Safety Connect Fiasco

Wow, interesting. The first wave of 3 year expiration for 2017 Advanced trim must have passed by now, but this is the first time I read about problem renewing the service. I hope this is not the new marketing ploy.

I did not have Advanced trim on my previous 2017 PRIME. And for recently purchased 2020 PRIME LE, I opted out of the Safety Connect service.

 

I renewed with no problems. I'm still using the Toyota Entune app that I originally loaded on my Android. At some point (don't remember if it was before or after renewing) I had to download the Toyota app, but it doesn't seem to be needed .

 

I went through the renewal process last month (although my 3-year term was not expiring until August) and although it was a time-consuming process on the phone, it seemed to be successful.

For some reason, they could not just renew the contract but had to write a new contract with a new contract number. At least, they were able to extend through the August anniversary of the original contract.

In the process, my Eco-Dashboard sheep went away and then re-appeared without their history. My "gold" status was reset to "bronze" and my statistics for the month of June were reset. (Hence, although we drove nearly 400 miles in June, the first 160 were "lost" and the BearMobile did not make it into the top 100 list for the month. )

For a process which should be able to be done online (extend my service, here is my credit card number), this was a really clunky process which took a lot of telephone time and transfers between Toyota customer service reps to complete.

 

I was specifically instructed by the Toyota customer service rep to make a test call from the SOS Safety Connect button -- which I did while later that afternoon while sitting the parking lot of a shopping center several miles from my home. The Safety Connect call center answered promptly and accurately identified my location.

Not sure what caused your problem. Assuming that your renewal was like mine, you probably got an entire new contract and account number. I'd be suspicious that your VIN or whatever ID Toyota uses to identify your Safety Connect radio did not get copied correctly to your new contract. It seems unlikely that Toyota could remotely damage the hardware or firmware in your Prime -- but if they got your information wrong, it may be that your new contract was never set up to recognize for your specific vehicle.

 

i've received numerous mailings about renewing safety connect...so i sent it in JUNE21,2020 for my 2017 Prime advanced...Still getting alerts about expiration and there is no transaction on the cc that was attached to it...i paid for the year...Now its July 15 and we are still screwing around with it...it expires in 5 days...One would think that a renewal process would be seemless and without complication...but to almost take a month?...Really?...It's totally unacceptable in this day and age...even after getting off phone with them, they never had my car in their system...thats funny, entunes/safety connect been working for 3 years now...so that excuse won't fly...totally incompetent!!

 

Yeah, I don't trust incompetent system to track my vehicle. I did not have the Safety Connect on my previous 2017 PRIME Premium, but starting 2020 model year all PRIME trims comes with the Safety Connect standard. When I got my 2020 PRIME LE, the first thing I did was disconnecting the Safety Connect service by opting out. I managed to accomplish this task all on-line, though the information given by Toyota was not very convoluted. After visiting several Toyota pages, I was able to send the "opt-out" change on my subscription. After this, the light on the SOS switch went OFF which was on when I purchased the car first. Now, I don't have to be bothered with it ever again. Done.