Quote:
Originally Posted by @Art_Mighty
Marrk,
The devil is in the details.
Individually, as paying customers, once we have the CEL come on I would say we're being treated very well by both the dealer and by Scion (other than being kept in the dark about this issues root cause; I paid up, I have a right to know). Toyota is very intrested in retaining Scion customers (for reasons I'll explane in a minute) and their going to bend over backwards for us because they need us.
However private citizens intrested in the FR-S are actively being deceived by Toyota's suppression of this issue because of the likely sales catastrophe which would result. After the PR disaster from their unattended acceleration debacle two years ago they went from 1st the 3rd in sales for months in the US. Honda, Hyundai, GM and especially Ford were well positioned to pounce and they did (Toyota is still recovering from the issue).
Mediating on this problem from Toyota's perspective (as well as our own), this is completely a no-win scenario for both of us;
> they can't afford to loose us as customers
> they really can't afford to be truthful with us
> denying our collective exprence with this issue just breeds anger
> everyone effected will always know our cars are less then perfect
...and all of this because everone listed on the first page of this thead (and many others world wide), at random, drew the short straw.
Toyota created Scion brand because demographically the people who buy Toyota's bread and butter products are baby boomers and they are beginning to dieoff. From what I remember reading about this, Toyota believed in attracting younger buyers into the Scion brand who would later trade up their tC's for Camery's as they married and had families. This goes out to all you twenty something's, Toyota needs you!!! 
I personally test drove 4 other cars the day I bought this one. The FS-R drove better, but the number 1 reason I buy a different car is for piece of mind. Had I know about this problem at that point, I would have not purchased this FR-S. I had a better deal on the table on two other cars and I had an E46 M3 that was paid for.
Now after driving the my car for 1600 miles I am literally addicted to the FR-S, this sucks...  |
Normally, I would share your cynicism. And I may yet. But, as I say, there appears to be some evidence that they are working things through.
This is a complicated marketing and engineering and manufacturing problem. For example, for those of you who are angry because Toyota has not "gone public" or at least TSB-ed the issue, one explanation that I heard was that the steps go like this: 1) research and identify the problem; 2) develop a fix; 3) manufacture new parts (if necessary); 4) get the new parts to the assembly line and make sure that no more new cars are produced with the problem parts; 5) get the new parts stocked in warehouses in every country; 6) then issue the TSB. If this is accurate, you can see how hard this would be to accomplish in three months. If they are revising TSBs (ex.: put in the hard parts, don't put in the hard parts), it shows that they are rushing to meet customer expectations, not trying to hang customers out to dry.
As for regretting that you didn't buy another car that you could have gotten a better deal on: You're kidding, right? You mean you did not know that this was the first model year? Of course there are going to be problems this year and probably in MY 2014. That's how it goes. However, if this and the HPFP are the only big problems that develop, I say we're lucky.
As for other mfrs. and their customer service: I like Honda cars. I'd much rather but a Honda than a Toyota. But I don't kid myself that Honda is going to treat me any better than any other modern company. BMW? Lexus? I'll see it when I believe it.