Toyota Doesn't Honor Battery Warranty

You had better do some research on the following...'

"California Emission Control Coverage: In California and any other state that adopts California emission warranty provisions, defect and performance
warranty is 15 years/150,000 miles. The Hybrid Vehicle Battery is warranted for 10 years/150,000 miles."

I would think that is your out!!!

Good Luck, let us know how you make out!!!

 

Not sure on US consumer law, but the fact that they replaced the battery under warranty means that they should have checked the warranty was valid before they did the work?

If they messed up then too bad eh?

Unless the car has had the mileage clocked back I wouldn't have thought they'd have a hope in trying to claim the cost back from the customer.

 

Allan - Sorry to hear of your plight - sounds like you are between a rock and a hard place. Just a couple of thoughts.

First off you might want to rethink the internet call-in drive. If the manager gets a call or two it might help, but if he gets inundated with calls he would likely get very PO'd.

I think that your letter is a good start, but you may want to go back and re-work it - read your warranty and any other info on it and then go back to your letter and edit it so it contains the correct language - if you wind up in court next month a loosely worded or two could be the difference. Also take this time to get all of your records together and a detailed narrative linking them together.

You say that a lawyer is not in the budget, but I'd recommend that you meet with a couple. Typically the initial consultation is free and they will at least give you an idea if they think you have legal grounds to fight. You can also call law schools in the area and see if any run a legal clinic that could help - most schools have one or two where students work under the guidance of a professor. Clinics typically focus on a specific area (such as real estate transactions) but give it a try and someone might be able to help.

 

Allan, while I understand your plight, attacking the dealership is not the way to go about this. Toyota is responsible for the warranty claim, not the dealership. You should escalate your claim to the Toyota regional service manager. As we don't have all the details - date of purchase, service history, etc. - you should get all your records and facts together and make your case with Toyota. The dealership would honor the warranty IF Toyota reimbursed them. Dealerships are not responsible to pay for Toyota manufacturer warranty claims out of their pockets. The only fault I can see from what you provided is that Downtown Toyota didn't recognize your battery problem while it was covered under warranty, and therefore didn't escalate the issue with Toyota.

 

Is this the 1st or 2nd Gen Prius ?
I know that the 2G Prius has a 150k/10year traction battery warranty in CA, but I am not sure about the G1.

I think it is clear that the dealership strung the customer out until the warranty elapsed. I suggest writing to Toyota regional corporate rather than this call-in approach. Older threads have posted useful contact information.

It sounds like the dealership gave the customer a bill, and that the bill has remained unpaid. This is a bad way to go about things. Better would have been pay the bill with a credit card, and then dispute payment. The dealership is probably going to argue that the customer approved repair, and I'm willing to bet that small print says the customer is liabile (sp?) for charges not covered by warranty.

In a credit card dispute, the customer can simply argue that the dealership is billing the wrong person and reason might prevail. In a court case the small print is likely to prevail, and the litigant directed to seek compensation from Toyota. I am not a lawyer, this is only my opinion.

I do not think OP is going to win his case in court. If possible, try to dial this back to paying by credit card, and then disputing the charge. At the same time, write Toyota Regional with the facts only.

 

Is this case going to Small Claims Court? If so, you should be OK without a lawyer. Even if the dealership brings a lawyer, the rules of evidence should be more relaxed in Small Claims Court. But you will want to make sure to follow the rules that cover your jurisdiction, and also understand that I'm not a lawyer and I'm not giving legal advice, just relating my experiences.

You make several claims in your OP, and getting documentation, especially from the National Toyota Customer Service Rep who reviewed your case, is very important. You, or your lawyer, may even have to subpoena some people and/or documents such as your case file with Toyota, which is a bit of cost but not a big problem. It wouldn't hurt if you could find a Prius expert there in California to testify in your case too. Here is a link to a thread with some mentioned: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...ooting/36582-independent-prius-mechanics.html. If you can't prepare your case by 1/12 you can also ask for a continuance, although most likely there will be an attempt at arbitration required by the court. You will also need to inform the court about the threat you stated from the dealership to sell your car and ask for an injunction against that. I would think the court would even allow you to keep the car during the case. If you have to rent a car and win the case, you might be entitled to then sue the dealership for those costs, but obviously it is best to avoid problems.

