Toyota dealer replies to Innova service complaints; Owner clarifies

We understand your concern and would like to bring some points to your notice to understand the facts.

Originally Posted by BHPian B747fan:

Our 2016 Innova Crysta 2.8 GX AT went for its 150k servicing earlier today at Mayank Toyota, Jodhpur. We had stopped using Toyota ASS since 2020 when the earlier dealer shut shop during Covid. This was our first time trying the new dealer. The car had slight vibrations at speeds of 80 and above, and there was also slight noise from the engine bay, so I recommended my dad to send it to the dealer instead of using the FNG (This is my dad's daily drive and hence I barely drive it). Now in the morning when the car was dropped off, we were told that wheel alignment and balancing should sort this out. Along with that, we were quoted front brake pads, front brake disks, general service, oil filter, oil change and the usual bits, with promised delivery by 6 pm. In the evening(around 4 pm), they call my dad and told him that the tyres were bad and would require replacement, and that we cannot perform wheel balancing and wheel alignment on these tyres. Now here is the catch, the tyres have plenty of life left, having been driven around 20-25k kms. We told them to leave the wheel balancing and alignment. This is when they hesitated to deliver us the car by today evening and told us it would be ready by tomorrow morning, but upon insisting, they told us we will deliver it in the evening. They then called us to tell that the car is ready, and we sent the driver with the money.

In the meanwhile, there was an argument between my dad and the SA at Mayank Toyota about the vibrations, and my dad told him to visit and outside wheel balancing and alignment shop with him tomorrow to take their opinion on the matter, to which they agreed, however, they stuck to their point that the tyres are worn and hence there is vibration, and that wheel balancing and alignment cannot be done on these tyres. (Now I have not personally inspected the tyres, so I am not sure if the wear indicator is showing the need to replace them.)

The driver reached the service centre and was told that the car would be delivered tomorrow morning, and upon telling the SA to call and confirm, he was told that we have already told them, which they had not. So he came back. Now it was almost 7 pm, and the service centre closes at 6:30. We tried calling the SA, and the contact number of the service centre, but they did not pick up, which is completely different behaviour compared to when they have to advertise about their "Free general checkup scheme with free engine oil filter replacement". My dad got around 2 calls every day for the last 2 weeks or so to send the car for servicing to avail the same. We eventually managed to get in contact with their team, and they started misbehaving on call, my father told them to watch their tone.

The car is still at the service centre, and the SA said that he will replace the tyres with tyres from another car tomorrow and do a test drive, to which my dad said okay, but I don't think that's a good idea. Plus this kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable from Toyota, the same company that advertises service within an hour. They had received the car at 10:37 am, and the initial estimate had a promised delivery time of 6 pm. However, they failed to do that. Attaching both the initial estimate and the final invoice. Even after charging over 30k, they were trying to sell more stuff than what was required, they even wanted to do underbody rust treatment, as according to them the exhaust was rusting.

People buy Toyotas cause of their affordable service, reliability and fuss-free ownership experience, not this. Clearly not sending it back to them for future service, will stick to FNGs.

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Response from Mayank Toyota

Dear Sir,

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused to you. We understand your concern and would like to bring some points to your notice to understand the facts.

1. Estimate shared while receiving the vehicle was without GST and only for service and any expected part required to resolve your complaint, but if in case while working any additional requirements comes to the knowledge of technician, the same is communicated to customer and the work performed only after confirmation. Some optional works are also educated to customer like underbody coating, interior cleaning etc to make the vehicle more reliable and comfortable (like underbody coating will save the vehicle from rusting) for the customer but that also performed only after customer confirmation. In your case also the actual bill reduces because your dad had refused for those optional works.
2. In case of uneven wear and tear of tyres (which generally depends on the road conditions and driving pattern of the customer) we recommend customers change the tyres even if they have good rubber left on them. In such cases, we do not charge alignment and balancing charges as the vibration concern will not be resolved. Outside agencies don’t care about such things and charge the customer for alignment and balancing without catching the real concern of vibration.
3. Your driver came to the workshop and assured our service advisor that your dad himself would visit the workshop in the morning and then only pick up the vehicle. We agreed as we also want complete customer satisfaction before the delivery of the vehicle. The vehicle was ready at our end, and we don’t have any benefit in holding the vehicle. This is the point where miscommunication between your dad and the service advisor arises. The service advisor believes that your driver was just following your dad’s order, so no further communication is required.
4. Our Service Advisor was a female, and we allow female staff to leave office according to working hours (which you also confirmed that your dad called after working hours) so that they can also reach their home on time at night. She had no intention of leaving your dad’s call unattended, but she was on the way on a 2-wheeler and not in a position to take a call while driving. Later your dad called our helpdesk number, and our CRM attended the call. She shared the number with GMCS and within 5 minutes GMCS called your dad to resolve the complaint. He shared the communication of your driver and Service Advisor with him, but he was very aggressive and was not ready to understand and said that GMCS was behaving rudely. GMCS apologised for the inconvenience and personally attended to him in the morning with the Service Manager and Technical Team leader and offered him that if he allowed, we would arrange our demo vehicle tyres and swipe them so that he could understand the actual facts while test drive of the vehicle which you refused and took delivery of the vehicle.
5. In your earlier case of 2019 (Mayank Toyota) was not in existence but at that time also if you communicate with the respective dealer, they must provide you with the actual reason for the concern.

We as Toyota dealers are always here to help our customers and understand the value of the customer so we request you to pls visit our dealership for any concerns. We request you to pls inspect your vehicle personally and if any technical help is required, we will send our technical team with you so that you can understand the problem practically while driving the vehicle. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience as you are our valued customer and expecting your visit again.

Thanks & Regards

Here's what BHPian B747fan had to say on the matter:

1. I agree with the fact that the invoice shared was without GST, and have no issues with that. The main issue that arose with the bill was that initially, the bill sent was higher than what came out to be the final bill. This was the bill sent on the evening of the 1st of January.
2. There was no uneven wear and tear not the tyres, and they have been maintained well. The team at Mayank Toyota said that we tried to balance them but it wasn't working and that they would not be able to do wheel alignment on them and recommended changing the tyres. The main reason why we sent the car to Toyota in the first place was to address the vibrations. But that didn't happen and the team tried to upsell tyres(and underbody coating which we refused). The issue was resolved after alignment from an outside shop. Several members of team-bhp also agree that Toyota service centres don't generally perform alignment and balancing correctly.
3. The driver did not say that my dad would come to pick up the car in the morning he himself was told by the staff that the car would only be given in the morning and that this had been communicated to my dad, which was a lie. My dad had to go for some urgent work and hence we required the car ASAP, but he had to postpone his work because of that.
4. I understand that the staff was female, but we tried to call her several times, and generally, people do pick up when called several times, however, this was not the case. Furthermore, upon calling the Helpdesk, the GM who was on call, started misbehaving first, then only my dad had to raise his voice and told him not to misbehave. We refused to do a trial with test drive car tyres as he had some urgent work to do, post which he got the alignment and balancing done, which fixed the issue. The main issue is that there was a lot of miscommunication between the dealership staff itself and a lack of clarity on any sort of timelines. First, my driver was told it would be ready by 4-5 pm. Then we were told it would not be possible to deliver today but we could try, and then we were told 6 pm, but that again did not happen. By the time we got to know from our driver what was told to him, the service centre had shut down. We were not told that the car would be delivered on the following day.
5. The 2019 dealer is no longer in existence, but just wanted to raise that issue as well. This has nothing to do with Mayank Toyota.

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