On Aug 7, 2006, at 9:56 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: > My previous two Toyotas were excellent on maintenance ... I had the > MR2 for 17-18 years and it rarely needed anything other than standard > maintenance: one of the least expensive, lowest maintenance cars to > run of any that I've owned since 1970. There are always exceptions to > these sorts of things and some dealers are better than others, of > course. I hope for more of the same quality that I've enjoyed with > Toyota in the past.
I had owned Toyotas since the 60s, Land Cruisers and Celicas. Then in the 80s I bought a Tercel as a commuter car for my wife. It wore out the factory front tires in under 3,000 miles, uneven wear on the inner sides. I had taken it back several times during that period, and told each time nothing was wrong with the car. The dealer replaced the tires for free, bitching the whole time that they were not a tire dealer and the warranty really didn't apply to tires. The second set of front tires wore out as fast as the first, but the dealer still kept maintaining there was nothing wrong with the car. I knew otherwise, and began writing directly to Toyota USA. Basically they stonewalled, just like the dealer, and nobody was ever willing to admit there was anything wrong with the car. After replacing the first set of tires the dealer said I was on my own with regard to tires. I bought a good set of Michelins and had the Michelin dealer check out the car's front end. It was way out of alignment. They aligned it and installed the tires. That helped, but still we only got 10,000 miles on those tires. The tire dealer said they could align it, but it apparently simply would not hold alignment more than a few thousand miles. That's when I traded it in on a Ford Escort, which held up remarkably well and didn't eat tires. What turned me off to Toyota was their basic shrug of the shoulders attitude and their unwillingness to admit something was wrong. The dealer kept accusing me of running with the tires under- inflated, but that was not the case. I went from being a loyal Toyota owner and booster to someone who wouldn't touch anything with their name on it. Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
