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They say that they have to throw away the entire 2nd row & put in a completely new second row.

My thoughts were also along the same lines as yours - take out the LHS seat, put in the wider bench seat and Bob's your uncle!

I cant justify it either but that is what the lady said.

I'm not sure it's that easy to just change seats aftermarket. Won't your RC book make a distinction between 7 and 8 seater? Also, it's ridiculous to make customers to resort to this when you can get this off the factory as an option in other variants for negligible price difference.

The 8 seat option not being available in the top variant is another big problem. I mean how hard can it be just to have an option to change the captain seats to the bench ones? Yes I understand that the captain seats are more comfortable and kind of a USP but then what if a customer is willing to let go of that comfort just to carry a additional passenger? We too wanted to have an 8 seater but the top end did not have an option. So had to settle with the 7 seater one

I recon a friend removing the 8 seat bench for captain seats (Innova GX 2012) and it was a bolt on. Another friend Kedar had removed the 8 seat bench from his Fortuner for captain seats of Innova. Again bolt on with minimal (DIY level) alteration. Captain seats were sourced from Kurla salvage market (CST road, Mumbai). if its the same chassis (albeit stronger) as compared to the old model, my take is that the floor pan might also be same. Switching is possible. However, vehicle registration needs to be addressed as well and it cannot be overlooked.

Interesting. So why not retain the old seats and bolt them back while selling it off, rather than going through all the trouble with RC? I'd be very surprised if the traffic cops check the RC for this.

Dear GTO,

Thanks to your review, I landed up taking a TD - or rather 2 TDs.
I drove the manual top end model first. My wife was with me and refused to drive it - siting size fear! I kept telling her that it is just slightly bigger than the City which she has driven extensively - but to no avail!
Anyway, I loved it. I will not cover the features - you have covered it too well - I will get an inferiority complex! :)
I drove on slight slopes and flat roads, on sharp turns (slowly) and big turns, good and rough roads, crowded and open roads. I guess I covered about 10~15 km.
The SA and one driver was along with us.
Since I am not considering the manual version, it was more to get a feel of the vehicle only. One odd observation: once when I braked suddenly, there was a shudder in the brake pedal. I assumed it was the ABS. Both SA and driver said 'not possible!'... I could not replicate it.
One point which you have already pointed out was the huge disco dance of the gear shift at the time of starting!

Two days later, the SA was able to arrange a TD of the GX AT version.
Unfortunately, my wife was not feeling well. So, I did the TD on my own. I was totally floored!

I drove on (no slopes ..) flat roads, on sharp turns (slowly) and big turns, good (no rough roads), crowded and open roads. I guess I covered about 10~15 km this time around too.

My driving style must be more sedate than yours! I found that I never took the engine above 2000 rpm! I tried the ECO and PWR modes. My guess is that with fully loaded (family and luggage) and travelling upslope, I might feel the need for PWR mode. Otherwise, the ECO or normal mode is good enough In My Humble Opinion!

Unfortunately, the model I liked is way beyond my budget - as of now. I will wait for a few months and then review the finances. Fingers crossed!!

Thanks once more for the beautiful review.

Girish Mahajan

Completed the first service of the Crysta and Nippon Toyota , Enchakkal Trivandrum. Opted to get a few accessories installed during the service which include - OE front fog lights, OE rear door chrome ornament, OE rubber mats and NON-OE front chrome grill cover. Also did rubberised underbody coating for the damping it provides, this was suggested by service advisor.

All of the above was done decently, no complaints.

But i did not get the famed Toyota service experience from the service advisor who took my vehicle in. Toyota service customer experience was below my expectations.

1) No calls from SA - I was promised a delivery time of 16:00hours and update in between by phone. i did not get any call call till 16:30hours so i called him and said vehicle is ready. I asked him for an estimate and he said he will call back shortly. I waited till 17:06 hours before i placed another call to get the estimate, and i got the estimate.

2) No explanation of the 1st service part - I went there was greeted by the accessory guy when i was looking at my vehicle parked in their delivery area . He said mats are in the boot etc and gave me the bill for accessory fittings. I went inside met the service advisor and he gave me the bill. I asked him about the power steering pump which was entered in there and was marked as warranty next to it; he said it was not changed and that entry was made when i went there earlier for misaligned steering wheel next day after delivery. He said it was not changed. Decided not to bother much as long as it drove nice. I went and paid the bill at their counter.

