empty maintenance dates - do dealers update these?

Ask the seller which dealer and ask him for documentation......or to give the dealer permission to release the information to YOU. I'm not sure they will give you the information without permission, maybe in writing.
Absent either of those things happening, I'm not sure I would have bought it.

I wasn't aware that there was any kind of an electronic log of service items available.
But the dealers never filled out the pages in the warranty books either so what you say doesn't surprise me.

 

I see a whole pile of pdfs at toyota I can download- not done that yet. Been super busy, but we need to use the car!

Seems like the records are there if you care to look. Downloading the service records from Toyota.com does not interfere with your time in using the car. All the records are there.

 

Register the VIN at Toyota Owners Official Web Site: Service Coupons, Owner's Manuals, Service Scheduling And More & you'll see all the dealer work on the car. Owner entered records are deleted. It's up to the owner to maintain a maintenance log. I don't use Toyota's book and I haven't recorded any maintenance in the car.

 

People maintain their cars by themselves without updating the toyota database everyday. And I trust a backyard mechanic more than most of the dealer tech monkeys they let change your oil and do other routine maintenance. Remember those are high volume, low margin services. They aren't going to put their highest trained mechanic changing your oil when there's a car in there that needs a tranny repair or something. They are going to put the 18 year old who just got his certification and is being paid on the number of cars he can move in and out of the shop. The faster it gets done, the more money he pockets. What incentive does he have to do it right?

Compare that to the actual owner of the car who is taking the time to change the oil and do the maintenance themselves. They have a pretty good incentive to use high quality oil and not the volume barrels of maybe the right viscosity mixed with whatever was in the tube before. Pretty good incentive to use high quality filters and check things that effect them personally versus the cheapest and quickest it can be done.

If I saw a car that was only maintained at a dealership, I would not buy the car.

 

Congrats and welcome ironandsteel!
That info on the display in your car is just for you to set maintenance reminders for yourself. The dealer doesn't enter any info there and sounds like the previous owner(s) didn't bother with it either.
Register at the Toyota site that JimN posted to find all dealer maintenance records for your car. You'll also find owners' manuals here and service coupons. You can also enter your own records but mine recently were deleted and I can't figure out what happened there. The dealer info is all there but everything I put in is gone!
That's a good reason to keep a paper record of everything as backup.
Happy Motoring!

 

That certainly is one valid point of view but not shared by many people I think.

And it really has no bearing on the present situation because he already BOUGHT the car and the previous owner claimed that a dealer did all the work.

 

I try to keep a paper record of my maintenance but with the Toyota Owner's website linked above, I'm not diligent about it anymore. All my dealer visits are recorded to the VIN on there.

 

If the maintenance log is similar to the one on my 2010 Nav unit it is meant to be used as a reminder and not a log book. On mine you can either set a future date or miles and you get a reminder on the screen. It appears the previous owner was only using the oil change reminder.

As stated above go to ToyotaOwners.com and enter VIN for any dealer performed services. You can enter non-dealer service records but when owner's name changes only dealer services remain since Toyota can only verify dealer services.