Originally Posted by VICAR OF DIBLEY
Let me start out by answering the question that no Lemon Law was involved. Maybe we should have let it become three attempts to fix the problem and then have it fail.... Here is the full story:
In June we returned to the car in a shopping center parking lot, and the battery was dead. AAA jump-started it and it seemed to charge as we drove home. We brought it to Phillips service dept., where the technician explained that they weren’t able to diagnose the problem, but they replaced the battery, suggesting that maybe the battery had a weak cell.
The problem recurred three months later, the day after the hurricane, when AAA couldn't provide service because of trees across roads, etc., so we used our own car battery charger. Again it seemed to hold a charge; however, three weeks later it recurred—a completely dead battery. The problem then recurred two more times, and we lost confidence in the car. When we say 'dead,' there's no other way to describe it; we had to manually unlock the car door!
Phillips asked us to leave the car with them. They kept it for over a week, and during that time the issue did not recur, meaning they couldn’t fix it. We then met with our original salesperson and the service manager, who told us that Phillips would replace the car with the identical car—but not a hybrid—with either a 2017 or a 2018 model of the identical car. This offer was predicated on the general manager’s setting prices. We returned a few days later to meet with him, who in the end offered us an even exchange for a 2017, or $2,000 for a 2018, for the identical car without the hybrid system.
We opted for the 2018 and paid the $2,000. However, when we went to pick up the car, we immediately saw that it was NOT the same car as the 2016; it was noticeably missing one feature—and we say 'noticeably’ because it's one that we used everyday (bird's eye camera). We canceled the deal and left, never having been told that other features, notably safety features, were missing. The next day we thought and talked about it, made our peace with not having the camera (which we were led to believe was the ONLY difference between the two models), returned, and bought the car.
We were on our way home when we realized that there was at least one other safety feature missing (a sonar device to let the
driver know that someone or something is too close to the car)—and perhaps more. Again, we were not aware of these missing features until we went to use them. We called back to the dealership, and for the first time we learned that these safety features, for which we had paid when we bought the 2016, were part of a package; all we were told was that this is the car and the features that we're paying for, nothing about a package. Prior to signing the agreement, we saw the car and was once more told that it had all the same features as our 2016, the only difference being no hybrid system (and evidently no bird’s eye camera).
Following our filing a complaint with Toyota Corporate, we received a call from the customer relations manager, who said that Phillips Toyota would do nothing further for us. As soon as we asked her to put this in writing--either a letter or an email--her demeanor abruptly changed. She became belligerent, almost rude, refused to listen to us, and it was at that moment that we realized that THIS is how they do business—they NEVER put anything in writing—and what the implications are. We asked her job title, and when we asked her last name, at first she refused, then mumbled something, and when we asked her to spell it, she hung up on us. This is what Phillips Toyota considers 'customer relations'?
Simply put, we were promised a replacement car that would be identical to the 2016 (but not hybrid) whose features we had paid for when we bought the car, and NOW they are saying that if we want what we were promised, we would have to pay a second time for these features!
If anyone feels confident buying from a dealership that (1) treats its customers this way, and (2) puts this particular car with its intermittent electrical problem into their used car market without explaining the problem it has, by all means go right ahead....
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