2) No official handing over the car by SA - After i paid the bill i met an old acquaintance and got busy talking with him. He was taking delivery of his fortuner after service and he was taking the vehicle to Leh. My SA was taking care of this delivery and i waited at the delivery area for quite some time for the SA to come handover the car. Which did not happen. I wanted to ask about the entry made in the service book so was waiting there for him to come over. Finally another person came and i asked him about what i wanted to clarify and drove off after saying bye to fortuner friend. That time too my SA was busy with fortuner.

I have had much better customer experience at VW and Maruti service centres while taking in my ex Swift or ex Polo GT for service. Is this the famed Toyota experience? If yes i will lower my expectations to that level and there will be no more problems. I do that with Skoda, i.e., if i get the Octavia vRS back in the same condition it is a plus.

I will be taking in the van later again this week for seat cover installation. I will update how that goes.

Today this morning i had time to go into the details on the 1st service invoice and noticed a new discrepancy. They even got the vehicle odo reading incorrect in the service records. I took the vehicle in at around 960KM, but they have entered it as 749. When odo reading was at 750KM i was near Ernakulam :Frustrati coming back from Guruvayur.

Another thing is they have put pick up and drop charges in the bill and provided a discount??!! Why? How is that helping me? I questioned this and the reply was i am not being charged for this. I have not availed of the pick up and drop and i have Uber receipts to prove it.

Jobcard - See Date, KM reading, and warranty parts. I should have checked the date and particulars before i left. But i was in a hurry because the Uber cab i availed was already there and had to rush. Moreover i thought this is just 1st service and what could go wrong stupid: I was told that nothing was replaced under warranty when i asked about the same.
PS: I did not scan this as i had to return this at the dealer, but i took a phone pic before i gave it back when i saw the warranty item.


Service Bill - See KM reading, date (compare it with copy i received above), pick up and drop entry.


OE Accessories Bill - Nothing wrong in here. Except KM reading which i suppose was entered incorrectly by SA above.


Non OE Accessory Bill - Nothing wrong in here.


The whole experience was quite messy. Toyota service may be good at other Nippon facilities and maybe for other customers at this dealership, but for me it is a bad start with Toyota! Earlier steering centering issue in a new car and now 1st service experience!

I thought i would add a photo of the current odometer reading here. The odo now reads 982KM. I have not used the vehicle after i brought it back after service, for my office and city usage I take the Skoda.

Odometer reading - 982KM as on date 1 July 2016. Compare this with the reading entered in Service bill dated 28June 2016. I am a salaried person and not a cabbie. My office is about 3Km from my home and i don't have the time or ability to clock 230KM in two working days after office hours :-/

Sankar, is it because the first service needs to be done before 750 kms, hence the deliberate error by the SA?

First service is at 1000KM or one month from purchase date, whichever comes first. Second service is at 5000KM or 6 months from purchase date and 3rd at 10000KM or 12 months from purchase date.

Sheel, even if the service was to be at 750 kms and car arrived later, there was no reason to be making a deliberate entry. Additionally, the service is mentioned for 1000 KMs in the bill.

They are supposed to enter actual at any cost at the time of doing manual inspection and creating Job Card. Also this is a standard minor service that doesn't account for anything, still followed religiously just as a minor check at start of life, so no need to be ignorant on his part.

Sankar, This may be some simple carelessness/negligence on part of SA. You may just need to have a word with him/Service Manager/GM and if needed breathe down their necks a bit to get them up to quality of service upto last detail. Hopefully should not repeat once understanding is given. Although shouldn't have happened in the first place.

A warm welcome and ceremonial departure is uncalled for, though generally it is there on a usual customary level. But, a proper uptodate service and its explanation to every detail to customer is in order.

As I have seen, SA does this before making delivery after service and before billing, inspection of vehicle, explanations of service works, parts and billing to all details. They do have feedback form for exactly all these various points, taken from customer, after servicing before billing whether all was well and to rate them accordingly on each point. Did they not ask you to fill up and did you not checkup then? Once you get a Gate Pass after billing, you are literally on your own unless you follow-up by self with the requisite personnel.

However, never experienced any service or billing hickups till date at any of SCs for all our cars. But, there have been times when I had to breathe down their necks when it came to detailing post service and getting things done as per satisfaction. But they always welcomed criticism and corrected immediately.

What these cars stand for as experienced till date, is Fill it-shut it-forget it quality, reliability and uptodate service without any blemish. Still, there are sometimes +/- in service in terms of some detailing but not the quality of the service and parts, but that is usually addressed without hickups.

However, be it any manufacturer, the customer has to be aware as to what goes on in the service and its proper closure and should not just leave it to A.S.S. blindly.

