why no Roadside Assistance for 2006 model?

Toyota doesn't offer roadside assistance on their other models, they only offered it on the Prius because they wanted to encourage people to try a hybrid.

My guess is they don't believe they need to 'encourage' people anymore (as is evidenced by the never-ending backlog of orders), so they dropped the perk. They are a business, after all.

I seriously doubt the recall problem cost them much over other calls, as very few vehicles were ever affected.

Now I have a minor perk over an '06, which is basically the same car!

 

My first reaction was that they no longer need to convince the buying public that a hybrid car is reliable. I suspect that many potential buyers were wary about the complexity of the Prius.

With huge waiting lists and excellent reviews on reliability this is no longer an issue and not worth the extra expense.

It would be interesting to do a poll on how many have actually used roadside assistance?

 

As I posted on the 2006 pricing (all package and pricing -official for each package)-

http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=12154&st=20

I would assume $$$$$$$$$ is why they took off Roadside Assistance.
Actually the time I had to use it I gave up waiting after 2 hours and was able to drive home (after many restarts).

 

I didn't even realize they gave you 3 years of roadside assistance until the day I came in and picked up the car. Pleasant surprise.

 

Wouldn't they still have to pay for staff and a communication system to be on call? -- the Maytag Repairman comes to mind.

 

It makes plenty of sense. I said the recall problem wouldn't cost them much, but they come out even if you have a flat tire. They come if you are locked out of your vehicle or need a jump start. They come for much more than the recall, which didn't affect all that many vehicles.

 

Sorry to see it go for '06 buyers, however there is a holding cost to hire the company that does the call center monitoring. And the call center isn't AAA. It is some other company, and frankly nobody does it better than AAA.

 

You forget one thing. Roadside assistance also covers running out of gas, punctured tires and other issues that may be unrelated to the reliability of the car.

 

I know of a couple other car companies that offer this for the first 36,000 miles. I'm surprised to see Toyota drop it for '06

 

As long as they're on top, they will take advantage of it. You don't see thousands in rebates either...

 

Good for Toyota... Otherwise said... "Change your own tire stupid!"

I hope it brings down the cost of the car for me... aka, otherwise it would have been another $300 or something.

 

Toyota is evidently reducing costs to maximize profits. I am sure that some folks whose cars shut down unexpectedly due to the software glitch found road assistance useful. I found it very useful once with my 2002 GTI. I don't know if other Toyotas offer road assistance, but at least our 2005 Scion has it.

 

Not true. Just because nobody uses the roadside assistance doesn't mean that they don't have to either employ people or pay a third party to employ people so that they can answer the phone to assist you.

Additionally, there's monthly cost in telephone lines, computers, telephones, data lines, etc. that all go into running a service as such.

Anyway, I would rather contact AAA than the Toyota-sponsored plan.

 

I"ve never in my life would have used it even if I would have had it, I would rather just have tow insurance.. its really cheap anyways..and you can get service immediately or they know you will call someone else!..... that roadside assistance stuff knows they have you in the bag and they don't get in a hurry to take care of you.. in fact you prob get put to the end of thier list on a busy night.

 

I'm not too impressed with the roadside assistance plan they have for the 05 models anyway. Here's my experience:

If you call roadside assitance, they are contracted with certain local tow truck companies. They are obligated to tow you to the nearest dealer. If you go anywhere else, you pay the full cost. To go to the nearest dealer, Toyota will pay up to $100, which in Chicago, doesn't cover the cost of the tow. If the nearest dealer does not have "overnight storage" (whatever that means), the tow company takes your car to their own lot and charges $30/day storage fee. After that they take your car to the dealer. Oh, and the goofy tow company couldn't reach me for at least an hour. Some help.

With my fuel tank mishap (see post last week) I opted to take a free gallon of gas from IDOT. They arrived along with a state police escort within 20 min. I was on my way and forgot the tow company - Toyota's tow service be damned!

 

I"m not into rat races..... It almost like the HMO of auto......

 

it all depends on market and market conditions. Everything they do gives them additional cost.

Now, since most people did not know or care about roadside assitance, they simply took it off. There is no need for it when people regard Toyota as reliable. It is as simple as that.

Now, in different countries, different conditions, so many European countries have Toyota's roadside assitance for example.

Simply put, Toyota does not need to pay for its reliability image, like Hyundai does. Good story that we usually tell around in Toyota Italia's 5 year warranty on new cars. Problem is that nobody that buys Toyota cares about it, since they are buying an Toyota, so it is not an selling point but it costs them money (of course) yet they can not lower it...