Bait N Switch? What do I do now?

Good for you. You'll really enjoy your car. If I was you'd I'd slam the dealer with the survey. They deserve it. I agree that the added items were probably out of their control. I think the fair thing to be done was to provide you the car at the price you agreed on and to have you pay their cost (zero markup) on the additional items.

This is one of the few things that I prefer the way the domestic cars do things. When I ordered my '08 Jeep, my name is assigned a VIN very quickly and that is now my vehicle and cannot be altered once it's in the system. In fact my factory window sticker said, "This vehicle specially built for Michael Ingoglia". Within days of placing the order I was able to track when my vehicle hit the assembly line (this is the last moment I can change options if I wanted). I was able to tell the following throughout the process in real time:
1) When the car was assembled.
2) When the car was being painted.
3) When it was waiting inspection.
4) When the car was loaded on the truck bound for the train station.
5) When the car was loaded on the train.
6) When the car left the train station.
7) What city the train was in (I believe there was a day lag in info)
8) When the train arrived and my vehicle was loaded on a truck to go to a holding yard.
9) When my vehicle was loaded back on a truck bound for the dealer.
10) My salesmen called and said my vehicle has arrived.

It was cool to witness this entire process. Most don't know you can get this type of info, but it's there. Receiving a vehicle with your name printed at the factory on the sticker for some reason is cool to me. Perhaps I'm easily amused?

I'm on another forum for this Jeep SRT8 and one of the members from the forum worked at the plant my vehicle was built. Since mine was the 8th 2008 SRT8 model to roll off the assembly line and there was a minor update in which there were very little "spy pics" everyone was waiting in anticipation and having this step by step paper trail was cool. This member posted on the forum, "Mike, I saw your Jeep on the assembly line today having the interior installed".

 

Congratulations on your purchase! You should be very happy that you have a Prius, especially at a time when many others are crying that they can't get their hands on one.

I know you are not happy, and I completely understand the reasons. In the end, you've paid the MSRP plus about $200 for add-ons. I think you'll like the cargo net (I do) -- I hope they did the installation for you. The rest of the stuff you may or may not want, but just consider it to be money better spent than on gasoline for the former car while you would have been waiting for another Prius to come down the pike.

If you thought the experience was bad, then describe it fully (and rationally) on the customer satisfaction survey. If you are convinced the dealership pulled a bait and switch (and please read through my posts to confirm that my assumptions were based on fact and not "understanding" or hope), then go ahead and talk with the Attorney General's office. If you do so, you are doing it for future buyers, not yourself. Now that you have paid for the car, knowing about the price increases, you most likely do not have a claim.

Over time (and not very much of it), you'll simply be happy you have such a great car. If you are dissatisfied with this dealer, then find another Toyota dealer with whom you can establish a relationship.

In the meantime, change your info to show that you are now a Prius owner!

 

You probably handled the situation as well as you could. You are helping everyone by going to the state AG (I assume you may be working through a local state attorney/district attorney). The fact, as you noted, that the Better Business Bureau has many complaints about the dealer (22 in a year is pretty much a concrete indication that BBB will keep a wary eye on this dealer) is very much in your favor.

 

Congrats on the Prius. All's almost well that ends almost well.

 

Care to share the name of your dealership so that others won't get caught up in the same scam?

... Brad

 

According to the survey I received, the salesman was not exclusively specifically mentioned. Questions dealt with the dealership. My salesman did say that the survey would reflect on him, so "be nice to me". No one told me he'd be fired if he got bad ratings, and based on your other experiences, the manager probably lied. Fill out the form as you want, but don't worry about the future of the salesman.

 

congrat!

Are these PIO prices in the MSRP of the Prius that you have the contract on?

If not, the Prius that they offered to you is not the same one in the contract. So they can charge you the extra options price on top of the contract price. This is legal.

 

Here is the real situation regarding the surveys... ( 99.6% over the last 20+ surveys in the last 3 months )... Toyota and the dealership consider that the salesperson is fully responsible to his customer for everything that happens during the process. Right or wrong that's the system.

Overall for the entire sales staff it's the dealership that has to answer to Toyota.

If a salesperson is not getting scores above the regional or national average in both SSI and VDQ then he will be fired after a period of time. Negative surveys are death notes to both the dealership and the salesperson.

Here is how to get around it... if you truly liked the salesperson and feel that he/she deserved a good score then give 'Excellents' across the board. But Toyota has an 800-number for very important complaints. Toyota monitors how many 800-complaints a dealership gets as well. The owners and GMs have to respond back to Toyota when it's Toyota that gets the complaint. The salesperson is generally excepted here unless he/she caused it.

 

You are correct in stating "Right or wrong that's the system." It's a wrong system, a bad system. Toyota Corp. and the dealers must know that people will not fill out the survey honestly if they like their salesman (or hate him, for that matter). So the surveys are worthless.

 

Without dissing the OP's concerns, I'd say that's the bigger problem here. Toyota is not getting honest feedback from its customers, and is wasting a lot of time and money gathering useless information. How do they expect to improve their product and their salesmanship when they're not hearing the truth?

Yeah, I didn't even get to fill mine out. The salesperson had already done that for me, checking 'excellent' for everything. How convenient.

 

Why protect the salesman? What did he do to prevent this situation? It's payback time. Ask them how much a "good" survey is worth. If it is less than $600 then I would give the lowest scores for EVERYTHING. If it costs someone at the dealer money that's too bad. If it costs someone a job that's too bad. They should have thought about that before playing their games. I believe if enough people do this things may improve.

If he's a good salesman he can find another job.

 

It is a wrong system but all the auto makers have bought into it. The Customer Satisfaction Index is one of the key criteria surveyed and reported by JD Power and others. Every year a report is published and one company or another is hailed as the 'Best'. Lexus is very often up there on top.

The high volume / LOW MARGIN brands often don't do that well for a number of reasons. The HIGH MARGIN / Low Volume brands normally populate the entire top tier.

How this got to be so important I'll never understand but it's there right or wrong for every vehicle maker and every dealer.

 

Hello,
I'm new here but not new to car sales and dealer practices. FREEDOM, did you look at your window sticker? If the options were installed by Toyota USA, it should be printed right into the window sticker. If the dealer installed them, it should be printed after the original TOTAL or on a separate sheet with a revised TOTAL. If so, you have a case. This practice has been going on for as long as car dealers have been around. Unfortunately we bought cars at the wrong time. Only a few months ago, they were heavily discounting them and would have given iot to you at invoice or less. But with its current popularity the dealers become greedy and try every trick that's been around long before you or I was born. I had to agree to pay $695 for the Starter Guard but total was still less than what the other dealers were demanding.

 

Toyota Canada seems to do things a bit differently than Toyota USA. Here, we have what's known as a 'no dicker sticker.' Nobody gets a discount from MSRP, and nobody pays more. Dealers can be creative with their trade-in allowances, and there's the usual BS of 'documentation fees' (how about I charge them a fee for writing a cheque?) but other than that, the whole deal is pretty much straightforward. With all the crap that goes on with US dealers, and the number of disgruntled customers, maybe Toyota USA might consider changing their policy.

 

Freedom, I am glad you made an informed decision and ended up with a great car.
I can tell you that $600 doesn't pay for many months of blood pressure medication!
It's good to fight the battles that count and only you can figure out which ones are worth it.

 

The manager lied to you - plain and simple. Fill out the survey with that in mind, and don't let the manager bully you into stating anything that's not true!

This is good information for the group. ThanX for posting!

... Brad