Filing a complaint with Corporate Toyota?

I had a hell of a time getting my truck and went through several dealers all varying levels of sleazy/unethical. There is very little consistency between dealers at least in my area and I'm not sure how much control Toyota really has over it or if they even care. Its just how the car business is. To be fair plenty of the customers are trash too (myself included)

 

I don't think I was a pain in the ass customer. I knew what I wanted. I ordered exactly that, we hashed out a deal on price and just waited. All I asked for was a little communication at least every other week for an update. I didn't flip out or get angry when delivery dates changed. I didn't get angry until I found out it was sold and the dealership was just making me run in circles.

 

Man that sucks, I'd move onto another dealer.

My dealership and salesman protected my truck when it came in. He grabbed the keys as soon as it was prepped. When I went to pick it up, he said the other salesmen were begging him for the keys. They said they just wanted to "show" their customers.

He told them to kick bricks and leave him alone because no one was going near the truck. He even parked it in a "hidden" spot on the dealership, so no one would see it because at the time they were flying off the lot.

 

I got my truck from Carson Toyota.. I was dealing with Dianne the Internet sales director and I had a pretty good experience. Ordered the truck in October and got it in early December. Truck was there sitting in there parking structure for a couple of days cause I wasn't able to make it there when it came due to work. Also I didn't not pay over mrsp. Sounds like your sales person really screwed you over. Sorry about that man.

 

I wish you all the best. Hope they are forced to make it right wih you. If not then never do business with that dealership, what a scum bag dealership.

 

Updated my first post again for anyone interested.

 

Love it. I hope you burned them up with other reviews as well. They deserve every bit of this.

 

Yeah holy cow. Honestly their response just lends to the validity of your yelp review and discredits their own testimony. Sheesh. What an awful dealer.

So did you refuse to put down a deposit, though? That seems like a silly excuse honestly. At my dealership, the deposit was refundable if I decided not to buy but would be lost if I made no attempt to take delivery within a certain time frame. I had to sign a memo stating as much. I got to choose how much to give them, as little as $50. I chose to put $200 because I could apply it to my first payment or balance upon finalization of purchase and thought it would be nice to soften the blow of the first note up front. Nobody set a specific amount or even seemed to care so long as they got something along with the signed memo to show they already had a buyer officially lined up. Should everything go as expected.

Either way, you had a verbal agreement and they didn't even make a respectable effort to follow through, so I say fuggem. That's not the type of person you want to do business with under any circumstances.

 

Did you actually order the truck (i.e. had one built for you to your exact specifications) or did you want one that was already built and in transit?
Did you actually put down the deposit?

Or is the business manager lying on yelp? If so, that makes them even worse. And either way that was a childish response from a business.

 

Toyota advertised the hell out of the Tacoma creating a market for the truck in addition to the already rabid owner base. They did their job WELL....and that is why people are paying MSRP and thousands over!

Toyota does not have as much control over dealers as we would like to believe. No manufacturer does. They sell the vehicles to the region owners and/or franchise dealers who then can sell the vehicle for $5000 over MSRP or $5000 under MSRP.......(no one complains about the latter)

The Market controls pricing. As long as there are people who will pay OVer MSRP and are payment buyers (and there are those who do and will ("What's another $30 a month for seven years?") People will have to pay the going price. If EVERYONE decided MSRP was too high everyone would get discounts.

Seems California has a large well paid population who have no issue paying MSRP or over and until supply exceeds demand, I personally would not have purchased a new Tacoma if I lived out there. M y dealer has an addendum sticker ($1295 mop and glo) for those who don't know any better, They know me and know I am an Invoice buyer. If they did not discount my truck, someone else would be driving it today.

So yeah dealers are charging high prices for Tacomas ONLY because people are PAYING those prices. That is not illegal or unethical. Buyers ALWAYS determine prices.

I have to wonder if the OP put a deposit down and got a specific VIN number like those of us who ordered a specific truck. I did not see where he did in his OP. If not, there is no reason a dealer should keep a vehicle in inventory especially if they get a buyer at $5000 over MSRP.....Buyers are the problem, not dealers.

Most of us who ordered received paperwork with our trucks real or holding VIN and Deposit amount of $500.

 

As sleazy as the dealer sounds, it's seems to me a $200 fully refundable deposit could have solved all these problems. Gotta ask, why didn't you just put up the deposit when you placed the order?

 

Why don't you guys actually read OP's post instead of coming in assuming he didn't make a deposit. It's in the first paragraph of the first post. As if he'd be complaining if he hadn't put a deposit down.

 

Sounds to me like he did not put a deposit down and get any paperwork with it. Everything seemed to be based on a verbal "contract" which is not a contract at all. Those of us who ordered with a deposit received paperwork describing the truck and deposit. If he did put a deposit down he should also upload the initial paperwork he would have obtained from the dealer like those who put deposits down.

OF course when the truck came in and a buyer offered $5000 over MSRP without any paperwork, VIN number or deposit. Did any of you who put a deposit down do so without any paperwork? Yeah the dealer should have called him but I don't know many dealers who would take the $5000 over on a truck that has a deposit and VIN number.

 

Read his post. He put a deposit down.

 

And it's not an oral contract once you put a deposit down. OP's problem is not that he didn't have a carefully worded written contract, but that the dealership knew he couldn't really do anything about it because he wouldn't have the requisite damages to make it worth whole to sue them. Little did they know he'd hit them on their reputation online.

 

I cannot imagine giving a dealership actual cash and not getting any paperwork with the price and options of the truck ordered. .That is all I am saying. Without a contract there is no obligation. Maybe I am alone on this but I received the order paperwork along with a receipt and exact configuration of the ordered Vehicle

THEN he turns around and ordered another truck from the same dealer????? Does not make sense to me.

 

So he says..I am having trouble believing that. I'm allowed to have that opinion.
I did not read that in his initial review.....He did not mention a deposit he gave to the dealer which would really make the review bad for the dealer. ....

Here is his review....No mention of a deposit. Anyone who laid money down on a truck that was sold out from under them certainly would indicate he placed a $XXX deposit on the truck? No? Why leave that pertinent information out?

Here is his review and response.

 

I'm just curious about this situation. If it was a verbal agreement to buy a truck that was already in transit, that is very different than an ordered truck with a deposit put down. The dealer has a completely different story, though after reading the business manager responses to other dissatisfied potential buyers (which there was no shortage of on yelp), he sounds like a sleazy dealer

 

Sounds like you ought to work for this dealership, because like them, you're calling OP a liar.

 

You're giving a lot of credit to the dealer and you know nothing about what really transpired. The dealer got accused of making up details in another recent yelp response as well.

You also don't know that he bought a truck from the same dealer, and the response on yelp from them about "if you ever want to do business" would lead me to believe that he didn't.

Why are you breaking balls about this? Michael M. is that you? Oh no, you're just trying to get to the bottom of this wild mystery, huh Shaggy?