Frustrated With Service

I own three Prius Taxi's and have been quite frustrated with Toyota's service from time to time. Right from the beginning 2 years ago they would say "just drop it off in the morning" and I would have to explain that the taxi was a income generating vehicle for me and that there was no need to drop it off until approx 1 hour before they would be working on it. It was a battle to convince them that that little extra service would benefit me and my drivers financially.
My one car was in a serious accident 16 months ago and has had non stop problems since with most of them being electrical.
Two months ago the red triangle light came on and they kept my car for 5 weeks because they could only fire the car up a hour at a time while checking every wire in the car to try to find out why I had a lot of burnt wires and multiplex connectors that were black and not white.
I get the car back and a bill for $1700 which I know was a deal with all the hours they put in on the car over 5 weeks. I thanked them for that but on the other hand they screw you when they charge 3 hours for a wheel bearing that comes on a hub and is changed in 1 hour so I didn't feel too guilty about catching a break for once.
One week later the evil red triangle is on again and the mechanic finds some more cooked wires and replaces them at a cost of about $400. I leave convinced the problems are solved. One week later the evil red triangle light is back on and I take it back. This time he scans the engine and his scanner shows nothing and he says that he will need the car for a day to basically start ripping things apart and trying to solve the problem. Each time the red light came on I could not shut the car off or else it would only go into neutral and would need a fully charged battery to get the car mobile ( I am now Canada's fastest Prius battery changer)
I asked them when I could book the car in and the earliest appointment was in nine days. I explained to them that I could not shut the taxi off and that because this ongoing problem had already cost me around $2500 and they had not solved the problem and that I thought they should get me in quicker. No luck with that so I let the car run for nine days straight (keep in mind the car works around 20 hours a day)
When I was heading over to Toyota to take it in I stopped at a one bay garage where the mechanic had asked me to bring it by so that he could scan it with his scanner. He gets a code that said something about a compressor circuit malfunction. Meanwhile Toyota's scanner was showing nothing. I took this info to Toyota's mechanic (I have learned to bypass the guys at the service counter whenever possible) and he had no answer as to why his scanner would not get the same info. Three hours later they call me and tell me I need a new compressor which apparently cools more than the interior of the car. They said they would know on Monday when the compressor would be here. When I checked Monday they said it would come Wednesday night and they could start Thur or Fri. I reminded them once again that it was a work vehicle and that Thur would be appreciated not to mention the $6000 I will have sunk into the evil red triangle light and they said they would do their best to help- me out. I called today at 11am to get a progress report and they said that the car was still at the rad shop getting the system vac and that they had dropped the car off Wednesday and it wasn't back. This was Toyota's excuse for not starting Thur morning. I went to the rad shop and they said that they had finished the car 1 hour after Toyota dropped it off on Wed. Now I have to go to Toyota to tell them that the car had been done for 24 hours and that they need to pick it up and get at it and get my taxi back on the road. They said well we might not get started until Friday and it might not be done for the weekend depending on if they can get it back to the rad shop in time to charge the system.
Now I am starting to get pissed at the possibility of my Taxi sitting through the valuable weekend business especially after the car sat at the rad shop for 24 hours hen it was ready 23 hours before.
I explained to them and they already know that all I really wanted to know early in the week is if there would be a possibility of my car not being done for the weekend. Had they communicated to me that the car might not be done I would have went to the great headache of firing up my back up taxi on Tuesday and switching all the equipment and doing a safety on the car and having a vehicle generating income this weekend. When I talk to them at Toyota about the importance of me being informed so that I can decide what to do they look at me with a don't give a shit look on their face and zero concern for my income.
By the time I left I think I had them convinced to start tonight so that the car might be done for the weekend but who knows they may have just been saying that to keep me happy.
The fact that they really don't seem to appreciate the difference between a customer that drops their car off and goes to work and make an income and a customer like me who drops the car off and makes no income is a great source of frustration. Not to mention I spend a lot of money there compared to most people.
The fact that this is an ongoing problem over almost 3 months and the fact they made me wait 9 days with the car running and the approx $6000 I will have spent has me quite pissed at the lack of effort to get the car on the road asap once the compressor arrived.
I guess when you are king of the hill you can treat people the way you want.
Spent one hour at Honda talking to them about if I switch to Honda hybrids would they express me through if my cars need work. They said they do that for their customers that have fleets of cars for their work and they would do so for me. I guess they understand that a customer who buys 3 new cars from them every 4 years is a good customer to keep happy. Will do a lot of homework on the Honda's and talk to taxi owners that drive them before I ever make a switch. My wish is for Toyota to change it's stripes and respect the money I spend there each year and allow me to stay with toyota 2 years from now when my Taxi's have 600,000 km.

