Dealer training

[Ampster]

When I took delivery of my car last week it was the first one that this particular dealer had sold. After signing the paperwork I left to return the rental car I had been using. As I walked out to the parking lot I noticed that they were plugging my new car into the EVSE. I thought to myself, isn't that nice of them to top off the charge. A half hour later when I returned to take delivery and get the salesperson's demo of all the dials and switches I noticed that the car only had a 53 mile range. Apparently Toyota delivers the car to the dealership with about a 50% charge. (Similar to the batteries I bought for my VW conversion) I told the salesperson that perhaps they should plug the car in as soon as they receive it and before they wash it and dust it off. Their checklist for ICE engines assumes that filling the car with gas only takes 5 minutes. Perhaps Toyota can train the dealers about this.

Another irritant in the dealer process that I experienced was the financial guy, who is the final closer and I guess he is the one who tries to sell you the Lojack and the "Factory" extended warranty. The problem was when I asked him what the car came with he only told me about the 3 year factory warranty and failed to mention the 8 year battery warranty. I told him that this car is mostly electronics and the failure rate of electronics is very low after the first year or less, and the factory warranty would cover that. He went on to name all the things that could go wrong after three years. I won't list the stupid things he said but suffice it to say, that every thing he mentioned, this car did not have ie. transmission, fuel injection etc. It is another area the Toyota could train their dealers a little better.

I have no great issue with this dealer, In fact I have known the owner for over 15 years and I know he will improve their process as they deliver more cars. They are in an area of Los Angeles that has a lot of Hollywood people and as a result they have one of the highest allocations of RAV4 EVs based on their historical hybrid sales. My overall experience was excellent.

 

[Dsinned]

I concur . . . the "learning curve" on this car, like most other new EVs introduced in recent years, is rather high. Most dealers do not know as much about them as their customers!

 

[BSki]

WHen I called and asked to speak to an EV specialist to ask questions about the car, the lady that got on the phone asked me if I wanted a 2 or 4 wheel drive EV....

I find most dealers don't know anything about what they are selling.

 

[mikeEmike]

When I took delivery of my car last week it was the first one that this particular dealer had sold. After signing the paperwork I left to return the rental car I had been using. As I walked out to the parking lot I noticed that they were plugging my new car into the EVSE. I thought to myself, isn't that nice of them to top off the charge. A half hour later when I returned to take delivery and get the salesperson's demo of all the dials and switches I noticed that the car only had a 53 mile range. Apparently Toyota delivers the car to the dealership with about a 50% charge. (Similar to the batteries I bought for my VW conversion) I told the salesperson that perhaps they should plug the car in as soon as they receive it and before they wash it and dust it off. Their checklist for ICE engines assumes that filling the car with gas only takes 5 minutes. Perhaps Toyota can train the dealers about this.

I think keeping the car at a 50% charge while on the lot is what is recommended. Most dealers unfamiliar with EVs will charge the battery to 100% and let them sit on the lot, which prematurely wears out Li-Ion batteries. Granted, if you need the extra range to get home after you buy it, you might want to give the dealer a heads up to charge the car beforehand so you're not stuck waiting.

Aside from that, I have to agree that most dealers need more training when it comes to EVs. When I was car shopping for a RAV4EV, the salesman swore up and down that the traction battery has an 8 year capacity warranty. I told him that if he can give me that guarantee in writing, I'd buy it. So he ran off to his manager all giddy about making a sale, only to come back saying he couldn't. Then he tried convincing me that the extended warranty would cover capacity. Needless to say, he didn't make the sale.

Dealer training is going to be a slow process, and probably won't gain much traction until EVs go from being a niche to mainstream. I don't think there's currently much enthusiasm trying to pitch a vehicle that costs significantly more than it's ICE counterpart, gets less range, and takes hours to refuel.

 

[rabika]

OK, I realize that this is pretty small on the list, but as the weather get's warmer, this becomes more annoying.

I find that the driver's side seat warmer button is just too easy to "touch" accidentally. I find that fairly often I tap it while turning on the car. Maybe it is just the back of a finger grazing it. But before I know it, the seat is hot. Not so great on a hot afternoon.

