[harshavardhan]

I had sent our family Toyota Innova (2 year old V-Model) for 55,000 Kms regular service and bumper painting (F & R) with my driver on 28-05-2007. The service advisor accepted the chores to be done and then redirected to meet the guy from Body repair shop for bumper painting and body polish. The Body repair section guy refused to accept the vehicle for bumper painting by stating that they dont have time to do small body repair works !!! I spoke to the concerned guy over phone and he reiterated the same to me over phone. Angered over this, I took the issue to the Service Manager, Mr. S. Ahmed, and gave his team member a piece of mind. I asked him whether should we crash the entire vehicle (touch wood !) so that they find time to do the job. I told him that he can give it to me in writing on Ravindu Toyota letterhead that they will not do the job. After much shouting over phone, he called me back apologising profusely & agreed to do the job. The quoted rates for doing the bumper paint job is Rs. 11,000 +.

Now, the vehicle is scheduled to be returned back to us in another two days. This is no way to treat it's customers who have paid over Rs.11+ lacs for the vehicle. It's high time that Toyota spruces up the service section in the authorised dealers. Atleast they can increase the number of service outlets so that this harassesment is stopped. Before I forget, we had booked for a service appointment about a week earlier !!! No doubt, Toyota makes reliable and efficient cars but with increasing sales the service and customer satisfaction also needs to be looked into. They just have to take a leaf out of Hyundai when it comes to the attitude and approach of the service wing in the authorised dealers.

Just wanted to share this experience with other forum mates.

[theMAG]

It wouldnt hurt the 2 Jap biggies to bend down a bit and learn from their lowly comrade Suzuki a thing or two abt treating Indian customers. While they're bending down, they'd also be well advised to retain that posture.

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by theMAG

It wouldnt hurt the 2 Jap biggies to bend down a bit and learn from their lowly comrade Suzuki a thing or two abt treating Indian customers. While they're bending down, they'd also be well advised to retain that posture.

by jove... what was that maggie? dry sarcasm?

[Desert fox]

Perfectly understandable! We faced a few problems ourselves,it ranged from attitude to poor response towards complaints!

A letter/e-mail to Toyota should have them scurrying towards you. Expenses you have quoted is a regular(Highway robbery)quote faced by most of us.

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by Desert fox

Expenses you have quoted is a regular(Highway robbery)quote faced by most of us.

Ok. So you are saying that the rates are really high. I had no idea of Toyota rates so refrained from commenting. To me it looked exorbitant. Poor man's car maker Tata charges me just around 1500-2000 bucks for a bumper paint job.

Hey, but can not you get it done outside? Considering that you just need a bumper paint job and no specialized dent work the rates elsewhere may be much lower whereas the work will be good, IMO.

[swathyd]

Better you change bumpers than painting.

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by Desert fox

Expenses you have quoted is a regular(Highway robbery)quote faced by most of us.

Originally Posted by Zappo

Ok. So you are saying that the rates are really high. I had no idea of Toyota rates so refrained from commenting. To me it looked exorbitant. Poor man's car maker Tata charges me just around 1500-2000 bucks for a bumper paint job.

I agree with DF here the prices quoted by official workshops are absolutely ridiculous. Here's something for reference Zappo, the best paintshop in Delhi (And I mean THE best) charges Rs. 3600/- all inclusive per bumper. Regular jobs in other garages start from as little as 800-100 bucks and go up as per the quality you want.

[Desert fox]

I think you may have seen the piddly spoiler offered by Toyota,its bad enough that they charge 7 odd thousand rupees for it,on top they charged me 3+ thousand to have it painted to my vehicles colour!!

And...People pay up!!! People like me! I guess Toyota has an aura which leads to such a situation where we decide to stick to the goods offered by them,even if it comes at a price.

But the aura will diminish fast if they do not arrest the growing dissentment amongst the customers(service),and think of expanding their service network further and also revise the spares and labour costing.