 

Unfortunately the closest dealership other than the local one is 45 min away and being in a business where time is money it is a valuable hour and a half of extra time spent and if you have to return the next day to pick the car up it is even more valuable time wasted.
I am sure after we butt heads a few more times they might catch on.

 

That is exactly it ballenj. I don't understand when they can't be more flexible for those of us that need the car for work.
What I do appreciate is I get my parts for 10% over Toyota's cost which keeps me from buying from parts suppliers where you really don't know about the quality of parts you are buying. They do a lot of things right but their lack of caring for those of us that need the car for generating income and lack of understanding that time is money for me is very frustrating.

 

Grumpycabbie---------------- I have voiced my displeasure with the service department to the service manager a couple times but have yet to sit down and have a long talk with him to explain my point of view. I shouldn't have to as it is quite easy for anyone with half a brain to realize the difference between me and Joe Smith who still goes to work and earns a living when his car is broke down.
You are right about the good advertising we do for Toyota. I do 20 to 40 trips a day and 70% of the people want to know my opinion on the hybrid and trust me I do a wicked sales job for Toyota. I tried in vain to explain that to the salesman that I was trying to purchase my last Prius from. I let him know that word of mouth was the best advertising and that I would be not only recommending Toyota but I would be directing the people to him. End result with my first two Prius was I went 5 hours out of town and save $2500. Too bad for the local guys.

John Dough --- My experience using the Prius as a taxi has been great other than the service people. When I first put the Prius on I had two taxi's and my fuel bill was over $33,000 a year. When I add up the fuel for two of my Prius it is around $13,000 a year. I put 150,000 km a year on each taxi so it doesn't take long to cut the fuel bill by a lot. The nice thing about the Prius is no matter how hard the drivers drive my taxi it does not affect the fuel bill as much as when they drove the 25 mile to the gallon cars hard. It affects the bill but not as much.

Went out to Toyota this morning and the hybrid mechanic told me that the kept him busy the last couple days doing "other" jobs and he said he wasn't 100% sure if the car would be ready by closing time today. If it isn't and I lose a whole weekends income when they had the part there on Wed night that will be the final straw and when I pick up a new taxi plate late this summer I will be buying a Honda hybrid to check them out and see if their service people treat me and more importantly my employees better. If they do and they have already promised me they will I will replace the other 3 taxi's in a couple years with Honda's. Even if the Prius is more reliable I will come out way ahead by putting the Honda on and not losing 3 or 4 weeks downtime each year over a few problems because of an uncaring service department.

 

BAllan-- You probably saw the picture they took when we had about 8 Prius Taxi's for the local paper. We are now up to around 15 or so out of 85 cars on the fleet.
I didn't take a few of the other taxi owners long to catch on once they realized the fuel savings alone each month would be more than a car payment.

Toyota managed to get the car fixed by 4:30 tonight so it is on the road for the weekend business. The hybrid mechanic went to bat for me to make sure he was given time to get the car done. He was as pissed about the car possibly not being ready for the weekend as I was and made sure it was ready. Good to see someone there gives a shit about my drivers making an income this weekend.

 

Patrick----- you are right about which car it is. The car would drain even when it was running. They changed the compressor yesterday and it seemed to be ok last night but sometimes it would take a week of 400km+ driving before the light would come back on so I won't get to excited about their diagnosis just yet.
Thankfully I get the parts at 10% over cost. That got me the compressor for around $2000 instead of around $2800.
I haven't seen the bill with labor yet but am assuming it will be $2700 or higher. That is why i was so pissed is the fact that I already had $2500 into this problem and was about to spend another $2700 and they were making no extra effort to get my car on the road for the weekend to help me and my drivers generate some income.
The sad part is Toyota's scanner was showing nothing and it was a mechanic at a 1 bay garage that scanned it and pointed to the compressor as a possible cause.
Oh well time to go to work this morning and keep my fingers crossed that the evil red triangle does not show up.