It shouldn't have happened in the first place yes. If they did their part well, i wouldn't be posting this here today. I already had a not so good experience with the vehicle on the very first day of delivery - owing to a misaligned steering wheel. First thing on the 2nd day of my ownership i had to visit Toyota service center and waste my day till noon when i should have been at office.

Warm welcome is not expected, no dealer has ever provided a warm welcome when i take in the vehicle for service. But a proper delivery/hand over of the vehicle is almost always done by every dealer - either before the bill payment or after the bill payment. In my prior experience with other brands SA does a vehicle inspection with the customer (me) and explain what has been done and what needs to be done or when to bring in for next service etc then he will ask me to make the payment and get the gate pass. Sometimes explanation and inspection is done after the bill is paid, but there is always a handover of sorts. It is not like meet the SA at the counter, pay the bill, collect the gatepass and jump in and drive off.

But if it is like this with Toyota then fine, i am new to Toyota.

Well he did not do that. I was not provided any form either. Just asked to sign the job card paper stating i received the vehicle in good condition which it was - no dents scratches - when i inspected it earlier that evening.

But if it is like this with Toyota then fine, i am new to Toyota.

Exactly that's why i opted for Toyota, reliability and durability. Many members here have praised the Toyota service so much that coming from VW i had my expectations pretty highlol:

Welcome to the QDR world of Toyota. I was also in your shoes, When I preferred Innova (1st gen) over others I was expecting a whole lot of good experience at the service, but it is not like that, it is too far from what is being projected. I tried two Nippon Toyota showrooms, Nippon Toyota kalamassery and Nippon Toyota nettor, from these nettor show room is the worst of the lot, and now sticking with kalamassery show room. Tried escalating to Toyota as well, but other than getting a customary call from Toyota Bangalore nothing will change. We will get the same treatment at the showroom. I did the following workaround, find out a good SA based on service visits, I have done close to 5-6 service at kalamassery, so now know few faces there, and I try to stick with one of them. They allow us to give our vehicle to one of the SA which we prefer. Find out one such person and stick with him. That is the only way out. For me as well Toyota service experience is not rosy as it is projected.

Following is the few other surprise which you will soon experience

60 min service (they call it as EM60, and publicize a lot): you will never be able to do this kind of service. If we ask for EM60 during the phone booking they will say the SA will check and confirm the availability. But once we are at the showroom, and ask SA for the EM60 they will say that this is possible only for engine oil change. And even if you have a small complaint or want to do wheel alignment they blindly refuse the EM60, and your service will be delayed. And another thing is that the wash facility should also be running, if not no EM60 on that day, so many hidden points. If you ask me, for doing an oil change Toyota take 1Hr then I will say it is slow, rather than the publicized fast service. How long does the oil change take? 5min or at the max 10 mins? But for Toyota it takes 1Hr, not sure how much oil they will drain from the engine by keeping for 1Hr. EM60 was one of the priority while selecting a Toyota, but this is the reality.

Try booking for a regular service, it will take you at least 1 week delay to get an appointment. If you have any complaint then it may take further delayed. In my case I had a complaint on A/C, outside smell was coming in during the internal air circulation mode and want to get it checked during the service. I got the booking after 10 days of delay, and the outcome of the service was that no issue in A/C and no issue in the flap which control the outside air. I still have the issue, but now got used to it. For me if I want to give the car for 40K service I will try to get and appointment when the car reaches 39K or so, else you may not be able to use the car as the kms may over run by the time you give the car for service. As indicated in your post lower your expectation, that is the only way out. It is the monopoly playing the role here, unless competition comes up we will be in the receiving end. Only one dealer. Good luck

Hahaha reading your post has made me happy lol: I'm glad to know that this is the norm than the exception. Now that it's sort of established that Toyota service is unicorn fart i can now look forward to a better ownership experience.

Meanwhile I got a call from Nippon call center yesterday morning asking about service. I told them I wasn't very happy about it and they said they will arrange a detailed call back.

Upgraded the headlamp bulbs yesterday. Put Philips XtremeVision H11 and HB3 bulbs for low beam and high beam respectively.

OE HB3 bulb is made by Koito Japan.


OE H11 is Philips China.


Stock HB3 and Philips XV HB3. Stock is 60W, Philips is 65W


Stock Philips H11 and Philips XV H11. Both 55W.

Finally, owing to immense pressure from family booked the Crysta 2.4 Z in Maroon. Booking amount is 1 Lakh :Shockked: which is a daylight robbery and delivery being quoted is 3 months :Frustrati