Buyer Beware: Huge paint defect on brand new Yaris

[voodoo22]

We picked up our “new” Yaris on Friday and everything seemed to go well. We went over the paper work and the salesman went over the car with us and then we drove off. I thought nothing of the fact that we looked over the car and took delivery in the dealerships underground garage until we parked at a shopping centre to pick up some things. When we came back to the car my wife notice a scratch on the centre dash panel, just below the stereo. You couldn’t see this in the underground garage because it wasn’t bright enough. No big deal, we’ll get that replaced.

Then the next day we wanted to go out for a drive and my wife noticed something on the passenger side door. A paint chip. It was really small, but the paint was completely chipped off and metal was showing.

Upon further inspection I found many more all along the passenger side of the vehicle, on the trunk and so far I’ve found one on the driver’s side. I don’t see any on the hood or bumpers, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem there.

These pits or chips are so small you can’t see them even in normal outside light unless you look extremely closely. The reason my wife noticed them was because the car was perfectly clean and sitting under two brand new parking lights in our apartments garage. There are dozens of these spots on the car. We’re devastated. This was our first new car and we were so excited, but now we’re both stressed out.

We called the dealer Saturday after we noticed the problems, but our salesman isn’t in until Monday. I’m taking the car in Monday after work and I really hope they do not make this issue any worse.

My wife wants a new car. Why not? When you buy a 5$ mug and it’s defective you get a new one right? My father used to paint busses. He lives in another city and is unable to look at the paint himself, but he said it sounds like something called fish eyes. He says the only solution is for the car to be repainted.

We’ve owned the car for 2 days and already it needs to be repainted? The fact is it was delivered to us in this defective condition. Even if they repaint it for free, and give me a rental car, there’s going to be overspray on the car, anyone inspecting the car will know it’s been repainted and so any future trade in or selling price is instantly devalued. People will assume the car has been in an unreported accident. I would.

I cannot stress enough that when you pick up your new car go over it with a magnifying glass before accepting it. I walked around the vehicle and inspected the interior closely, but the lighting in the dealer’s underground garage hid the small damaged spot under the stereo and under any normal circumstance you could not see the extensive damage to the paint without a very bright light, and putting your eyes right up on the vehicle and practically squinting. Even when you do this, you cannot tell for sure that this speck of dust is not a speck of dust, but in fact a pit in the paint where no paint exists and bare metal is exposed. I tried taking pictures of the defect, but you have to use a macro mode option on the camera just to have some chance of seeing the specks of metal and even then it doesn’t show up on the picture, but you sure can feel the depression in the paint when you rub your finger over it.

I don’t know what the end result will be for us. We only have one car and I have a daily 102 km commute. We cannot go without a vehicle.

I hope that no one else has to go through this horrendous experience which we are currently going through.

Take care.

[bugnuts]

Yeah the paint is total crap on the Yaris, My LB had an awesome paint job when I first got it, Didn't have any problems like what you are going through but the paint is just very thin (Clearcoat) and I have tons of rock chips on the front clip and a few on the front fenders also. Sounds like there could have been some water in the air lines when they painted your car at the factory or even some oils in the metal bleeding through causing the specs of paint not to stick. The Japanese have building the cars down to a science but as far as paint goes I have not owned a Japanese car yet that had a decent paint job. Sorry to say but I doubt the dealer will even give a crap about the paint now that you own it. Good luck! Let us all know the results

[kimona]

Man, I'd be a little upset as well! But don't get all stressed out... it's only a car and it works real well otherwise.

Visit the best paint and body shop in the Toronto area and get professional uptodate feedback (in writing if possible) on what the problem appears to be. Now, you have something to work with when you go into the Toyota dealership.

Make an appointment with dealership's GSM and Service manager. (Forget about the salesman; he's got no responsibility or obligation in the matter. He was probably a real nice guy when you were making the deal, but he's made his commission and he's all done with you... next).

Discuss the paint problem with the store's managers. Compare your Yaris with others on the lot to be sure you have a specific paint problem. If indeed the paint on your Yaris is defective, then proceed from that point. Always be patient, polite, and gentle in manner... but remain firm and insist upon a satisfactory resolution. This approach usually commands respect, and others will be more willing to work with you and for you. Listen to what the store managers offer to do to correct the problem and/or compensate you.

If you are not happy with the outcome of the meeting, then contact Toyota Canada and request a meeting with the Regional Toyota Rep.

Good luck.

[voodoo22]

Thanks for the good advice guys.

The biggest concern for us with this paint defect is that the car will rust extremely quickly, because in Toronto they dump so much salt on the roads in the winter that the roads and parking lots literally turn white and many people from Western Canada will not even consider a used car from Eastern Canada because of salt damage.

