Dianne? Does your Service Dept charge the PIPs?

Dave,
I didn't ask about charging, since I was waiting while they did the oil change. I didn't have them rotate the tires, BTW, because Ken told me they damaged the paint on his wheels. I did my own rotation, scratch free.
The survey I got had a place to write suggestions for how the dealer could make things better, and that's where I would have mentioned it had it even occured to me. I haven't charged anywhere but at home since I got the car, so it just wasn't on my mind.

 

Well, I would guess that they can't charge the vehicle while they're working on it. So that would mean an extra amount of time. I typically wait for maintenance services, so that would just add more time to my wait. Now, if I was the type that dropped off in the morning and picked up after work, and my car wasn't charged up when I picked it up, I'd at least ask the Servicc Dept. Mgr. for their policy. There's really no excuse for them not to charge the battery. It could just be a squeaky wheel/oil situation. With the small number of Pips showing up for service at most service depts, this is something that's probably not even on their radar.

 

You can't charge while you're working on it, and the charger isn't near anyone's work station... at least not here!

 

I just bought a new car at Carson toyota. It wasn't charged.

 

same here, bernardi toyota. they thought the full hv battery icon was the full ev battery.

 

idiots
and these are the people that are servicing our cars??

 

I too received my car with an empty battery, the dealerships stated 'the battery was full when it left Japan but lost its charge during shipping." This dealsership has an L2 charger on site, no excuse not to charge the battery regarding the delivery to the customer. Idiots!

 

City Toyota in Daly City has an L2 charger, but I think it's mostly used to keep the RAV4 EV models they have for rent/sale charged up.

 

I remember Toyota specifically asking me if i recieved the vechicle fully charged when i first picked it up. This was on one of the imediate email surveys we got after purchasing it. Obviously I said no...

Truth be told it was a bit of a let down driving the car for the first time in HV mode...

 

I used to work at Royal Moore Toyota, in Hillsboro, Oregon, and I bought my Prius there. (after I changed jobs to Lexus) Several of the bays have L2 chargers, and they were planning to charge any PiPs that were getting serviced, as part of the service. (no additional charge).
My car was delivered fully charged, in fact it was in a garage, with the 110 charger connected to it, and the wall when I took delivery.

 

Whats your best in the 1320?

 

Batteries are shipped discharged for safety reasons. Saltwater and large scale batteries don't play well together and shipboard fires are almost as bad as aircraft fires. Also it's not good to leave the batteries fully charged for a long time like the 6 to 8 weeks it takes to ship them. I would add truck and rail transits to this also.
Cost of electricity in Japan vs. US?
You would think Toyota and the dealers would want to charge them before sale to make sure they aren't defective.

 

12.2 on twins. Twisted driveshafts in half after going single.

 

Hi Diane, does your dealership have any charging stations like Nissan dealerships??

 

I bought my PiP at Carson Toyota in November, and it wasn't charged. I was quite disappointed. Toyota must enforce dealers to hand over fully charged PiPs to customers.

 

I agree a full charge would be nice, but it only cost 30-40 cents and is really no big deal. I think it is a time thing for the dealer more than anything. We are all just in so much of a hurry to get our cars, who cares if we have a full charge. Mine was 5.4 miles of EV. Plenty to get me going. I was happy!

 

Maybe it's 25¢ for the kWh's ... but after you figure the 2½ minutes for the hybrid tech to drive it over to the EVSE .... open the charge port, plug it in .... then another 2½ minutes to have someone walk back over after it's charged ... unplug it ... why that's 1/12 of an hour. At $150/hr for labor, times 1/12 of an hour ... now you're up to $12 on top of the 25¢.

 

it's not about the money, it's about the lack of care and attention to the car and the specific needs this model has. it shows how little dealers know about the car and how little they care about it. it's like the Ford article that was posted earlier – Toyota can make the best car in the world, but if the dealer treats the customer like shit, that's not only a lost sale, but potentially a lost customer.

 

Exactly! I completely agree.