Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Toyota sucks big with service for hybrids

Their useless Panasonic 12V battery fails all the time.  This is my second failure and they never have them in stock.  My garage replaced it on the old Camry and it costs something like $500.  So now when it failed they just can't send over a battery and expect the old one.  No, they don't trust a trusted mechanic, they have to get the old battery first and 'test'.  The stupid thing is dead!  They all die.

So then they never send someone over to pick up the battery, so I'm stuck without a car for 2 days while they futz around.  Do you hear me Toyota?  I'm glad that earthquakes hate you.  I'm hoping for more.

** nasty comments about earthquakes withdrawn.  Earthquakes are not mine to give.  :)

**it's their dealers and service that are sleazy.  With the old Camry I avoided them for 20 years, but when the hybrids get older you can't avoid them.

OMG They are so stupid!  The garage charged it because they were told to do that.  Then they got the battery, read 12V on it, and sent it back.  Now I don't have a car for another night.

A bureaucrat asked me for my VIN, as if I have it hanging around.

** I'm calm now.  I'm resigned to not having the car.  I'll let the mechanic sort it out.  :(

**the parts dept. gave a test sheet clearly showing the battery had no capacity, but the guy didn't know how to interpret it.  We try again next week.

**had it home for the weekend.  The battery drops 0.1 V per hour, just standing.  We'll see it get it by the thick-headed ones now.

**because Toyota cars hardly need servicing, and you can buy new on the Internet at thousands less, I conclude that these dealers are starving to death and are very hostile to independent mechanics.  Take your car to the dealer for servicing to save me.  :)

**stupid people.  After a week in the shop, the dealer claims to have fixed the battery by trickle charging it for 2 days.  Next week we try a different dealer.  Somebody must know what capacity means.

Epilogue:  Went to Toyota Canada, where they proved to be incredibly dense, but I also went to the dealer with a warning that I was about to declare social media war on Toyota.  It would have been great, I would have got into fark.com for sure!  But he insisted that all his people said the battery was good, but would eat the cost.  Perhaps they were afraid, who knows.

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