Why I Try to avoid buying the first model year of a car

We have as v 5 AT bought in January. Love the car. drove it from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale for spring break - the adaptive cruise control was awesome. Takes some getting used to, but makes a long drive in traffic unbelievably easier. I was on cruise over 80% of the 1,400 miles down. For the cost of less than one plane ticket the four of us got there and back, with a couple hotel nights. Sweet.

Anyway - to my point: Getting parts on first year runs can be trouble. It was for us.

My wife was driving the car to O'Hare Airport to pick up her mother. She was on I-90 west of Chicago. A truck in front of her swerved exposing a brick in the road. She was unable to miss it, ended up hitting it and destroying the left front tire and wheel. Fortunately she was able to maintain control and get off to the side of the road. She pushed the emergency button and, as others have mentioned before, the voice was so soft she had trouble hearing it, but in the end a tow truck was dispatched. I'll skip the details on the lacking service of the towing company, but in the end the car was at a nearby Toyota dealer, but not the one we purchased ours at. They checked it out and determined everything was OK except the rim and tire, probably need an alignment too. $900 or so, I forget the exact amount. The OEM tires are more expensive than any replacement tire at Tire Rack, over $220, and the rim was in the $350 range if the dealer could get one. Big if.

We needed the car that weekend, so we thought we'll just get it fixed then and there. "Sorry - the rim is out of stock." "Well when can we get one?" "I can't tell you until you order it and pay up front." That was it for them - got the car and left.

Called around and nobody could get a 2012 v 5 AT rim for the foreseeable future. Thus the "don't get a first model year car" - getting parts can be trouble.

Instead I went to a local tire store, bought four new Voxx brand rims. they look great on the car, $135 each. Got a Michelin Primacy tire for the bad one, the tread is very similar to the Toyo, $190. An adapter kit and I'm out the door same day with four new rims for about what the dealer wanted for one rim and tire, but minus the alignment.

Found a used rim on eBay for $100, came from the west coast so took two weeks. So now I have four V5 AT rims which probably could mostly offset my cost if I sold them. Instead I'm going to keep them and put snow tires on them. Chicago winters make it worth it. I will need new set of TSPM's, and the hassle that goes with changing them in the system, but in the end I guess it's a good result.

I expect I'll hear it about replace one and not two tires, but the tread on the OEM's still looked pretty good.

I sure hope I don't have to replace anything else soon. And my sixteen year old just got her license............ View attachment 39041