Attention "Toyota Certified Used Vehicle" owners - I need your help

I just bought a 2005 Prius from a Toyota dealership. The salesman (who reminds me every time we speak that he's new there) said it was a Toyota Certified Used Vehicle. More accurately, when I asked him if it was, he said yes. After I bought the car, during the drive home, I noticed the VSC light lit. Since I'd spent all day trying to pay and get out of there, I hadn't realized I didn't receive any evidence of my certified status, including the warranty. I called the next day and spoke to the Used manager, who said he'd just finished my paperwork and gave me the certification number for my certified warranty. He said the information was being sent to Toyota and my warranty would be mailed to me within 45 days.
Meanwhile, I brought in the car to have the VSC issue fixed today. The service counterfolk said there was no record that this car was a TCUV. I had to have the Used manager call the shop, and even then, the shop guys told me I would need to get my warranty from this guy. They did work on the issue, but they eventually said there were too many issues coming up within the VSC system, and they would need to keep it overnight and get a fresh start on it tomorrow. They ordered me a rental car and sent me home.

I logged in at toyotaownersonline tonight to see if I could find anything relevant. The car's entire service history was there, and the last record before my state inspection the day I bought it was last November, a whole bunch of items, at about 1,500 miles less that when I took possession of it.

That's the exhausting backstory. Here's my question. Since there was no 160-point inspection in the record before I bought the car, is there any reason to believe this car was inspected and properly certified? Obviously, I shouldn't have been given a car with a warning light on, but it seems that's just a symptom of a bigger problem. One of the main reasons I paid what I did was for the peace of mind of the TCUV, but now I suspect the car cannot be guaranteed at all. What did other TCUV owners receive when they left with their cars? And do your online service records show the 160-point inspection prior to your purchase?

I appreciate any help you can offer, before I go nuts on these guys tomorrow, making demands and threatening to reverse the sale and maybe inform law enforcement.

-Imp

 

I did get the warranty but never needed it, other than at first. The VSC issue was fixed the next day, but there was also a problem with the aux battery. At first, they wanted to charge me for the battery, but I simply refused. I was so angry at the entire experience, and they finally covered everything to get the car in the state it should have been in when I first took it. I see I didn't say explicitly in my first post that this was the repair shop connected with the dealer, and I still had such a difficult time.

After leaving them and never looking back, I am happy to report that the car has been giving us years of good service ever since. I never had an issue within the warranty period, but I still believe that the car did not undergo the certified used inspection.

And it probably bears giving up the name, that I had this awful experience at Star Toyota in Bayside, Queens, NY. I found the car I wanted on their website, showed up in person, the salesman couldn't even find the key to show it to me, but I bought it on the assurance that it was a TCUV. I made an appointment to return and pay for it in full on my credit card. When I got there, it took most of a day to wait for it to be ready, during which time, they tried to get me to finance it (as in, had me sit at a desk across from the financing guy who tried to sell me on it), then refused to allow me to put it on my AmEx, even though I'd told the "salesman" this from our first meeting (which required a call to AmEx by me and a conversation between the manager and the credit card company before we could continue). I finally got the car and drove off, then looked in the manual later to discover what the yellow VSC dash light meant, and the rest is chronicled above. What should have been remarkably easy (I found the car by myself and wanted to come over and buy it) became a gigantic, stressful ordeal, over many days, with lots of double-speak, denials, and refusals on their part. Anyway, avoid Star Toyota like the plague. It was the worst retail experience of my life.