Toyota paint defect + rat ate backseat while in dealership care for 4 months

[jdnash27]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Georgia

My 2011 Toyota Corolla has a major paint defect, the paint is peeling off in sheets. My warranty ran out at 30k miles, I now have 48k miles on it. For the last 4 months I have been going back and forth with Toyota corporate and the local Toyota dealership, my car has also been sitting during this time at the dealership waiting long periods of time for corporate to come out and take pictures and write up a report which they refuse to share with me. In the beginning of this fiasco the collision center manager and the dealership Customer Relations Manager said that they have seen this before and it's called delimitation, this happens when the paint is not applied correctly they explained to me, they said they would "take care of us." The first scenario was, they could paint my car free of charge, or we would have to pay $1,200 to repair minor hail damage and a dent in front bumper before they applied paint, which I was okay with that scenario. Then, they changed their story and said no free paint, and that I would have to pay 30% of the total cost, which was $3,500 - corporate told me to "take it or leave it." I picked my car up from the dealership unpainted since we couldn't come to a resolution on 2/2/16, upon pickup, the two paint bubbles on my roof were gone, in fact, now, there is no more paint whatsoever on the roof of my car. The minor paint missing on my hood, has now turned into half of the paint totally off on my hood. And to top it off, while my car was in their care and control at the dealership a rat ate the backseat of my car and made a nest. So now my backseat will have to be replaced. What are my options here? A quick google search shows that no class action suit has been filed yet, but there are issues with Toyota paint on several models, I have seen paint issue complaints on 2010-2013 cars. Corporate says there are no active recalls but they have "documented" my issue. Do I have any options??

 

[justalayman]

The fact the warranty has long expired with apparently no issues with the paint prior to that time pretty much kills you. While there have been several other situation, incliding one severe one with GM with a very similar issue, until there were quite a few vehicles with the issue, they simply denied coverage.

In one of gm's paint problems (they have had reoccurring problems) they were sued. Part of the resolution was gm provided a 6 year warranty on the paint.

If enough people experience this there may be some retroactively paid compensation but given it is a single or limited situation you are where you are.


As to the seat issue; Their argument I can see is their duty of care is simply they had to take reasonable care of the vehicle. Unless there was a know rat issue and this might be a foreseeable issue, they have no obligation to make rat checks of the cars stored at their location. For good customer relations I would hope they would make some effort to discount the repair or even offer it for free but I don't see them being obligated to, unless of course they were aware of a rat issue previous to yours.

 

[jdnash27]

The fact the warranty has long expired with apparently no issues with the paint prior to that time pretty much kills you. While there have been several other situation, incliding one severe one with GM with a very similar issue, until there were quite a few vehicles with the issue, they simply denied coverage.

In one of gm's paint problems (they have had reoccurring problems) they were sued. Part of the resolution was gm provided a 6 year warranty on the paint.

If enough people experience this there may be some retroactively paid compensation but given it is a single or limited situation you are where you are.


As to the seat issue; Their argument I can see is their duty of care is simply they had to take reasonable care of the vehicle. Unless there was a know rat issue and this might be a foreseeable issue, they have no obligation to make rat checks of the cars stored at their location. For good customer relations I would hope they would make some effort to discount the repair or even offer it for free but I don't see them being obligated to, unless of course they were aware of a rat issue previous to yours.

There was another complaint on their Facebook page about a rat eating wiring on someones car while it was parked there. I have reached out to them to see if I could get a statement. I filed a lawsuit against both Toyota Motor Sales USA and Auto Nation Inc this morning for the full amount possible in GA which is 15k in small claims court. I actually took my car into a Chicago dealership while I was there on a work assignment for about 4 months back in 2012, at the time my car had just gone out of warranty, it had 32k miles on it, they told me then there was nothing they could do. The problem has only gotten worse, it almost looks like they stripped the paint off my car to prep it... there is no paint left on my roof and the hood the paint is half gone. I would argue that it is their responsibility to care for it while in their possession. The dealership of course went silent when I asked who their insurance contact was. Will not return e-mails or telephone calls.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

You have no proof a rat ate your car while at the dealer. Even if it did, you did not see any evidence of damage. De lamination can also occur due to the introduction of chemicals into the paint when driving down the road. You have no way to prove your car was not chemically sprayed by a leaking vehicle. I once spent a week removing a substance spraying from a commercial vehicle that I was unable to see ahead of me in traffic and spent hours with rubbing compound cleaning the paint.

 

[Zigner]

There was another complaint on their Facebook page about a rat eating wiring on someones car while it was parked there. I have reached out to them to see if I could get a statement. I filed a lawsuit against both Toyota Motor Sales USA and Auto Nation Inc this morning for the full amount possible in GA which is 15k in small claims court. I actually took my car into a Chicago dealership while I was there on a work assignment for about 4 months back in 2012, at the time my car had just gone out of warranty, it had 32k miles on it, they told me then there was nothing they could do. The problem has only gotten worse, it almost looks like they stripped the paint off my car to prep it... there is no paint left on my roof and the hood the paint is half gone. I would argue that it is their responsibility to care for it while in their possession. The dealership of course went silent when I asked who their insurance contact was. Will not return e-mails or telephone calls.

It's too bad that you did that. Now they're going to clam up and deny your claim for the paint, since you were admittedly out of warranty when you first complained of the problem. You will likely lose based on that.

As for the seat - that's a crapshoot.

 

[justalayman]

There was another complaint on their Facebook page about a rat eating wiring on someones car while it was parked there. I have reached out to them to see if I could get a statement. I filed a lawsuit against both Toyota Motor Sales USA and Auto Nation Inc this morning for the full amount possible in GA which is 15k in small claims court. I actually took my car into a Chicago dealership while I was there on a work assignment for about 4 months back in 2012, at the time my car had just gone out of warranty, it had 32k miles on it, they told me then there was nothing they could do. The problem has only gotten worse, it almost looks like they stripped the paint off my car to prep it... there is no paint left on my roof and the hood the paint is half gone. I would argue that it is their responsibility to care for it while in their possession. The dealership of course went silent when I asked who their insurance contact was. Will not return e-mails or telephone calls.

care for it? What do you suggest they would be obligated to do to "care for it"

since you asked for their insurance contact the dealership will not respond to any attempt at contact, and rightfully so. Given you have both filed suit and sought out their insurance carrier, they have no reason to speak with you and would be foolish to do so.



Do you have proof of the paint issue at 32k miles? If so, have you presented that to Toyota (which btw is the only entity that had any obligation to you when this started. The rat issue is a dealer only issue. The claimed additional damages is a dealer issue) and if so, what was their response?


as far as the amount you filed suit for; even if you win, you will have to support the amount sought. How do you come to the $15k? .