I must. Because tonite I had one of the worst car experiences I've ever had. Susan and I are moving in a few weeks so it was time to get cars... that's right cars..not one but two in one shot. We need both a Minivan to schlep the kids and dogs and stuff. And I need a car to commute or to get to the train station... we looked at the Honda Odyssey and Honda Accord and we looked at the Toyota Prius and Toyota Sienna. We ended up going with the Toyotas because they drove better. Susan liked the Sienna over the Odyssey.
So we go in tonite under the following assumptions. (1) We could get a good deal on the slightly used floor model that the manager had been driving and smoking in and (2) because we were buying 2 vehicles at a shot we'd get a decent "volume" discount.
We explained what we wanted and we the answer back was a list price, including for the smoked in used Sienna. When our sales guy came back with our counter offer. It was circled in Blue Ink with a Big "HA HA" written under it. If that wasn't a poor customer experience nothing is.
Did we not explain ourselves? So Mr. Ha Ha comes for a visit. I asked if he was Mr. Ha Ha. He said, yes he was and that our price for 2 vehicles was funny. Really? I didn't realize that that amount of money out of my pocket was funny! Based on Toyota's recent advertising, it was perfectly reasonable pricing. Mr. Ha Ha had to be the worst Toyota has. He was arrogant, self-serving, customer disinterested ...what's called in Yiddish a Chazzer... should I have been surprised that auto companies put customer experience on the back burner? I was surprised that Toyota did.
So what did we do? We then "downgraded models" so we could get the model with just the things we needed for the price we wanted... he came back with a price that was insulting. Maybe 3K under list combined for both cars.
At this point we tried to leave, we put our coats on and were out the door, truly insulted but we were treated with a "no no no" don't leave we can work this out.
We then tried to lease. To which we were treated with another absurd price. We went thru another "what just do you need in the cars" exercise. He dropped the lease price 30 bucks.
It was... at the end of the day,one of the worst, most infuriating experiences we had ever had.
So Toyota, I've owned you before and I've owned Hondas and Land Rovers and Acuras and hosts of other vehicles but never will I buy a Toyota again. We're going to give Honda our business. And all because of the customer experience we had with Mr. Ha Ha.
