Toyota Truck with Lemon Stickers & Giant Sign

[2ArmBands]

Look at the bright side ... At least it's not a Dodge

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by 2ArmBands

Look at the bright side ... At least it's not a Dodge

Very true. I'd rather have a lemon than a turd.

[Calgary14]

Heningers response to that was funny. I'm sure there are two sides to every story but if I was Heninger I would suck up the cost and avoid the negative publicity. I looked at a used vehicle at Heninger and the salesman was pretty slimy. I won't go back

[Table 5]

I haven't looked at a Toyota in ages, but I remember Charlesglen Toyota to be much more pleasant to deal with than Heninger.

[CalgaryFan1988]

Bought a Toyota once about 12 years ago, drove it from the dealer to home, still under 100kms on it, popped the hood and the hood latch came apart. I didn't keep it very long, had a bad lemony feeling about it since that.

[greyshep]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Very true. I'd rather have a lemon than a turd.

Toyota proudly labels some of their trucks TuRD's

[Clarkey]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Not far off, but more like:

-Hey guys, shifting into second feels grindey
-Huh, well, according to the mud on your vehicle, you must have been abusing it
-Really? So the extra six grand I paid for the off road package didn't allow me to drive off road?
-Naw, you must have parked this thing at the bottom of a lake. A new tranny is $9000
-Right. Well since everything from the alternator to the f'n radio has self destructed on this thing in the 1.5 years I've owned it, do you think that maybe the tranny might also be a piece of crap?
-Nope. Beat it.

In unrelated news, in 20 years of driving, I've never killed a tranny. Except on my brand new truck. Amazing.

Suck a nut, Heninger.

This Toyota should totally be able to tow a bmw in park with it's ebrake on around the block without buggering up the tranny.

All in jest

[CalgaryFan1988]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

They rust from the inside out, there should really be a recall on those trucks but the cost to replace the frames would be astronomical.

In the 90's I know Toyota bought back some Tacomas for a recall on frames. I think it was due to rust. It must have cost them a fortune.

[KTrain]

This is what they posted on their Facebook page when someone brought up the truck:

While we can’t yet be certain who the driver of this Tacoma is, we have a strong suspicion it’s a gentleman who came in recently with an off-warranty Tacoma seeking service. This is the response our service manager wrote to him when he sent an ominously threatening email of complaint after his visit:

‘As a franchise of Toyota Canada we are limited to performing warranty repairs by the parameters set forth by Toyota Canada themselves. The warranty parameter set for the concerns you're having with your Tacoma is 3 years or 60,000 kms whichever comes first. That said, Toyota values its customers and has given us some tools to request warranty extensions in certain situations. They do however require the dealer to diagnose the required repairs and submit documentation to them for a decision making process that they have internally. Because the vehicle is out of warranty, the diagnosis is the responsibility of the customer and may or may not be reimbursed as part of the "goodwill" claim. The franchisee, being Heninger Toyota in this case, waits for the decision and notifies the customer once one is made. If Toyota decides to extend the warranty, there is typically some cost splitting between the customer and Toyota. In some cases the dealer may also participate if the customer has been an loyal service customer.

I understand that you are upset but please recognize that the Heninger staff assisting you yesterday were attempting to lead you towards having this repair performed properly and at a minimal cost to you.

If you would like to revisit having the diagnosis performed in order to submit a claim to Toyota Canada, please don't hesitate to contact me.‘

He’s clearly chosen not to accept our invitation to find a solution with us, and decided instead to decorate his truck with an offensive sign. We’ve seen pictures of this vehicle in a few locations around town and are glad to see he’s confident enough in the quality of his truck to be using it for his daily travel.

[Canehdianman]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

In the 90's I know Toyota bought back some Tacomas for a recall on frames. I think it was due to rust. It must have cost them a fortune.

they paid to put new frames on some first gen Tundras as well.

I has a 2005 that had some surface rust but never penetrated into the frame.

that being said I'm still a Toyota man. I think reliability has dropped in the past while (and Hyundai/Kia have really upped their game), but I still find their vehicles to be well made.

[PIMking]

if you're going to buy a truck get a Ford...

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Clarkey

This Toyota should totally be able to tow a bmw in park with it's ebrake on around the block without buggering up the tranny.

All in jest

It was a Honda Accord.

[pylon]

All manufacturers build decent cars now, there is no definitive best or worst anymore. There is so much outsourcing that any manufacturer is subject to a subcontractor botching a design. Look at what happened on VW 1.8T's in the early 2000's. An other words bullet proof engine, was blasted with a Brand wide recall because of an ignition coil problem caused by a supplier. Once the recall was done, the engines were just as reliable as anything out there, but it really hurt VW in reliability ranking for a couple years.

However, reliability and Toyota, is one of those self perpetuating myths. There was a time when Toyota built incredibly reliable cars. Particularly when they were a true Japanese brand. The quality control was phenomenal, but that quality came at a price. It wasn't so much as a monetary one, as it was a content one. They were building such stripped down, old 'proven' tech cars that there was very little to go wrong with them. Now, they are a domestic manufacturer like everyone else... save Lexus. They still pull out all the stops with that brand. But Toyota, has just as many issues as anyone else, and in fact, they have been very sneaky with recalls, and were performing them without customer knowledge on service visits.

