alarm broken in 3 month old corolla + toyota are dicks

[Dave89]

31st of October i drove away with my brand new corolla conquest sedan from Canberra Toyota in Fyshwick, i placed the order for the car in July when ordering the car i ordered multiple accessories, one of them being a sound alarm, Corolla's don't come with alarms so Toyota arranged for it to be fitted by BDL Car Stereo at a cost of $187 (i think).

so here i am 3 months later, the odometer at 11,000ish just two weeks after its 10,000km service and the alarm has stopped working. So i ring the dealer at which i bought my car from and they have told me that the earliest time i can have it looked at would be 24th march, almost 4 weeks from now, unless i wanted to go to the other side of Canberra and take it to the Phillip shop i might be able to get it in 2-3 weeks...

Is it wrong of me to expect a little better service than that considering my car is still in warranty and only three months old?

I have had a poke around, it's not a fuse, the alarm unit itself defiantly works, i open the door while alarm is still armed and i can hear the relays clicking on and off and i can see the park lights flashing, the only problem is the actually siren unit.

I am very disappointed in the service i get from Toyota all round.

starting with the finance, Toyota said they would offer me a better deal than what my bank was offering me, so after i saw the figures i decided to go with it. on the day of delivery (which was actually a day late) i went out to the dealer at 3pm, having an appointment for 3.30pm and i was due to start work that day at 5.00pm i was waiting until 4.15pm before the finance rep was able to see me and he knew at 3.00pm that i needed to be out of there no later than 4.40pm in order to get to work. long story short, i didn't leave Toyota until 5.45pm, one and a half hours later, which in turn cost me $30 by not being at work, and my boss wasn't pleased. further to that, i elected fortnightly repayments of $310 and i was told the first payment would be two weeks and one day from the day i drove away from the dealer, so i ensured there was money in my account so that it could be debited, 2 weeks came, no money was taken out, i just assumed that they hadn't set the account up yet so it would be taken out when they had the account set up, 3 week came, no money take out, 5 days later, i receive a letter from Toyota finance saying "You're next payment will be <date>....here is your bpay number to make additional payments, bla bla bla" that date being a total of 5 weeks after delivery, i wasn't sure what to think, except maybe they were referring to the first payment coming out on that date, as i was told by the finance rep that i would receive my welcome letter telling me when my first payment would be.

the following day i receive another letter from Toyota finance which said "You have dishonored a payment, you will be charged a $30 administration charge, please pay us using bpay....." i immediately called my bank to check if anything went wrong on my side, they said everything checks out fine, so i called Toyota finance, i spoke to some really bitchy woman, when i explained the situation she immediately told me its my fault, when i asked why was the transaction declined she said, "well you mustn't of had any money in the account" to which i told her i can provide bank statements saying otherwise. so she checked the computer and told me that the BSB or ACC number were wrong, i asked what number she had there and it was indeed wrong they had a 0 instead of a 2, so i asked her to remove the $30 charge because it wasn't my fault they had the wrong number, she replied with "you signed the form stating that was the correct number, I'll ask my manager, but chances are it won't happen" i got off the phone with her after correcting the number and arranging for the payment i missed to be deducted out of my account the following day along with the next payment which was also due the following day.

when i was signing the forms i was in such a rush that i didn't bother to check the BSB and account number was correct, because when he originally wrote it down, he wrote it down on a sheet of paper by hand as i read it out to him, and he wrote it correctly because i watched him write each number down as i read it out to him, he was the one that typed it wrongly into the computer.

further to that because of the payment i dishonored Toyota finance have put a mark on my credit rating report which has affected me severely, so severely that i can't even get a phone plan from Vodafone for $39 per month, which works out to be about 1% of my income.

Toyota are always held up for servicing, for my 1,000km service i booked it on Friday, they told me the next available day would be Tuesday, they failed to mention it wasn't until the following Tuesday, when i booked it for it's 10,000km, i was told a month's waiting time, so i went to the dealer on the other side of canberra (which is still the same company) and it was only a week's wait.

this is my third Toyota car, and my second corolla, i love Toyota's but where is the motivation to keep buying them when they treat their customers like this?

Any suggestions about what i should do?

[selyaT]

I think if you search for Canberra Toyota (especially Fyshwick!) on this forum you will get a very negative impression. Perhaps a clue as to what we think of them. Sounds like you got pretty standard service judging by my personal experience with them.

Nowra Toyota are the closest respectable dealer :)

[Dead]

Jesus...

I'll politely ask someone and see if they can talk to you. He's a guru of sorts and has been through heaven and hell with Toyota Australia.

Btw my sportivo doesn't get serviced by Canberra Toyota anymore. It hasn't for a year. I drive up to sydney and have my godfather do it. Yes they are d!cks. Yes I despise them. My way of dealing with it though was to never give them the option of touching my car ever again.

Note: see sig

[Simo]

Toyota Fyshwick ****** me around hard with my service, Phillip I was turned away becuase I couldnt replicate a problem, and when I talked em into fixing the problem cause I then knew what it was I was quoted $1500+ for $2 worth of bolts. also at phillip, I had two douchebag apprentices fighting over who got to park my car

so in a nutshell there (I am an idiot i swear), and you should avoid them like aids.

