I'm a bit annoyed with a shoddy service from main Toyota dealer

kissenger

kissenger

kissenger

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So I bought a used Toyota Prius on Friday. Took it to a main Toyota dealer near me (Vantage Birmingham) today for a service and Hybrid Health Check, on the advice of a fellow OCUK'er (thanks Dave85). The main things I wanted to get checked out were the battery and the heating system -- the former for obvious reasons and the latter because I couldn't seem to get it to blow warm air.

Anyway, when I go to pick up my car I get a totally clean bill of health, but there's no Hybrid Health Check certificate and no mention on any of the documentation of anyone having looked at the battery. I asked the guy about this and he went off and talked to the mechanic and came back stating that they don't do a HHC on hybrids over 100k miles (mine has closer to 200k, but that's why I wanted a HHC in the first place!), but that the mechanic checked the battery out and it was fine.

Then to make matters worse the heating system still appears to be broken on my drive home. Not having driven a Prius before Friday I thought it might be me being a bit thick not knowing how to turn it on properly, but now I'm fairly certain it's not working because I've tried everything and given it plenty of time to kick in.

I'm a bit annoyed because when I booked the service I specifically asked about those two items and yet I don't appear to have got either of them properly checked out and Toyota main dealer services aren't exactly cheap either.

Am I expecting too much from a service (I'm a new driver) or have I basically paid a couple of hundred quid for an oil change?
 
kissenger said:
So I bought a used Toyota Prius on Friday. Took it to a main Toyota dealer near me (Vantage Birmingham) today for a service and Hybrid Health Check, on the advice of a fellow OCUK'er (thanks Dave85). The main things I wanted to get checked out were the battery and the heating system -- the former for obvious reasons and the latter because I couldn't seem to get it to blow warm air.

Anyway, when I go to pick up my car I get a totally clean bill of health, but there's no Hybrid Health Check certificate and no mention on any of the documentation of anyone having looked at the battery. I asked the guy about this and he went off and talked to the mechanic and came back stating that they don't do a HHC on hybrids over 100k miles (mine has closer to 200k, but that's why I wanted a HHC in the first place!), but that the mechanic checked the battery out and it was fine.

Then to make matters worse the heating system still appears to be broken on my drive home. Not having driven a Prius before Friday I thought it might be me being a bit thick not knowing how to turn it on properly, but now I'm fairly certain it's not working because I've tried everything and given it plenty of time to kick in.

I'm a bit annoyed because when I booked the service I specifically asked about those two items and yet I don't appear to have got either of them properly checked out and Toyota main dealer services aren't exactly cheap either.

Am I expecting too much from a service (I'm a new driver) or have I basically paid a couple of hundred quid for an oil change?
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Sounds like typical lazy work. Did you ask them why they didn't tell you about not doing the check on cars over 100,000k before you dropped it off? As for the heater, insist they take it back and look at it again. Get them to sit in the car with you and demonstrate it working properly. I've had similar things more than once with garages. It's like anything other than their usual service checklist is too much to handle.
 
Curio said:
Sounds like typical lazy work. Did you ask them why they didn't tell you about not doing the check on cars over 100,000k before you dropped it off? As for the heater, insist they take it back and look at it again. Get them to sit in the car with you and demonstrate it working properly. I've had similar things more than once with garages. It's like anything other than their usual service checklist is too much to handle.
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Well when I called up to book the service I specifically said to them, 'does the service include a HHC' and they said yes, and they knew I had over 100k miles on the clock because I said so in the same conversation. Same thing with the heating. I explained the whole thing to them and they said they look into it as part of the service.
 
That sounds about right for most Toyota dealers. Their call centre staff for the dealers don't seem to be trained on what each car needs and the mechanics don't get the time or training to investigate issues properly. Mine's been in 14 times since new for warranty issues, still has faults and I'm fed up of booking it in just to get "no fault found" then the faults show on the drive home.

Booking it in for my last service (paid for by Toyota for their last screw up) dealers were trying to fob me off saying the diff oil and brake fluid didn't need to be changed, and if they did it would cost extra, when it was part of the service schedule. Even after the work was supposedly done it wasn't ticked off on their service check list.

You've paid over the odds for an oil change basically.
 
So I called them this morning and they asked me to bring my car in again. This time I got a mechanic to actually sit in the car with me while I went through the issues one by one with him. Then they took the car in to look at. HHC came back all clear and there was a problem with the heating system. Water pump was leaking so I'm going back tomorrow to have it replaced. £273 all in, on top of the service charge, which I suppose isn't that bad considering they threw in some new wipers and refilled all the oil and coolants, etc.
 
It is a shame that it takes an issue and moaning about something to get them to do it properly which they should have done in the first place, Good outcome tho
 
kissenger said:
So I called them this morning and they asked me to bring my car in again. This time I got a mechanic to actually sit in the car with me while I went through the issues one by one with him. Then they took the car in to look at. HHC came back all clear and there was a problem with the heating system. Water pump was leaking so I'm going back tomorrow to have it replaced. £273 all in, on top of the service charge, which I suppose isn't that bad considering they threw in some new wipers and refilled all the oil and coolants, etc.
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Good job. And (in my experience) you better get used it :)
 
Toyota customer service is shocking. The warranty department are plain retarded and you have to escalate everything to toyota customer care just to get some sense.

First and last time I buy a Toyota.

If only BMW did a van
 
maccapacca said:
Toyota customer service is shocking. The warranty department are plain retarded and you have to escalate everything to toyota customer care just to get some sense.

First and last time I buy a Toyota.

If only BMW did a van
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When we had our toyota from new for 5 years, Toyota were great. This was Beadles Toyota and we only needed one bit of warranty work in the 5 years (failed altenator) on our Auris.
 
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