Typically when Toyota would send a car to Consumer reports for long term testing, they would send the most stripped down, feature free vehicle in the model range. Meanwhile the euro manufacturers, with technology that was 10 years ahead of the Japanese manufacturers got blasted because they were going into unknown territory with new tech that was at the forefront of innovation, and there was obviously some bugs to work out. But until you put those cars on the road, you will never get a real world chance to see that stuff work day to day. Then once all the kinks are ironed out, then Honda/Toyota would buy the system from Bosch/Siemens and further dumb it down to bullet-proofize it. The Japanese never innovate in cars, they just perfect the innovations the Europeans bring to the table.

The big thing with me and cars has never been reliability. It's durability. Huge difference between the two. Great that your 2001 non-ABS Mazda 3 starts every single day of the year, but at the price of a clipped in tupperware rattly dash, rust on every panel, and highly questionable safety rating. I would rather have a German car, built like a tank, with a completely bolted together interior, that is built out of twice as thick virgin steel, not melted down soup cans and paper clips. There are new looking 15-20 year old rust free, VW/Audi/Benz/BMW's on Calgary's roads, with 2-300 k + that still would qualify as black book clean, and have safety tech in them that is still optional on some domestic and Japanese models. You rarely see that durability with a Japanese car, and if it lasts that long, they are extremely tired, and worn out. But because you had to take your Benz in an average of 0.62 times more per year for a service issue... it is obviously an unreliable POS to the guy that just wants a Toyota Corolla 'Maytag Edition' label on it.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. I always warn people that drive Toyota/Honda product to be careful before they drive any German car nowadays. Because when they do, and once they realize what they have been missing out on all these years, German cars can become a pretty expensive habit.

[Dynamic]

I agree to a point with the above post regarding durability vs reliability. But if your durable well built car isn't reliable what is the point? Sure the thing may be fun to drive but if every interior and exterior light go out every month, your radio and climate control may or may not work, and every electrical glitch known to man occurs then that fun factor isn't so fun.

For the average guy you don't want to be spending your Saturdays troubleshooting annoying electrical glitches and paying more for parts. If I had unlimited time and money I might consider a "durable" but unreliable German machine but I don't have time to fart around on stupid things on my car. That's why I drive honda, proven technology that isn't necessarily innovative but just works.

Maybe one day I will drive a German car to see what the fuss is about but that is at least 17 years away when my youngest moves out.

[Kjesse]

Are there actual reliable figures available for the public-at-large? Are JD Power and Consumer Reports actually accurate?

I think for the average buyer it comes down to what they know based on what they see around them. I tend to prefer German cars but there is one German brand I'd never buy, because I have 3 friends who each bought one new over the last 12 years... a small chassis car, a medium chassis luxury car, and the luxury SUV, and they were so damn awful right from driving them off the lot, and the buyers were treated so bad by the dealer, that I value that brand at about 1/2 to 2/3 their price... it would take a 33-50% price drop to make me think the risk was worthwhile.

I think everyone has a bad story about a new car being a lemon, and it can have long term impact. My family bought only GM cars/trucks for about 18 years, and accepted the declining quality through the late 80's and then got fed up. Once the mid 90's hit, and some of us started buying other products, the rest followed and no one has bought a GM since. I think GM has turned things around but still, when I see them on the road I think "junk".

[Erick Estrada]

It's easy to sell a reliable product when you aren't innovating. Toyota just puts out the same mediocre cars every generation with pretty well the same 4-cylinder and V6 engine designs dating back to the 90's. The Corolla is one of the worst compact cars you can buy but it's a perennial best seller in Canada because of nothing more than the myth of Toyota reliability. The Camry is more competent but it's at best just mediocre in that it's excels at absolutely nothing other than anonymous transportation for people that don't particularly like cars but want A to B transportation. RAV4 is also one of the more mediocre CUV's but they sell like hotcakes despite much better offerings from Honda, Mazda, Subaru, Hyundai. It took a while for GM to crumble but Toyota's day will come when building mediocre cars eventually catches up to them. Honda isn't far behind as well as the Civic is a far cry from the car it used to be where it was perennially the best compact car in the segment.

[btimbit]

German cars are worth it alone just for getting an interior that doesn't feel like it's made from recycled garbage bins. The American cars are getting better at that, but the Japanese... Yikes. It's like they invented a new flimsier type of plastic. Rattles like a children's toys after 10 000kms.

[2ArmBands]

Ultimately when it comes to interiors you get what you pay for. When you mention Civics and Corollas what are you comparing them to? Of course they are somewhat "sub par" Put it up against a Focus or any other economic domestic or VW and it's pretty much the same cut.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by 2ArmBands

Ultimately when it comes to interiors you get what you pay for. When you mention Civics and Corollas what are you comparing them to? Of course they are somewhat "sub par" Put it up against a Focus or any other economic domestic or VW and it's pretty much the same cut.

I find the equivalent vw or ford, to follow your example, to be miles ahead in interior quality even at the same price point

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by pylon

sermon

preach on