Toyota enjoys their reputation for great customer service, but does that mean they should stop selling cars to cranky customers who might complain? We don’t think so, but at least one Toyota dealer in Berkeley, California did just that. Berkeley Toyota refused to sell a car to one of our readers because he and his wife were “in a bad mood,” and made the salesman “feel like dirt.”
It started when J and his wife called Berkeley Toyota to ask if they had a gray Prius with a certain options package available. The salesman said they did, and they made an appointment to see the car. When they arrived at the dealership, they found out that there was, in fact, no available gray Prius. That’s when things got weird.
From J’s website:
Javier returned about five minutes later and told us that the car he assured us was available on the phone had actually been damaged and needed repairs before they would sell it to us. Mr. Rios said his manager noticed that we “were upset or in a bad mood,” and wanted to be sure we would be happy.Of course, we were not happy about coming in to the store to discover the car we wanted wasn’t available. We told Javier on the phone exactly what we wanted, we had already researched the car and wanted to close the deal, not re-negotiate the deal or be offered a different color. They didn’t have the car they promised us available, so we left.
My wife phoned Mr. Rios a few hours later to ask what the manager might have meant by that comment about us being in a bad mood. She explained that at this point she was interested in ANY Prius with a Package #2 and a dark interior, and she was willing to come back in to discuss another color. Javier agreed and said that he would look into what was available and call her back.
Imagine her shock when Javier phoned back a few minutes later (presumably after discussing it with his manager) to say that he “feels uncomfortable selling us a car” since we were so angry and that her husband made him “feel like dirt” on the phone. She reminded him about the circumstances of our experience–that we were ensured that the car was there, that we had no time to negotiate, that we could come right in and sign the papers if they had the car we wanted, and that we were rightfully upset. Nevertheless, Mr. Rios insisted that he could not sell us a car, that he was uncomfortable taking our business.
J suspects that because Toyota ties compensation to customer satisfaction, that explains the salesman’s odd behavior. What do you think? —MEGHANN MARCO
Berkeley Toyota Refuses To Sell Woman A Car [Measurement]
(Photo: Beige Alert)
More From Consumerist
-
Why Is Dealership Checking My Credit When I'm Paying In Full?
-
Toyota, Honda & Nissan Recall 3.4M Vehicles Because Air Bags Need To Work
-
Toyota Recalling 2.77 Million Vehicles Worldwide For Steering Snafu, Water Pumps
-
Toyota Announces Recall Of 750K Corollas & 270K Lexus IS Vehicles
-
Ford Continues To Sink Toward Bottom Of Consumer Reports’ Reliability Ratings
I doubt this would have happened if they were buying a Corolla or a Tundra — but Priuses sell themselves.
Why bother picking up an unhappy customer when you can sell the car to a happy one later that day?
Yes, the dealership screwed up, but when you’re buying a product that’s in short supply, the consumer has very little leverage.
I am the customer in this case as well as a former car salesman.
I know it is hard to believe, but I wasn’t being a jerk! I wasn’t being difficult (especially), hell, my wife made me promise to be on my best behavior!
We were a car salesman’s dream. We knew what we wanted, he said he had it in stock, we were ready to pay the price advertised in the newspaper and we have good credit. All of this should be apparent from the fact that we bought a Prius a few days later at Broadway Toyota in Oakland, California). We were ready to buy on a Tuesday afternoon, which is no small thing for a salesman.
Visit my blog for the rest of the story, but the simple fact is that the salesman decided that the possibility of a bad customer survey outweighed the certainty of selling a car.
I believe this story completely, no additions needed. To acquire a car, I visited 10 Toyota dealerships in a one week period (trying to buy a Prius, silly me) and was dumbfounded by the shenanigans.
Few Priuses, all of them marked up $10K+. Among the other choices were bare bones, ancient cars priced like year old, feature crammed cars–and that’s when I could get a price. Multiple times I had to deal with the “wait here, the manager wants to talk to you” game.
Never having owned a car, my customer loyalty was up for grabs–and I started out determined to end up with a Toyota of some type. At the end of the week, I owned a Honda Civic. Could have gone the other way, but as it happened, the first Honda dealership I visited was fantastic, so I stopped looking.
Sounds like one side of a story to me.
I can understand the frustration of being told one thing to find out another, but it’s absurd to me to think that the exchange stated above is ALL that was said. Certainly some statement was made by the potential customer that made the sales person “feel like dirt”, yet the whole statement is sort of dismissed or glossed over as if it were some completely irrational reaction to someone simply being irritated with bad information.
I would be interested to hear the sales person side.
