5 Reasons to Buy a Toyota - Yahoo! News I think a good summary are these bullet points/reasons that they cite. Read the article for more details.
White glove treatment? Are you joking? I get treated like crap at the dealership (service: even when they can actually change my oil correctly!). I feel like I typically get the "if you aren't going to give us any more money, we don't want to talk to you any more" treatment. Can't speak for sales, we bought the car by calling every dealership within 250 miles and driving a bargain (negotiate pricing over the phone or no deal). EDIT: I should mention the cabbie who brought his Prius cab in for service (last time I had to go to the dealership) and the guy had to tell the service advisor that he didn't want his cabin air filter changed like 3 times, forcefully, before they would relent.
That's just your experience. Generally Toyota dealers are renowned for their good service - mine included. If yours is that bad, vote with your feet.
We own 2 Toyotas, a 01 Avalon and 07 Prius. Neither car has needed any serious repair. In fact, with 74k on the clock, the Avalon has only had maintenance items such as front brake pads, tires and battery. My 07 Prius had an alignment issue which the dealer was incapable/unwilling to fix. I was able to fix it myself with the help of Galaxee (and DH) here on PC. Based on that incident, I no longer will take it to the selling dealer for repair - but there are 2 other dealers that are almost as close in case I need any warranty work done. None of the hulabaloo has really affected either of our Toyotas, except the resale value of the Prius has undoubtably been lowered. I have been through this before with the Ford Explorer. The Explorer/Firestone thing was also overblown by the media and resulted in lowering the resale value of Explorers. I got a new set of tires out of it; I'm waiting to get my new all weather floor mats once Toyota sorts all of this out. Life will go on.
Maybe in the UK. Mine killed my 2005 Prius and then made me wait for a courtesy car cause now the Prius had to be in until a new ECU arrived. They're ok with regular maintenance. No complaints there. Well, they do get the tyre pressures wrong sometimes (30 or 32PSI all around instead of the factory 35/33) but I can fix that on my own. It's the warranty stuff (TSB/SSC or recalls) that gets me worried. Actually my last visit was yesterday for the brake update. On my work order, it said "tire pressures were 32 PSI" so I was "crap, they adjusted my pressures" so I went and checked to pump my pressures back up to 40/38. Guess what? They didn't touch it. Not even sure why it was listed (since a tyre rotation isn't required for the first service and i'm on winter tyres anyway so I'll get the factory tyres rotated when I swap them in this spring)
Heh... I figured that bullet point we strike a chord w/some folks. It's definitely a case of YMMV. I've heard bad things here on PC about Chicago area dealers. I intentionally avoided service depts with lots of bad ratings and reviews in the Bay Area. The only ones I've dealt w/in the Bay Area and WA state have been fine so far. I had my oil overfilled by Central Toyota in LA once... annoying.
I am voting with my feet: This will likely be the last Toyota I or my family will ever buy. I tried other dealerships three times already. I'm "moving on" to the FOURTH dealership in hopes of not getting sloppy service and customer dismissiveness. Hopefully this one will be able to do an oil change properly. At least it was just an overfill - mine didn't even put the right kind of oil in my car (Wth???). And you have options - there are basically no alternatives to dealerships in Chicago where you can bring a Prius. I'd bring my car to Luscious Garage in a moment if I had a choice.
