Complete rip off by Toyota dealership on my 2020 Prius plug-in hybrid

They do it because they can until you stop them. The dealership priced themselves out of customer on my 2009 Prius. I was referred to a local San Diego hybrid mechanic who is fair and honest, who can be trusted. I NEVER went back to get any service at the dealer.
A few highlights. I took her in a for an oil change at the "30 minute line" 2 1/2 hours later they lost my car. I saw it parked out by the car wash, no work done. Another time I left it overnight. When I picked it up, my doors wouldn't open, they'd left it running overnight 24 hours. A week later my 12 volt battery was dead. Good times

 

Simple. Service advisors are commissioned salesmen just like the new and used car salesmen. Most have no mechanic experience but are trained how to sell services that are “optional”.

They do it to make money and keep their jobs. They know there are plenty of fish in the sea which means they “might” lose you but three others take your place. Often owners come back for more.

The smart thing to do is find a good independent hybrid shop and use them even if it means a drive. You need to know the Toyota requirements for keeping your powertrain and hybrid warranties but those services can be done elsewhere.

Obviously if you have a needed covered warranty repair, you go back to the dealer. Again you need to know what those items could be. For example your hv battery is covered for 10 years 150,000 miles.

We have seen clueless owners have a shop replace inverters on earlier gen3s when Toyota is still covering them.


How much are the “options”?

 

Those invoice pics are priceless; they more’n likely boiler-plate them. Heck, it’s epic lol.

IIRC for 30k Toyota USA says:

Oil/filter change
Tire rotation
Brake inspection (the more in-depth one)

Done properly, a fair price for that last one would be $300~400. But yeah, I wouldn’t trust them to do squat; they’re in the same mindset as quick lube places now. Which is sad.

FWIW: Toyota Canada now recommends brake fluid change every 30k. You can stretch that, say double at most. Around $100~150 USD would be fair.

 

It all boils down to:

"Do these specific things to my car. <list>"

vs.

"uh, what do you recommend given the current odometer reading?"

You need to be able to read the maintenance guide and select your services before you even make the appointment, otherwise they'll sell you everything twice.

Sorry you had to find out the hard way.

 

Here's a summary of the Toyota USA 4th gen schedule, in Excel spreadsheet format:

 

on another forum, a guys wife took her 2023 car in at 15k for the recommende service, and an hour later a guy walks out with an old rusty rotor and tells her all her brakes need replacing

 

This is a dealership? I guess it's accepted, that toyota doesn't care about this nonsense; it's so prevalent.

 

did you buy the car from them?

 

When I go to the dealer, in their parking lot, before turning the car off, I take a video of the dash showing there is nothing wrong (beside why I'm going there). That's because of the following:

I had brought my Mazda 6 in for a recall at Elite Mazda and when I took the car back, the TCS light was on. The work order said it was already on when they brought the car in the garage. That was a lie to try to cover up what they thought was their messing up. Little did they know that when the battery is disconnected (which they had to do for the recall), the TCS light turns on for the next few kilometers then turns off by itself. When confronted, they apologized and offered me a free oil change. I never went there again and I mention this whenever the subject of good/poor service comes up.

 

There are lots of stories here at priuschat about Dealerships. There might even be some around with high marks on customer, mechanical and or maintenance services. But if there are the good ones will be harder to find and even harder to remember. It's not just Toyota Dealerships either. It's also not just service writers. It's systemic from the top down through the chain of command pretty much everywhere, not just dealers. There's a lot of Livin and Learnin to be done these days and it's hard to keep up with everything on our own. Don't beat yourself up too much, most of us have been in your shoes at least once or twice before even if some of us don't like to admit it publicly.

If you are responsible for other family vehicles besides the daily driver, the stories start to pile up fast.

 

Like a time capsule of customer service. I wish that still worked in the U.S.A.