After almost a year of deliberation on which SUV/MUV to buy for our large family, sometime late-August we decided to get an Innova. We trooped into the Toyota showroom (Leela Krishna Toyota in Visakhapatnam) and the first-thing we did was flock into the Smoke Grey Fortuner they had on display that was so appealing & tempting. It is really something, eh? Back to Innova, we were well received by the sales guy (I called ahead) and he did his bit quite smoothly - explainig the Innova's features & comforts etc. We decided on a Red Innova VX 8-str. So far so good.
Then we started talking money & freebies. He offered floor mats, mud-flaps & muffler-cutter. I asked about corporate discount and he said that was available only on GX, but not on VX. That sounded strange to me, but I told him I needed a couple of days to think about it. This is when the high-pressure tactics started. He was very insistant that I put down the Rs 50K booking deposit then & there. His reasoning is that Red is not in stock, so if I place the booking amount they will order the vehicle and meanwhile we can work on the other formalities.
Anyway I came back and did a bit of research on Team-BHP and found out that a fellow BHPian has bought a Innova VX in Hyd a couple of months back and he managed a 20K cash discount and other freebies. I called up the sales guy and informed him of this. He refused to believe it and came down to my office to check the website. Then he started saying that it must be a demo car or something. Basically, he was not at all happy about it. I told him that I do not want a cash discount and will settle for additional free accessories (I gave him a list of what we wanted).
Also, the insurance quotes I got from three popular insurance providers were around 5 to 6K less than the premium that the dealership has quoted. So I told him that I will be purchasing insurance separately. He became even more unhappy. He left saying he will talk to his boss and let me know.
Next morning he comes to my office saying that the deal is mostly done except for a couple of accessories and that if I came to the showrroom I could finalize it with his boss and book the vehicle. I was quite happy and went over with my cheque book. From there things went steadily down-hill.
The Sales Manager would not even meet me. He is in some room upstairs and I was seated in the customer lounge downstairs. The sales guy ran up and down between us, it was ridiculous. In the meantime a guy claiming to be from the service dept came in and started telling me that if I buy insurance directly then I would not get cash-less service and also that my vehicle would be low priority as they will attend to their vehicles (whose insurance was purchased through the showroom) first. I was completely taken aback and asked him if this was Toyota policy or the dealer policy. He didn't give a direct answer. I asked him if he could give it to me in writing and he said OK and left the room and I never saw him again.
Then I inisted on seeing the Sales Manager and some guy came in and introduced himself as the manager (I later found out that he was just another sales guy). He too gave the same nonsense about buying insurance independently - he even went to the extent of saying that RTO requires me to buy insurance at the dealership. I cut him short saying that I will enquire about the insurance issue with the RTO office. And then asked him about my freebies. He started ranting about how they will lose money if they accepted my offer etc etc. By this time I had spent two hours in that lounge and I was losing my patience. I got up and said that I was leaving and asked them to call me if they took a clear decision.
The sales guy again stopped me on the shop-floor and ran up to his 'real boss' and came back a few minutes later with an offer for Rs 12,000 worth of additional accessories. Regarding the insurance he said that if I was willing to buy it directly at my own risk, then to go ahead with that. Meanwhile the 'pretend manager' who was standing nearby made some snide comment to his colleague about buying a 13-lakh car and bargaining as if in a vegetable market. I am not sure if he meant me to hear it or not, but I did hear it. It really got to me and I walked away immediately. I have a good mind to write to Toyota about this.
The next morning the sales guy calls saying that his boss has now agreed to reduce the showroom insurance to match the quotes I got directly. But by this time I was quite displeased with their sales tactics and informed him that I needed more time to consider. He started calling me 2-3 times a day and even dropped by my office a couple of times unannounced, he was literally begging me to book the vehicle.
When I told him that we've decided to book the Xylo, he started bad-mouthing the Xylo. That it was a failed product, that they are not able to sell even 3 Xylos a month in my town, that it doesn't have any resale value etc etc. It became quite annoying and I had to warn him to stop it.
Even after I had booked the Xylo, he came by and asked me to cancel the booking and that he would get me an even better deal on the Innova. I sat him down and explained to him over a cup of tea that there is nothing he can do now to change my mind. I politely asked him to let go and that I would definitely contact him if I or my friends are in the market for a Toyota in the future. And he finally stopped pursuing me after that.
As you can see, my first experience with Toyota in India was very poor. To sum-up:
- the dealership lied to me - more than once
- the dealership gave me wrong & misleading information about insurance
- the sales manager thought he was too high & mighty to meet me personally
- a sales guy impersonated the manager and tried to scare me into buying insurance from them
- atleast one member of their staff insulted me with his comments
- they wasted a lot of my time
My overall opinion is that they are an arrogant and snobbish lot who never had to try hard to make a sale. One example of this - during the negotiations I asked how long it would take them to get the car once booked. They said a week to ten days. And I joked that I will book the Fortuner if they can deliver it in the same time-frame to which the senior sales guy burst out laughing and said that the show-room would be filled with people carrying bags of money if he offered the Fortuner in ten days. Now, that may or may not be true, but gloating like that is a definite no-no in my book.
I don't think I will be considering a Toyota anytime soon.
- Teja