Frustrated With Service

Grumpy---- The trunk space is limited with the Civic. The insight is about the same but does have back seats that fold down. We are in a city that has over 20,000 students between the University a college and a Military school. Trunk space is important when running students to the train and airport.

BAllen--- I like the two hybrid mechanics they have. I know the guy you mean his name is Airhart. The other guy is the one who works on mine and his name is Bob. They are both good guys but are at the mercy of the service manager.

With 15 taxi's on our fleet that are hybrid and the other two companies are starting to get a few it would be wise for the owner of our company to send one of his mechanics for hybrid training so that we are not at the mercy of Toyota that has to service so many cars.

 

MDT1963---- I know what you mean and I know it has to do with the tech not making out well on the time, but the techs make out well 90% of the time so I have little sympathy for them when they don't. As far as being patient I had the car in 3 or 4 times and spent over $2500 on the red triangle light coming on and when it still came back on they made me wait 9 days to bring the car in when they knew I could not shut it off or else the car would not be mobile and they new I would have to leave the car running for 9 days without shutting it off. Now that pushed my patience to the limit pulling that crap on me after the tech had failed to solve my problem on 3 previous attempts and I had invested $2500 and lost thousands in down time.

Honda was always very good to me with my old taxi's when repairs were needed. They always got me back on the road asap understanding that my drivers needed the car to make a living. As much as I don't like the idea of switching from the Prius to a Honda I will have to because the downtime is a killer financially.

 

Paprius--- I tried my best to buy my 3 prius from the local Toyota people but they would not budge much on the price so I went out of market and saved $2300 when I bought my first two Prius.
The worst part is I explained to them that a I do 20 to 30 trips a day and that 70% of the customers ask me about the Prius and I do such a great sales job that the President of Toyota Canada was very impressed and they still don't budge much. The President of Toyota was in my taxi on the way to the airport and asked me how I liked the Prius and of course he didn't tell me who he was. (they were in town to release the 2010 Prius, They pick a different city each year)
I went through my usual excellent sales job for Toyota and he said he was very impressed but still didn't tell me who he was. A week later my brother see's a story in the Durham paper where they interviewed the President and he mentioned about the great review a taxi' driver had given him when they were in my city for the 2010 release.
I explained to them that most people have 20-30 different people a year in their car and I have 30 a day. I guess they don't believe in the power of word of mouth advertising.

 

Grumpy----If it come down to it I will have to write a few letters. Having a little better luck the last couple days by avoiding the guys on the counter and talking directly to the techs. One of them realizes the bs I have been through with this current 3 month long and very expensive problem and told me when I call to have them put me direct through to him so that I can avoid the people on the service desk. Actually a couple of them are ok but one especially gets under my skin with his attitude. A couple of them would like to be of more help but can't override the service manager.

 

Grumpy-- The problem is every time the Red light comes on I can't shut the car off or else it only goes into neutral when you power it up. The only solution when that happens is to put a freshly charged battery in the car. Last night when I shut the car off and it would only go into neutral I switched battery's and it only took 1/2 hour of trickle charge to top up the battery that I took out so it doesn't take much of a drop in the battery to cause me problems.

Putting my back up taxi on today and letting the tech check every wire in the inverter. Every other wire in the taxi has been checked so I hope the mechanic is right this time

 

Grumpy-- My current back up taxi is a 1999 Honda and the Taxi commissioner lets the fact that it is over 10 years old go because it is a back up and only used hopefully for less than a month a year. I put the back up on when I know one of my cars will be down for more than a few days.
I am sure in a year or so he will say no to the Honda because of it's age. at that time I might take the problem Prius off of the road and make it a high priced back up taxi.

i am planning on growing my fleet to 5 cars eventually and a quality back up car will be handy.

I am to call someone from the insurance company tomorrow to talk about getting reimbursed for some of these repairs. Need the mechanic to go to bat for me.