[abhilashvk]

[Better you change bumpers than painting]

I thought all the car bumpers came in black colour - plastic and then you have to paint it as per your car body colour..

[rahul_intlad]

But the aura will diminish fast if they do not arrest the growing dissentment

Could not get a better thread to put this forward I was a big fan of Toyota with their service and cars abroad but with Toyota India I feel completely let down.

If Gm is able to bring about so many models from just one plant,is toyota incapable of bringing in atleast one mass-market car.What is this luxury brand/premium branding tag that they want to cling onto.Remember it was the qualis[mass-market model] which brought toyota into the mainstream in India.Even today the aam admi associates toyota more with the qualis than the corolla or the innova.
Not bringing in a diesel for the corolla inspite having a large range of diesel engines and the fact that the corolla is having a miserly sales figure right now is just good news for competitors that's it.At present realistically speaking toyota is just not interested in the Indian market and is just biding time here.

[theMAG]

Originally Posted by Zappo

by jove... what was that maggie? dry sarcasm?

Just some philosophical - Confuscius-ishtyle advice !

[HellwratH]

The problem with the Indian market (be it cars or anything else) is that they do not care a damn about their customers. These big companies should start having a dedicated person to look into this forum and other forums to know what customers feel about the A.S.S, and whether the customer is happy or is he facing any problem. Or atleast they should set up a call centre where the customer can call and lodge a complaint directly to the manufacturer. I guess, apna local Maruti people do a much better job when it comes to service than the phirangi people..

[Equus]

Originally Posted by theMAG

It wouldnt hurt the 2 Jap biggies to bend down a bit and learn from their lowly comrade Suzuki a thing or two abt treating Indian customers. While they're bending down, they'd also be well advised to retain that posture.

Very cool

But I am not too sure if the manufacturers alone can be blamed here.
Do you really think Toyota would have asked their dealers to do so? Naaa

[rubin2006]

These people whether honda ot toyota treat us like a mass market and more so toyotas solely purpose was to first explore the qualis with the rural market ,yes they would have kept on selling that old 25 years old car qualis if GM had not got tavera and even our very own scorpio was not such a big hit ,They still not make camry in this country are we not having sufficent numbers , if mercedes can assembele S class E Class AUDI Is Planning BMW IS MAKING then why cant the make camry , cause the have big attitude problem you see , they dont mind loosing camry sales cause they were already making more profit in corolla then they make in camry elswhere ,

After what i hear ABOUT YOUR BUMPER all i can say is shame on them ,that they expect bigger dents and crashes on there customers vehicles
Sorry to say but i dont recall any car maker treating indian customers with there Foreign counterparts ,please dont bring in maruti here cause it hardly sell in the markets we can compare to ,other than that honda toyota mercedes
Skoda no one is treating the customer fairly

Althought hyundai is better than other manufacturers but i dont like there cars specially they lie about there Fuel economy and BHP for sure .
Skoda will give you good cars but you will die after seeing the costs of parts same with mercedes , Honda will give you good cars but you will get bland and over priced city ,and more over you will get city at a price which is near to civics price around the world or may be little expensive ,accord is 80 % more expensive than rest of the world where as duties are only 30 % more than rest of the world

Toyota was also charging premium of about 1.5-2 lacks on corolla this 2002 model car and after city they re giving all sorts of dicounts .
Please dont become Devils advocate open your eyes see how they Treat us IT REALLY HURTS

We have lot of Learned NRI foreign Travelled Persons here who lived or living aroung the world ,could they have said this to a customer that we will not paints your car cause the damage is small in any other country in North america or europe
Instead there job is to look at the car and ask Politely Sir WOuld you LIke us to FIX_Paint this Bumper For YOU

And some who still want do all the praises about these car companies all i can say is that you can enjoy till others are suffering but you will realise when you suffer

[Mr.Bangalore]

hi harsha

i too have faced some what same kind of problem with Ravindu earlier, if you really want to do something about this please put your query to
Toyota - Contactus
i can assure you that people from toyota will call you within a days time and proper action will be taken.

cheers