I would also think that possibly the dealership should be suing Toyota and not you, since it appears that Toyota possibly isn't honoring their warranty. The other possibility is that Toyota already paid it, and the dealership is hoping to get more money out of a customer. It is your right to subpoena any and all records concerning this repair, including any payments that Toyota may have made to the dealership. (I once had a salesguy call me after I purchased a car, asking where the other car was that I was supposedly trading in. I told him that wasn't the deal, and that isn't what was written on the paperwork. Case closed, but if they could have intimidated me into bringing another car to them would they have refused???)

I believe I lost my only case because I didn't study contract law enough, so be sure to understand whatever "fine print" is on the work order. Also, if you authorized the work to be done with the assurance of the dealership that it was under warranty, that is important. You may even need the service person who wrote up your original work order. And if you don't think you'll win because somebody will be lying, remember that many people are reluctant to lie under oath and penalty of perjury.

Also, you can hope for a "Perry Mason moment." In a case I won, I was injured because a lady let her dog run out after me. Everybody said I would lose, the court would see what a nice lady she was. I called a "character witness" about the dog, since the dog had also run after her. She testified that on one occasion she even had to spray the dog with mace. Well, the lady jumped up and said, "That's a lie! When the mailman sprayed him with mace his eyes were swolen shut for two days." It was a moment frozen in time, and the look on the judge was great. I was tempted to say, "I rest my case," but still had more evidence to present.

Don't lose a case because you're not prepared. And even if you get a lawyer you should be doing the work to get the evidence together.

 

Looking at other posts by Allan from January 2008 and July 2010, it sounds like this is a 2001 (or maybe 2002) Prius. At that time the Manufacturer's Warranty on the Prius was 8 years/100,000 miles, even in CARB states.

 

Damn, that would have been a good route to pursue!
Thanks Danny, Good Luck to the OP!!!

 

From what I understand from the letter, Toyota is willing to reimburse the dealership for the work, but the dealership is unwilling to actually submit the claim to Toyota. The OP says that he's called Toyota and they said they would happily process the claim and honor it if the dealership would simply submit it.

I think that's his issue, a dealership that is unwilling to submit work done on his car to Toyota

 

It has already cost this dealer much more money in lost business in this highly populated area. Reputation is everything. I hope they are not too thick to know this.

If you qualify by your warranty contract, and what you have said, be confident and show up in court with the facts. Think through and don't forget anything like the pink slip showing it is you who owns the car, service records, etc, That's all the judge wants. They other side may try anything, but also may not show up. IMHO.

 

As an aside, interesting that the car was driven another 22k miles before the traction battery was replaced. It does lend some ambiguity to the question of when a battery is actually kaput.

 

It sounds like from their original post they did that and Toyota agreed to do it. The dealership is refusing to put it in as a warranty claim (which Toyota has already approved!). The reason for this possibly is that the dealer will make a lot less money doing it as a warranty claim then doing it as a normal customer paid repair.

From what the original poster said the title of the post is quite unfair to Toyota...... Toyota IS prepaired to honor the claim! It sounds like the OP is trapped using the bad dealer as the work has already been done.

Presenting these facts to small claims court even without a lawyer it would 90% odds you would win.

 

And THAT'S where the problem is. You must be able to prove what the facts are.

 

Downtown Oakland Toyota is run by a bunch of unethical bastards. I live two miles from the dealer and take my cars to Concord (20+ miles) to get serviced. I had problems with them 25 years ago with both my Toyota and Saab. It's sad to see that they can still stay in business.

 

Hopefully he can get something from Toyota saying they would honor the claim and pay for the work under warranty if the Dealership would simply submit the claim and that he's told the dealership that Toyota would pay for it. I would feel totally comfortable going to court with that information alone and winning my case.

Whatever comes of it, hopefully the O.P. keeps us updated

 

It's not up to the dealer's "Manager" to determine if a repair qualifies for warranty repair, only Toyota Corp. can make that call. So the "Manager" that's referred to in the letter may be a Toyota Corp. manager? There are some conflicting facts though - if the battery needed replacement before 100k miles, then why was the OP able to keep driving it? There's also no mention of MPG's and how it may have been affected by a battery going bad.

 

Allan - One more thing came to mind - the title of your thread is "Toyota Doesn't Honor Battery Warranty". That might be how you are thinking of this - very cut & dry that they are not honoring the warranty.

The reality is that it is not quite that simple. You are over the miles for warranty coverage so you need to convince them why your car should be covered. The fact that you brought the car in and had it checked out by the dealer while still in warranty should be all of the justification that you need. So it is not that Toyota is denying your warranty claim, more that the dealership messed up.