Prius Deliver Drama

As a lurker, you must realize that you're not the only person with a dealer tale of woe. Many have had experiences with donkey salespeople and gone on to other dealerships to buy a Prius. The car is worth the trouble. If you are set on giving up on Toyota, check into the Honda hybrids. Anything is better than a "gas guzzler." Good luck. I waited 7 months for my Prius... consider yourself lucky and try another dealership.

 

Unfortunately you've learned something about Toyota today.

The Car=Good

The Dealers=Not so good

 

Don't give up on Toyota or the Prius just because the wrong car came in. Here in the U.S., dealers have relatively little control over which packages/colors come in. The dealer could not very well sell you the higher package at the price of the lower, though he certainly should have told you which car was in, and the price, before telling you to come in for it.

There must be other Toyota dealers in a city the size of Brisbane. Check them out. Check out dealers in outlying areas. The Prius is worth the wait. And good luck to you.

P.S. I'm going to be in Brisbane for a day. I wanted to do the tiger walk at Brisbane zoo, but by the time I made up my mind, the one day I'll be there was already booked. Sigh!

 

You definitly should get ahold of Toyota's management in Austrailia. Not the dealership but the corporate oversight office which handles the dealers. This late in the year, you aren't going to find any 05s left. They have pretty much all been shipped. The dealer you have been working with is not worthy of having your business and you should find another dealer who is. But Toyota needs to know what these folks are doing and how they are doing it. Frankly, your national corporate office doesn't like to loose sales to slimey sales tactics. I bet if you complain things will come up roses and you will get a Prius.

 

That's a bit over simplied view of Toyota dealers. My impending Prius purchase is my second dealing with Toyota. I rank my dealer 'good'.
I have dealt with a lot of car dealers (domestic and foreign) over the years. I would
suspect that Toyota is on par; that is, dealers over all:

10% = very good
20% = good
40% = average
20% = bad
10% = whoa, just drive on by!

But even in the very good catagory, dealers are still going to try and make a buck, by the usual end-game financing and add-on tactics. They are just more upfront and nicer about it.

 

The guy we bought from was very nice, it was my second purchase from him. However, watching some other dealers working with customers made me glad I worked with the one I dealt with.

 

We've done a dealer poll showing about 88% "satisfied or above". Yours made an inexcusable mistake in communication.

I second what jeromep said. You may get satisfaction yet.

 

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, because, as SW says, Toyota dealers generally are "not so good."

When I was shopping for my previous car, in 1988, I had narrowed it down to Toyota or Honda. I also included one American-made car, to be fair, but that car was clearly not as good. In the end, the choice came down to dealerships, because between the Corolla (not sure, I think it was the Corolla) and the Civic, the cars seemed equal. The Toyota dealer lied to me, telling me the Civic was carburated, when I knew it was fuel-injected, told me flat-out I could not pick the options package I wanted because every car was sold before it hit the lot (sound familiar?) and if I didn't buy it someone else would, and generally acted as though he'd be doing me a favor if he sold me a car. He also told me that Consumer Reports lied about American-made cars because they wanted to ruin the U.S. car industry. (He sold Buicks, or something, as well as Toyotas.) This dealer also had a very poor reputation for service, never completing work on time and promising, but not delivering, courtesy rides at specific times.

The Honda dealer was 100% honest and above-board with me, went the extra mile to get me exactly the car I wanted (he traded with another dealer to get my color) and acted as though I was the most important person in the world. After the sale, they gave me a loaner even if all I had done was an oil change, and the work was ALWAYS done BEFORE the promised time.

Honda's policy is to require their dealers to treat the customers well. It's a decision made at the very top level of the corporation.

Toyota's policy is to give their dealers a free rein to sell their cars however they darn well please.

Nothing less spectacular than the '04 Prius would have lured me away from Honda! And I still wish it had been Honda that had developed the Prius, or that the HCH had been designed with a similar technology.