I may have had the first ever manufacturer-replaced FR-S
 

Yesterday my dealer calls me to say my First 86 FR-S (Whiteout) had arrived (won't be taking delivery until next weekend). Today I got another call to give me a new VIN because they had to replace my car. Huh? What disaster could have happened over the course of a single day? Apparently there was some sort of painting error on the hood only visible from an acute angle. (Sorry, no pics since I haven't been to the dealer yet.)

They told me a carrier truck arrived today with a replacement car (same no-port-additions build-out) and carted away the blemished one. Who knows what will be done with it. Probably just swap out the hood with a replacement.

I read elsewhere on the forums that one of the Southeast Toyota cars was damaged in shipping and needed to be replaced. My swap-out incident reminded me of that, but I doubt a relatively easily overlooked painting error would qualify as "damaged," especially if they thought it was good enough at port to send it out to the dealer.

So my First 86 car's VIN went from having 3 ending digits (after the leading zeroes) and jumped all the way up to 4... More irritatingly, this also resulted in me having to sit on the phone for a lengthy period of time w/ my credit union re-doing my financing application from scratch to account for the different VIN.

Anyway, props to Keith Pierson Toyota for catching the blemish and so quickly procuring a replacement. And sorry to the mystery person who'll wind up having to wait a bit longer for their car now that there's one less in the first shipment to go around in NE Florida.

/coolstorybro

Holy smokes brah!

wow..

AND ANOTHER WHITEOUT THREAD!!!

Sorry, anyways thats extremely unfortunate man i guess it cant hurt too bad. Some dealers would have probably let you take it as is and then what? You would have had the car and needed to send it back or live with it. Just be glad they caught it now saves you more headaches though the re-financing sucks :|

I know, right? So many of us First 86 swapped over to Whiteout during the trip. I think most of that was at the expense of Asphalt (I know that was my initial color choice).

Absolutely grateful that they made the effort to swap it out instead of hoping I wouldn't notice.

Sounds like it was damaged in transit and the dealership noticed it only after first calling you.

Or...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWbyMz2lfVQ"]classic hood slide - YouTube[/ame]

This is completely normal. Sometimes the inevitable happens and checking for imperfections of any sort is part of the dealer PDI process. You should be glad that the dealership did catch this and are replacing it. Most of the time, this comes from damage during transit such as minor paint blemish or wheel scar. Japanese manufacturers at least, in my experience have been pretty good with training dealers to spot them, as well as working with them fully to replace cars.

My very first car, back in 1985, Honda Civic S, came with a small scar on the front bumper from tagging something while being unloaded from the truck. Honda replaced it promptly in 4 days, the whole car. I'm pretty sure this is similar case with yours. Perhaps a rock chip from being on a hauler for 1000 miles... whatever it is, I know its a few more anxious days, but be glad they spotted it, rather than you 5 days after delivery. Congratulations!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7086/7...145ece7a_b.jpg
Cusco FRS/BRZ Race venue Tow Hook by Moto@Club4AG, on Flickr

That's my First86 FRS, white as well :D

Nice to hear Toyota service is good to sort the problem so quickly. :w00t:

I'm no BMW hater but I read a story a few years back about a guy who found out that his brand new 5 Series had been repaired by BMW after a 'serious delivery incident'. They didn't tell him before he took delivery and he only found out months later when a different dealer enquired as to when his car had been in an accident due to poor repair work...

He successfully sued BMW for $$$$$$$!

You will be very happy later on you didn't get Christine!!!

Hopefully the hood isnt so thin its prone to denting.

I went to look at your car yesterday. I was there as the replacement was on the show room and they were copying down your new VIN. I have to say I'm rather displeased with Keith Pierson, none of the sales people seemed very helpful or even like they wanted to try to sell a car. I would ask a question or two then the salesperson would walk away and make idle chit chat with a coworker then come back and offer me the same B.S. routine. No one there seems to want to sell these cars and absolutely nobody knows a thing about them. What sucks is now I have to try to go to Coggin Toyota at the Avenues (to try to find someone that actually wants to sell a car), and that place is even worse.

EDIT: by the way, your [replacement] car is looking beautiful

14

Maybe they can somehow use that figure in a marketing pitch to upsell to the premium paint. Or just have one in the showroom since seeing it in person was able to convert so many of us.

Good to hear the new one's looking fine, but sorry to hear about your poor experience.

This car is only the second one I've personally dealt with that dealership, all prior business being done by my parents almost ten years ago and then also looooong ago at their old location on Blanding either when I was a kid or before I was even born.

My relatively stress-free experience with this car (aside from their being slow on getting info to me (which based on corroborating anecdotes on this forum sounds more like SE Toyota's issue than the dealer)) can probably be due to not having to sell me anything or feeling that they're unable to attach anything further. Really, so far they haven't tried to push me on any accessories or services, which I found odd.

The first time I went there to shop for myself (about 3-5yr ago) they were trying really hard to push a used aesthetically-modded xB on me. (I came in specifically to look at xBs, but that was the only used one they had.) I'm not showy, so all the upgrades/add-ons were more of a negative than a positive to me. They kept telling me the value of the upgrades (which was a believable figure), but IIRC, I told them the upgrades might as well be worth $0 since I didn't care about them. They brought in a manager, or something, who almost tried making it seem like a mistake for me to walk away from the car to continue cross-shopping (this dealer was my first stop of my car-hunting). That left a sour taste in my mouth. As an aside, I was glad to have been able to turn my dad on to Mazdas that weekend.

So why did I choose them for my First 86 dealership anyway? Free lifetime power-train warranty. Didn't find any local Orlando dealerships with the same offer.