TL;DR -- Motor Man saved my car and therefore me -- from months of frustration in ownership of a…read morebrand new car manufactured specifically to order. SIX star rating -- better than five star.
In owning this 2019 Toyota Avalon (hybrid) since August 2019, the Air Conditioning (AC) was the one flaw. 3 weeks after buying the car, AC failed. Taking it back to the dealer(s) did no good. They couldn't find the problem. This was the brand new 5th generation Avalon with brand new cooling system. I knew I was taking a chance, and I got burned. Every time I went to the dealer, I failed to get a real solution to my AC. This went on for nearly TWO YEARS. Later, thanx to Motor Man, I realized the dealer system failed me: they could have fixed my car, but didn't.
Then my AC failed again on the drive down to Florida. It was well over 100 heat index so that I was getting lightheaded on the way down, having to stop every hour. Showing up at the Toyota dealer at Fort Walton Beach (FWB) the next to get help did me no good. Toyota dealer had 30 cars (NOT exaggeration) at 7 am on Monday, all with appointments. Without an appointment, they turned me away. Dealer system failed me again.
Out of desperation I started looking up "mechanics" in Yelp listings. Destin Imports had the most reviews in the area: they had to turn me away, but they did suggest I could try Motor Man.
Motor Man fixed the problem, at last. Joe Weiss, the owner, carefully took more time and effort to fix the problem. It took FOUR days, but it was worth it. I finally had the car I was promised.
He explained that my generation of AC being a new design, required to disassemble the ENTIRE front interior of the car, the seats, the steering column, the dashboard, all of it. This was necessary to get to the "box" containing the evaporator core of the car. Motor Man Joe figured that the issue was inside the "box" and the only way to really fix the AC was to disassemble everything to get at the "box" and see what the evaporator core looked like.
It took most of two days to get there, but Motor Man Joe was right.
The evaporator core was covered over with oily fluid. The part itself was defective. He had promised to close down his shop and dedicate his mechanics to solve this problem for me. He was in earnest, and determined to solve the problem for his customer. To me, that's rare to see from any professional, and worthy of respect. He kept his word, That's the American way a small business should operate, isn't it?
He was able to get the replacement part from the *same* Toyota FWB dealer that turned me away. He checked everything while reassembling everything -- this required mechanical and electrical testing every single system in the dashboard, steering, console and so on. This was careful "sweat each detail" work, which is why it ended up taking most of FOUR days. I'm engineer enough not to be pushy of a professional doing careful quality work, and told Joe I was willing to wait patiently.
(I would have said the same about patience to Toyota dealer mechanics if they'd only given me a chance by taking on the problem themselves -- they either turned me away or failed to take on the *whole* problem by telling me it was mysterious and they didn't know how to fix it)
After he restored my now fixed car to me, there was one small issue of the fit of the the instrument panel. After driving around and finding this, it was a small matter for them to correct the fit. I had the car as it was meant to be from the manufacturer.
CONCLUSION: Motor Man took care of me and fixed the problem. My flawed car became a true pleasure to drive even in the hottest weather, as opposed to dehydrating me badly and dangerously. I owe thanx to Motor Man.
CONCLUSION, NEGATIVE:
My new car had one defective part, and the Toyota dealer system failed to find it. More, they failed to even try. They failed to explain to me that this was a possibility. I'm an engineer, I would have understood and listened. Why didn't they explain this to me?
Did the dealer mechanics not know? Did they know it would take two mechanics four days to solve this problem, and not want to devote that much time and resources to one customer. Is it because Toyota itself doesn't sufficiently incentivize its dealers to go all the way to ensure quality? I don't like asking such questions, but doesn't the failure to fix the vehicle invite such questions automatically?
