Hey! I just went to a "New Owners In-Service". it is held at the local dealership the first Wednesday of every month. Besides the free food, helpful DVD of Nav/Phone system, free oil/filter change coupons, and other discounts; the big deal for me was spending 1.5 hours with the top technician, asking questions, and looking at a new Prius on the lift........don't miss this opportunity.......I've had mine since '05 and just got an '07, still learned alot!!!
Where's this, and does it have any official tie to Toyota such that I could convince the locals around my area to do something similar? . _H*
We have that here on Oahu. All the dealerships on Oahu are owned by Servco Pacific and they put on a monthly meet and greet for all new Toyota owners, except hybrids. New hybrid owners (Prius, TCH, & HiHy) get one of their own about every two or three months. Not sure if the dealers on the other islands do this. They had representatives from customer service, parts, and quite a few from the service department there. Very informative, catered food and drinks (no alcohol) small gifts (key chains, pens, tire pressure gauges, etc) for everyone and door prizes. Very informative for the owners, especially the question and answer session and good public relations for the company. A happy customer is a repeat customer.
Hobbit, I think it must be a locally sponsored thing. I've been to three different "Dealer Orientation" sessions at three different dealers in the Portland area. The coolest one was where they popped a Camry steering wheel airbag to show how fast they deploy. At a different dealer I learned that the oil dipstick on Toyotas is a round loop, like an O for Oil, while the automatic transmission dipstick is a T bar. The primary purpose seems to be introduce you to the service and parts departments and make you feel like bringing your car there for service. They weren't in-depth sessions. And, of course, the actual quality of service doesn't necessarily correlate to the affability of dealer management.
I went to one last year at the dealership that sold me my car. Mostly they're selling their service department. But it was very helpful to spend time with the tech asking specific questions about the car (about half of the people there were Prius owners).
Yeah, now that reminds me... I have not hear from the dealership since I got my car, not even a courtesy call! Gosh. Saturn (GM) is a much better car company in term of service so far. Not only they call me and ask me how's the car, they also have a "new car clinic" like "New Owners In-Service".... So far, Toyota service is way below my expectation
