Another question that I received over the last few days relates to the fact that Toyota has an oil burning issue with their 2.4 liter engines and how I feel that I’ve been treated by them since it’s not bad enough for them to fix it in my car:
Hello IT Nerd. I read your blog daily and I have to admit I am dismayed by how Toyota Canada has treated you in regards to your oil consumption issue with your car. You’re right of course when you say that engines should only consume little if any oil. But my question is this. What could Toyota Canada do to keep you as a customer? Why don’t you escalate to Toyota Canada again to see if you can come to some sort of agreement to get your car fixed?
Thanks for publishing your blog! I truly enjoy reading what you have to write about!
Thanks for reading my blog and for the questions.
To be honest, I am not sure if Toyota Canada could do anything to keep me in one of their vehicles at this point. But let me explain why. The fact that the car consumes oil which they recognize is a problem, but is something they don’t feel the need to address because its not bad enough by their standards really bothers me. Why? I come from a universe where if you make something, you stand behind it no matter how minor the issue is because all you have at the end of the day is your reputation. Now one could argue that Toyota Canada is doing that by extending the warranty to 10 years from he date of first use or 240,000 km is standing behind their product. But I would disagree. That extension of the warranty does nothing to address the core issue which is the engine consumes oil and it shouldn’t. Now if they addressed this issue with us, perhaps our minds may change. But even if they did, we’d still have a bad taste in our mouths. Thus the reason why I am not sure what Toyota Canada could do to keep us as a customer. But they are free to try and change our minds.
In answer to your second question, we’re not going to escalate to Toyota Canada again because my wife and I feel that there is just no point in doing so. Thus we are instead going to replace the Matrix with another brand of car that we can rely on. Escalating issues shouldn’t be the rule to get a problem addressed, it should be the exception. And the fact this would be our second go round if we were to go that route just rubs us the wrong way. This is highlighted by the fact that when I got the results of the oil consumption test, the message that was sent to me was that the only way that my oil consumption issue is going to get fixed is if it burns way more oil than it is currently burning. Thus there’s no point going to Toyota Canada as my dealer is simply parroting the party line so to speak and we feel that Toyota Canada is not likely say or do anything different. Now Toyota Canada is free to surprise us on this front, but we don’t have enough confidence in them to believe that they’re going to step up and do what’s right and that’s really unfortunate.