The IT Nerd

About the time I started this blog, my wife an I bought a 2009 model year Toyota Matrix. It had a weird electrical issue that I documented on this blog. I admit that I was not a happy camper. They also had recall after recall after recall. All of this meant that I didn’t have the warm and fuzzes about the world’s number 1 (at least as I type this) carmaker.

But I’m man enough to admit that maybe I’ve reacted wrong to this.

I deal in facts, so let’s look at the facts. Since the electrical issue that I spoke of, have I had any trouble with the Matrix? The only thing that’s happened is that the car died in the middle of an intersection last summer. I admit that after having to get a few people to push the car out of the way and wait for roadside assistance for over an hour, I was not happy. But the problem was traced to a battery that was over 4 years old and if age hadn’t killed it (car batteries should be replaced every 4 to 5 years), the out of sight temperatures that were present that summer likely did. You can’t blame Toyota for that. But other than that, I’ve had no problems. Zip, zero, nada. This takes into account that the Matrix is five years old and has this mileage which I hit last week:

So does that make me think better of Toyota? Yes, but let me qualify this. I think that Toyota makes quality cars given the fact that I’ve had only two real problems with the car. I’ve spent a fair amount of time bashing them when that was perhaps not deserved. For that I apologize. However, I think the electrical issue that I had was handled poorly by both Toyota and the dealer I was dealing with at the time. One thing that I will say is that the dealer in question really stepped up to the plate and they have provided me top shelf service after I had gone elsewhere and they reached out to me to make amends. Kudos to them for doing so. As for Toyota, I’m not expecting miracles. But I am pretty certain that in the age of Google Alerts and companies using software that does nothing by hunt for postings, stories, and Tweets that relate to an corporate entity, I’m pretty sure that Toyota is aware of what I’ve written. They would score some points with me if they reached out to me to ask about my experience at the very least. If they did that, this apology would go from an qualified apology from a unqualified one.

Am I being harsh or fair? Post a comment and share your thoughts.

This entry was posted on February 24, 2013 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Toyota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.