I experienced something very much like this in Tallahassee, Florida at the Toyota dealership here. I came in driving my 96 Tacoma that needed some work on it. While it was in the shop waiting I went up front to talk to the sales people. Despite driving that old of a car (and cheap), my wife and I are pretty well off. I owned at the time a successful nightclub and she is a physical therapist. I drive the truck due to good gas mileage and I hate leaving a nice car in a parking lot where lots of people come and go (sort of like Roadhouse but without the slashed tires and broken windshield). As soon as the salesman found out that I was driving the Tacoma, he had no interest in selling me a car. I spoke to one of the managers and she as well had no interest. I wasn’t told to leave or “refused” service, but they put forth no effort to even make a deal. I went to the back, cancelled the work on my truck and drove across town to the Infiniti dealer that we bought my wife’s car from and I asked if they had access to a Toyota through sister dealerships. They replied yes and I bought a new RAV-4 through their other dealership and they faxed all the paperwork to us, and shipped it to us for free. They even said they would do the work on my truck. Excellent customer service there.
From “Berkeley Toyota Refuses To Sell Woman A Car
Posted by Jonah Stein under Berkeley Toyota”
“Javier sat us down and asked my wife to fill out a credit application along with an offer sheet. He took the sheet and went into his manager’s office.”
–
That alone was pretty stupid. They should have walked out to the service department and take a look at the car to make sure it is what they want. Any dealer who is not out to screw you will be happy to at least let you look at the car.
When I bought my 2006 Nissan Titan last march from Santa Barbara Nissan, it was brought up from Fontana Nissan (about 200 miles) and arrived about an hour before I was to pick it up. My salesman walked me to the back, where it was still being washed and let me look it over. I wouldn’t have wasted my time buying it if I wasn’t certain it was what I wanted.
I think both the dealer and these rubes are lying. The rubes are just trying to get something with this lame complaint they caused on their own.
Trick:
You say,
You seem to think we caused this on our own, which means you are even more cynical than I am. The salesman said he had gone to the off-site lot to pick up the car (they do have a separate facility where they store cars because the dealership is in a downtown area and fairly small. Our only crime was to believe the salesman.
What I am trying to get is the satisfaction of as many people as possible finding out how Toyota Of Berkeley treats people. Publicizing this experience seems like the appropriate response.
I think I’ve got it figured out:
Go back and read the story posted by the peeved customer and you’ll
discover that husband had taken off from work and wife had somewhere to
be, so they were in a hurry that day. Note also that 1) the husband had
leased a new Prius the month before 2) the wife’s early 90′s Toyota
(which they bought at Berkley Toyota) was tired and needed to be
replaced and 3) they had started looking at another Toyota dealership
three days earlier and that dealership had not followed up with
husband/wife on finding a silver Prius like the dealership said they would.
http://measurement.com/Online_Marketing/?p=10
Note also in this Detroit Free Press article that Toyota started
offering buyer incentives on the Prius at the end of January which ran
through the end of February due to supply of Prius vehicles exceeding
demand.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070222/B…
The husband posted their story on their website February, 27th, one day
before the end of the incentives. Berkley Toyota was trying to tell
them that it would take at least three days to process the damaged
silver car – which would put them out of the incentive period. That
might have been why the wife was willing to look at other colors and buy
while she could take advantage of the incentives.
Whattya think?
PDQ:
I didn’t actually post till the 27th, but we had already bought another Prius by then. My only motive is to get as many readers as possbile to be aware of the story. Toyota of Berkeley didn’t sell us a car because they were afraid of what we would say on the survey about their customer service.
My sense of Justice/Irony says public opinion will cost them more than a customer survey.
This SALESMAN was “made to feel like dirt?” I say that when a customer is promised that they’ll receive a specific item they ask for, and is then snowed by some shyster who tries to sell them something else — it’s the CUSTOMER who’s being treated like dirt. It’s not like you’re buying a $40 sweater. We’re talking about a purchase of 20-40k, that you’ll most likely be paying off for five years. Shouldn’t you get what you want in the damned color you want if that’s the case?
The subhuman pricks at Toyota of Manhattan in NYC did the same thing to me. I came in and I told them what I wanted. They said with all sincerity that if they didn’t have it or couldn’t locate it, they’d have it BUILT, as long as I put a deposit down, did their financing, and agreed to the price they quoted. I sadi “No problem” across the board. $500 deposit? No problem. 32.5 for the car? Fine. Six to eight weeks to build it? Great. The thing is, after these pricks got my money and put together the build order, they then proceeded not to put the order IN. They lied to my face, then let me dangle for six weeks, and then they made up some story about — get this — a KEY BEING BUSTED ON THEIR COMPUTER! And, “would you take one in another color, a lower trim level, or 2WD instead of AWD”!!
When I came back to the showroom to get my deposit back (after NINE WEEKS), the inept “nice guy” that I’d dealt with previously was then replaced by a fat, menacing, “bad cop” who literally sat me in a corner and tried to strongarm me in to taking something else. I told him, very quietly, without raising my voice or using any expletives, that I wasn’t interested in anything else but what I’d ordered, and that in the nine weeks of being strung along I’d decided to get another car from another carmaker. This prick then had the nerve to call me “arrogant” because I wouldn’t buy something that I didn’t want. I’ll tell you what’s arrogant. What’s arrogant is thinking that just because you’re the most reliable, most successful car company on earth, you think you can treat your customers like shit and still expect them to keep crawling back to you.