More Toyota woes

On February 4, MotorMania published a letter from a reader telling of her experience with the Multi-Mode Manual Transmission (MMT) on her 2005 Toyota Verso.

This semi-automatic transmission was known to give problems - gear changes would sometimes be unpredictable, with up or down gearshifts being made seemingly at random by the computerised selector and the transmission would change to neutral by itself at the most inopportune moments, leaving you without drive and unable to select any gear

In the case of the reader with the Verso, the matter was resolved when the dealer made her a very generous offer.

Then on February 21, we received the following letter, with full supporting documentation: Your article dated February 4, refers. I purchased a 2007 Toyota Auris 160 RS MMT from McCarthy Hatfield in February 2009. It was a dealer vehicle for Woodmead Toyota; there was no previous owner.

This vehicle has the same transmission as that of the Toyota Verso purchased by Thandiwe. In November last year, when the mileage was 98132km, it developed the same malfunction as that of Thandiwe's.

The car has been serviced at the same dealership on four occasions. I approached the dealership on December 8 last year to fix the problem.

The dealer principal informed me that all they needed to do was to reboot or re-initialise the vehicle, but a short while later, I was given the attached quotation for repairs (amounting to R24028).

I was told the three years/100000km warranty on the car had expired on September 72010 (18 months after I had bought it), because, according to Toyota, the warranty begins to run the moment the vehicle leaves the factory, which in this case was on September 7, 2007.

I also approached Toyota SA on December 8 last year, and was attended to by two case managers (names supplied).

Despite much promising, they never came back to me, even after repeated e-mails and telephonic messages. Eventually I stopped calling them on January 4.

When I saw your article about Thandiwe's Verso, my heart was pounding as this is the same problem as on my Auris. My question is: why was I not given the same option as pointed out by Ferdi de Vos, instead of being quoted R24000 for repairs? Could you please assist me, as I am desperate to sort out this problem. - Andile, Pretoria

We forwarded Andile's letter to Toyota SA, pointing out that the following four issues were raised by the customer's letter:

1 Was the customer informed at the time when the car was purchased as a "dealer vehicle" that almost half its warranty (time-wise) had already expired?

Toyota's answer: TSA is unable to confirm what was said or not at the time of the sale. The customer knew that the vehicle was not brand new at the time of sale and was told of the year model. The warranty on the vehicle is three years/ 100000km, whichever comes first.

The first selling date was September 8, 2007 and the warranty lapsed on September 7 last year. This information is also available in the Book of Life and Owner's Manual.

2 It seems the MMT started to malfunction, despite regular servicing and presumably software updates, in November last year, two months aft r the warranty expired, and 1868km before the 100000km distance was reached. Is that correct?

Toyota's response: There is no relation between the services and the gearbox failure.

3 The dealer principal's information given to the customer on December 8 last year seems to bear no relation to the attached quote from Hatfield Toyota for R24028.

Toyota's response: The diagnosis of the vehicle was done by our qualified technicians within the service department. The dealership made an assumption before a proper diagnosis was done. Toyota SA recommends that a proper diagnosis is done before commenting or issuing a quotation.

4 The customer's well-documented experience with Toyota Customer Care has been somewhat unsatisfactory.

Toyota's response: Valenski Arends communicated this to the customer on March 9 this year. The customer said that he would get a second opinion and quote from a different dealer.

Toyota added that they could not assist with repair costs as the vehicle was out of warranty. According to them the vehicle was not affected by the campaign on the MMT gearboxes.

The conclusions

The facts of this matter, and Toyota's response, speak for themselves. In the circumstances you took a wise decision, Andile, namely to get a second opinion.

It is possible that the gearbox on the Auris only needs a software upgrade on its com puter. There are reports on the internet of owners whose problems with the MMT disappeared after they had that done. In fact, you may find the discussions on the Toyota Owners' Forum extremely helpful. The address is www.toyotaownersclub.com