You can't please some people. I do find it hard to believe Toyota of all companies was not able to fix the issue. Can't blame the average Toyota dealer for now knowing what to do the car is a unicorn basically.

 

Alright everyone, here is the story. It's pretty long, but I'm going to only give a summery:

He bought the car last year, and it had an issue that made it undriveable. He brought the car in to be repaired, and long story short, Toyota had the car for two months before it finally got repaired. In the meantime, they gave him a rental, BUT, only covered the cost of the rental of a month. Since they had the car for two months, he asked them to cover two months car payments and the all two months rental cost. They agreed to cover the rental, but not the two months car payments. He took his request all the way to the top, and was denied the two months car payments. He kept calling the General Manager who at first wouldn't return his calls, than finally when he reached him, the GM told him not to call anymore and hung up him, which was the last straw.

So apparently this guy (let's call him Murai guy) was pissed off, so in his words, it became a "matter of principle". So he had what you guys see, custom decals made for his car (he said he paid $1400 to get it done). He parked the car outside of the Toyota dealership, and they tried to have it removed, but it's public parking so they couldn't. After months of parking in front of the dealership, someone eventually way high up in Toyota called him, but he ignored his calls for weeks "just like they ignored mine". They offered to pay one months car payment, his demand was the same, except he now demanded they pay fhe $1400 for the custom decals. At this point, they said they will pay his two months payments, but still won't pay for the decals, and I don't think he's budging LOL!

Anyway I think it's all silly myself, but he's a retired wealthy businessman who has a ton of time on his hands . BTW, he loves the car, and the two months in the shop wasn't a big deal for him. He said even the money wasn't a big deal, it was nobody returning his calls and them being hung up on by the GM that was his pet peeve

 

LOL!!!

That was a great read. The GM even increasing his offer to a car payment, then increasing to the two payments, but since he had decals made, he demanded they pay for them. That is damn funny!

Good to know it wasn't the technical aspects of the car that were the problem.

 

I can get behind his principle now that I have the whole story but still wouldn’t have spent $1,400 on decals. I also wouldn’t expect them to cover the cost of the decals, that’s going overboard so I would’ve figured something else out.

What the dealer should have done is given him a loaner for two months of equal value. I would expect luxury car dealers would do that.

 

Okee Dokee lol

Sounds like the opposite of cool.

 

No, something just failed, and it was most likely waiting for the part to come in that had the car in the shop for two months. I guess the lesson here is, don't mess with a retired Indian guy who has a ton of time on his hands and will fight to the last penny

 

That is super stingy by Toyota pay the man for his trouble.

 

Well, some people will take "principle" to the next level. For him, getting the word out and being an extreme irritant was worth the $1400. He said he gets people approaching him all the time which lets him spread the word. He told me he was going to drive it from SoCal to the Golden Gate bridge and park it somewhere on the bridge for an hour, even if he got a ticket. I don't think he really cares about the $1400, nor did he expect to recoup it from Toyota

 

When my Polestar was in the shop for 6 weeks waiting for a new Battery disconnect Unit to come in, they didn't hesitate to pay one months lease payment when I requested it. I think if the GM had just taken his calls, talked to him politely and explained to him that it was not Toyota's policy to reimburse car payments, he probably would have dropped the whole thing

 

I've heard many stories of Toyota doing this type of thing, they act like insurance companies do everything in their power to pay out as little as possible.

 

The easy and obvious way to get the attention of the GM and by extension Toyota would have been to imitate a lemon buyback. 30 days out of service in California (and it can even be cumulative, it doesn’t need to be consecutive) can be sufficient to qualify for a lemon law presumption. There are some things that can stop the clock but the unavailability of parts generally isn’t one of them. Why didn’t he do that?

 

I didn't ask him that, but from my limited conversation with him, I take it that he absolutely loves the car and didn't/doesn't want to return it but was just looking for retribution for being treated poorly. Just guessing

 

Well yes, but you can bet your bottom dollar that neither the dealer nor Toyota wants the car lemoned - full reimbursement of every penny paid plus lemon title on the car - and faced with that or the alternative of settling his demands, the latter looks a whole lot more palatable than the former.

He may not have wanted to return the car, but he had a lot of leverage because the car most likely was a stone cold lemon and he was holding the best cards in the poker game.

 

Some people are short sighted. And stubbornness can also get in the way... unfortunately

 

If he is what he told you he is, he should have reacted differently. IMO he's a jerk/POS or his life is miserable.