrounded by beautiful, flirtatious women and fun, witty guys. The reality is very different.


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/98pG0a4tkzU/hqdefault.jpg


http://barfblog.com/wp-content/uploa...3/vomit-6.jpeg


Do bears actually use toilet paper?


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-croskvxY3U/maxresdefault.jpg

There is no law that says they have to make such a statement in the ads. It is very clearly stated in the warranty documents.
As I have said I am not supporting their use of track events in their advertising materials but you guys are trying to create a loop hole where there really isn't one.
No the ads do not say your warranty could be denied if you track but they don't say "Ya beat it up we got your back" either.
The ads are just ads not operating instructions.