9:15 am, February 6, 2012
THE National Toyota Council of dealers have issued a statement following yesterday’s damning report in The Sunday Times.
The paper claimed – on its front page and over two pages inside – that Toyota technicians were penalised if they spotted a fault on a car during servicing and fixed it when the customer hadn’t complained about it first.
Toyota GB has already hit back at the allegations and now the manufacturer’s dealer council has joined in too.
‘The National Toyota Council, which represents the interests of the whole independent network, is unanimous in its belief that these allegations are without foundation,’ said the statement.
‘In fact, we consider the Toyota warranty and recall policy to be among the best in the industry, to the extent of being both proactive and supportive in dealing with out of warranty, goodwill issues with customers.’
In our Car Dealer Power survey in 2011 Toyota dealers voted the firm’s warranty as ‘excellent’. The manufacturer finished 19th in our survey which asks dealers which is the best manufacturer to represent. However, the maker did drop 16 places in the survey – from a top three position to 19th.
The statement from the council added: ‘Toyota has a robust but fair audit process to check that Toyota Centres are following the warranty procedure correctly.
‘The Toyota network acts with integrity and exercises a very strong emphasis on its customer relationships, illustrated by a network wide focus on customer experience surveys, ensuring customers are dealt with in an open and transparent way.’