I wish there was a way to either disable this or require a more deliberate action to active the seat warmer.

 

[Ampster]

Mine does the same thing. I have been wondering if I have been doing it accidentally or if it is coming on by itself.

When it did that in the winter I was thinking, what a nice feature that was, now I know better. LOL

 

[mhkp]

I also took delivery of my car this week and am a bit confused how I should 'rate' the dealer in the survey that is sure to follow.

The salesperson was a kind hardworking type who managed to get me all the info I wanted (including firmwear details) so that I could feel comfortable making the purchase. That being said he had a very limited knowledge of the vehicle and said so straight away. When he asked his collegue (the EV expert) for assistance all I got was a scramble through the manual and a guess at the answer. That's all tolerable to a point.

What was more of an issue was the total guessing of features at the delivery of the car. Again, all done with the best effort and intention, but it would be nice if these guys knew how to explain the details of a very technical car. Now I'm sitting at home trying to figure out how to do basic things.

They want me to rate my experience "Truly Exceptional'. If I do I encourage the status quo, right?

 

[TonyWilliams]

They want me to rate my experience "Truly Exceptional'. If I do I encourage the status quo, right?

Because Toyota won't be happy if they provide that less than that, and they did.

I'm confident ALL the training material Toyota put out covers all those things. They couldn't be bothered. Let Toyota know in the survey.

Tony

 

[eschatfische]

Mine does the same thing. I have been wondering if I have been doing it accidentally or if it is coming on by itself.

I'm pretty confident that this is an accidental thing. I've never once had the driver's side heated seat trigger on me unexpectedly, but my wife has complained about it happening, and I've had valets trigger the seats before handing off the car.

 

[madcow]

I've also pushed the driver's side seat heater by mistake several times. I live in Hawaii so I'm pretty confident that I'll NEVER need it. If someone can find out how to electronically deactivate it that would be great. I might even look into a way to physically disconnect the wiring to the seats.

I've also noticed something else. The heater seems to have 3 settings, low, medium, and high. I believe that this corresponds to the 3 round circles that appear below the seat heater icon on the display. It's self explanatory that the number of red balls corresponds with low, medium and high. However, sometimes I see the seat heater icon on the screen and all the balls are clear (no red balls) and I'm not sure what that indicates. When I see this, I manually cycle it through low, medium, high, and back to off and then the icon disappears. I haven't looked for this in the manual yet since I have no intention of ever using this feature.

I had a Volvo with seat heaters a while back and they told me that the seat heaters didn't even work if the outside temperature was above 70F. I never used them while in Hawaii, but I don't think they would have even activated since the outside temperature is nearly always above 70F where I live.

 

[miimura]

I've also noticed something else. The heater seems to have 3 settings, low, medium, and high. I believe that this corresponds to the 3 round circles that appear below the seat heater icon on the display. It's self explanatory that the number of red balls corresponds with low, medium and high. However, sometimes I see the seat heater icon on the screen and all the balls are clear (no red balls) and I'm not sure what that indicates. When I see this, I manually cycle it through low, medium, high, and back to off and then the icon disappears. I haven't looked for this in the manual yet since I have no intention of ever using this feature.

When none of the dots are red, it is in auto-Eco mode. For example, when you select ECO-LO or ECO-HIGH for ventilation, the system will turn on the seat heaters as it feels necessary in lieu of actually heating the cabin. When you cycle through 1-2-3 dots and the whole seat icon disappears, you are overriding the auto-eco and turning it off. You will also notice that when you cycle through the ECO modes on the ventilation system, the seat heater icons appear and disappear based on mode.

 

[Dianne]

I think have had my butt warmer come on spontaneously.
I thought it was something I'd done as I was shutting off, because it was feeling like 90 degrees in the shade that particular day and I was running around getting 4-5 of these ready and charged for clients. I guess I had assumed that in the musical cars thing we were doing with trying to figure out what cars were most urgent to be on one of two Level 2's we have... I figured I'd accidentally hit the seat warmer indicator but it did it again last night too...

I'll watch to see if it starts spontaneously up again.

We are also installing a 3rd Level 2 Charger in the shade upstairs so if you're passing by and need some juice, call me, I'll clear a spot for ya!