Edited February 27, 2008 by Simo

[xoom]

ok ..... firstly it sounds like u got the typical toyota treatment

now onto some constructive stuff to see if u can get this resolved.

Ok i noticed u mention a 3rd party installed the alarm .... which is usually the case with a lot of toyota's alarms ..... do u have any paperwork from that company ? if u do have u tried going through them ? actually even if u dont have any paperwork have u tried to force the issue with them and see if they can sort it out. i think a simple phone call to say "hi toyota got my alarm installed via u guys and now its having issues can u guys please look at it for me" is something simple to do ..... if they refuse get from them why they wont do it i.e. why wont they deal with u directly. Y does it need to go through toyota if its their product.

Now regarding toyota wanting 4 weeks to look @ it for u thats just B.S. ...... u got 2 choices here ..... either simply go in and say hey my car is stuffed and refuse to leave until they take a look and even ask to speak to the service manager if the person at the counter wont help u ..... or u can also call toyota and let them know wat their dealerships told u .... i would try going in first before calling toyota so u have more grounds/ammunition as to y u are contacting them.

If this is still not getting anywhere then obviously consumer affairs is a path but the problem with that route at this stage is toyota needs to be given the opportunity to fix the issue and they just seem to be putting u off so im not sure where that stands .....

My recommendation @ this stage is go in unannounced and basically say hey its busted if u dont wanna look @ it that ur more than happy to go to the alarm fitter directly. I would highlight it as many times as u can "u r a consumer and u should not be made to suffer due to the companies inefficiencies" ...... its really simple .... its broken .... they contact the 3rd party supplier .... they come in and fix it ..... i dont understand what toyota themselves are wanting to fix for u 2 b honest since the product is not theirs.

regarding the finance problem .... unfortunately its all based on the printed paper work and ur signature ...... since u signed the paperwork that releases them of all accountability that the details captured are correct .... annoying i know but thats the law ..... even though they are at fault for making the mistake ..... we as the signaturey are responsible for confirming the content of the contract before signing. not much u can do here but if they were focused on customer service they could have resolved it for u in a nicer manner.

Regarding the credit rating thing im pretty sure because this was a mis-understanding it can get removed ..... i would look into that further if i was u.

[Dead]

Thanks Bill.

I agree with the above in regards to the alarm. If you can go straight to BDL do it. I'd trust those guys more with my car than Toyota themselves. I've come to find that they're very honest.

[T.J]

quick question not meaning to be samrt but have you checked the actual siren? or is it wired into the horn? maybe during the service they turned the siren off using the alarm key i dunno how many toyota dealers do it i used to when did services cause nothings more annoying than working on a car when its alarm keeps freakin going off.

[Dave89]

quick question not meaning to be samrt but have you checked the actual siren? or is it wired into the horn? maybe during the service they turned the siren off using the alarm key i dunno how many toyota dealers do it i used to when did services cause nothings more annoying than working on a car when its alarm keeps freakin going off.

yeah, well i'm an electrician (not auto) so i'm pretty technically minded, i've checked everything, pulled my car to bits to locate the fuses, the control unit, the sensors, nothing is out of the ordinary except the alarm doesn't sound, the lights flash as they should everything works but no sound. and toyota didn't disable it, or they did but re enabled it, because it was serviced about 10 days ago but stopped working about 4 days ago.

anyway, called BDL today, they said whoever i spoke to at toyota must of been brainless because it is obvious its a BDL problem.

booked it in to be fixed on tuesday.

as for credit rating, applying for my credit report to be sent to me so i can see whats actually on it.

and one more question for everyone, when toyota serviced my car they put the next service sticker on my car saying 3 months and 5,000km from then, however the service book states every 10,000 and 6 months? is canberra toyota trying to screw me out of my money or does it actually need to go in, or did someone just make a mistake?

Thanks!

[Dead]

anyway, called BDL today, they said whoever i spoke to at toyota must of been brainless because it is obvious its a BDL problem.

booked it in to be fixed on tuesday.

I hope it was Demetri lol.

Is canberra toyota trying to screw me out of my money?

Always.

However in regards to the 5,000k service, I mean I had it done myself, but only because they had to replace my ecu etc under warranty at the time. Few other comments here wouldn't hurt from the other guys I guess.

[T.J]

i service mine every 5000 oil and filter but 10000 is fine if theyre putting 5000 on the sticker it probably means oil only its up to you.

if you take it back in 5000 klms get them to change the filter otherwise the oil change is pretty much a waste

[Dave89]

well for those of you that are interested.... my alarm was fixed, 30 mins at bdl and they tell me the siren was faulty, they put some other one in, not the same as the last one it has a different pitch, softer which in a way is better i suppose the last one was too **** noisy late at night wake the whole street up.

[Dead]

I like BDL. They're straight shooters. No bull****. Good stuff dude.

[xoom]

excellent that u got it sorted ....... simple customer service by a company which is no doubt smaller than toyota and its sorted ..... when wil toyota learn