My 09 Toyota Camry Hybrid smells like fumes or chemicals from the first day we bought the car. The service manager at Thousand Oaks Toyota, Larry Osborne, handled the situation in a very unprofessional manner. He had a bad attitude and sent us out of the dealership in a very rude way. He was not willing to go through the right procedures and test the car properly. He also lied to us by saying that the vice-president/general manager Andy Robles was not present. I read on the Internet many other complaints about Larry and we wonder what keeps this guy keep working for Toyota.
I was so proud to surprise my daughter as she turned 16. I pay extra money to be environmental friendly. We assured our daughter that smell is "a new car smell". Few month later when she complained of chronic headaches we looked for what may be the cause. When she told us that she drives with the windows open because she can't stand the smell we made the connection. This smell causes the pain!!!
We have tried to get rid of the smell in so many ways. For example, detailing the car, repeatedly taking the car into service to see what they can do about it, and many different kinds of air fresheners. The Toyota Thousand Oaks dealership, the closest one to us, did not treat us the way customers should be treated. It is one thing to sell you a car but it is another thing to know how to service people as well. We had a technician from Toyota of Thousand Oaks and he admitted it is a weird fume smell. Later when we left the car his manager Larry Osborne who has no personality did not want to continue investigating the source of the smell.
We had other problems with the car - Right speaker at certain songs makes weird noise. Sunroof kept making squeaking noises. The repeated visits did not repair any of the complaints. The sunroof was "repaired" but noise continued.
When we called Yoshimi Inaba Toyota USA CEO we got a call back after couple days from Erika Romero and she set an inspection Hak Sov, District service and parts manager for Toyota on July 23 at 11 am. We came on time and were told by Laurie, the customer service, that Larry Osborne had decided that we were not allowed to speak with the specialist. We got very upset and we made it clear that a meeting was set to meet with Hak Sov. A few minutes later we had the pleasure to sit in the car with Mr. Sov. He confirmed that he came to meet with us and did not understand why said those things. As he came into the car he said he feels the smell and it is not normal. Without turning on the car or doing any other inspections he later said that he feels the smell is normal from the aspect of vehicle and other smells from external factors like air fresheners, spills on carpet etc. He advised us that we go through with arbitration. The fact that we have this smells from the first day means nothing to them. The speaker noise and the roof was not part of his test so we really left with nothing that Toyota is willing to do.
I have no doubt other have such problems and feel like Toyota likes to cover up things the same way they did for a while with the brakes.
0 comments