The car does run great and can't stay new forever, but we are very unsatisfied currently and we'll keep you up to date with what happens in the hope it might help someone else down the line.

[Black Yaris]

wait till she gets a lil older.... my hood is full of chips, I bet by next year my hood will be grey

[punch]

voodoo, that terrible hopefully they don't screw you around... as always though they OWN you, you inspected the car and drove off the lot happy... as far as there concerned the paint was good, and you did this damage....

I bought a brand new 2003 pt cruiser GT, loaded, cost me close to $35,000 cdn, it rained the day i picked the car up, didn't notice a scratch on the hood of my new black car ( was excited to get on the road with it, and it was wet), next day saw the scratch, all they would do was attempt to buff it out, it was better, but always there in my mind, and if i looked for it, i could see it...

anyways good luck

[voodoo22]

voodoo, that terrible hopefully they don't screw you around... as always though they OWN you, you inspected the car and drove off the lot happy... as far as there concerned the paint was good, and you did this damage....

I bought a brand new 2003 pt cruiser GT, loaded, cost me close to $35,000 cdn, it rained the day i picked the car up, didn't notice a scratch on the hood of my new black car ( was excited to get on the road with it, and it was wet), next day saw the scratch, all they would do was attempt to buff it out, it was better, but always there in my mind, and if i looked for it, i could see it...

anyways good luck

I agree punch, that's why if they're difficult I think the next step is prooving it is defective paint. I will have to proove that it is something which happened in the factory. It's not chipping, it's just difficult for me to know how to describe it. It's like these extremely small area's with no paint coverage. My father says if there is grease on the surface or some other contaminents present when the paint is applied you can get this effect. It's like an inward bubble and he calls it fisheyes. These spots are about the same size as the flecks in the metallic paint.

I never thought of bringing a flash light and a magnifying glass with me to the dealership, but next time I will.

[brickhardmeat]

I am planning to spray mine with 3M Adhesive and sprinkle glitter all over it.:wink:

[Pars]

I've learn to be leery of any dealership that will let you take delivery of the car while it's parked-up inside (away from the sun light). Next time, before I sign, I'm getting the salesguy to drive the car out into the sunlight and go over it before we finalize the paperwork and I hand over the cheque. I've already been burnt once, I'm not about to let it happen again. Found a ding that had touch-up paint applied to it after I took the car home. Even after 70,000km with a host of scratches, dings, rear-end that notched the bumper, countless stone chips, the one that's most upsetting and draws my attention is one I got before I took delivery of the car.

[njyaris]

dude dats suks bigtime .. i hope you and your wife get want you want from the dealership .. we all know how they can be assholes when need of service. i too had a scratch on my car when i got it but didnt see it till the next day b/c i bought the car at 9 pm at night. Good Luck!

[sherryberry]

i looked over my new yaris the next day since there wasn't any sun out when i bought it. I didn't see any issues with the paint but I did hear how cheap the paint is suppose to be. Good luck with trying to get it fixed. Keep us posted.

[grampi]

What colors do you guys that have/had paint problems have?

[stuffy]

voodoo22, are you sure these aren't something on the surface of the paint?

when my yaris was new i had a tonne of microscopic little specks that looked a bit like a small paint chip that had rusted, but they came off with clay bar.

i think these specks were from the brakes, maybe something to do with when they are new because i don't get them anymore.

[punch]

voodoo22, are you sure these aren't something on the surface of the paint?

when my yaris was new i had a tonne of microscopic little specks that looked a bit like a small paint chip that had rusted, but they came off with clay bar.

i think these specks were from the brakes, maybe something to do with when they are new because i don't get them anymore.

those specs are from the train cars they are delivered on, brake dust is what is from the train cars...

[fearturtle44]

That is bad news. As far as a bad paint jobs on the Yaris, you can go to any car forum and folks are yelling about bad paint jobs on their car. So it is not just Yaris. Hopefully Voodoo22's problem is unique and hopefully the dealer will make amends.

But bottom line, it is up to the buyer to fully inspect the car (in and out) before signing off. Once you drive off the lot, you have much less recourse against the dealer.

As far as my Yaris S, Flint Mica, I have noticed no problems. People mention chips on the hood. I can tell you that ANY car that is traveling interstate is going to have a chip or worse is a car/truck knocks back a pebble/debris.

Let us know how it turns out.

[voodoo22]

I went to the dealership first thing Monday morning and talked to my Salerep. He brought out the service manager and they hummed and hawed. After much conversation between them, they asked me if I had time to go to their collision centre.

I went to the collision centre and showed the paint damage to another Toyota employee. They looked at and used a cleaner to really clean the car and look for other damage. Sure enough, there were hundreds of chips all over the plastic silver thing over the license plate, the Toyota emblem on the back, and the rear light cases. The people in the shop all came over to take a look. Against my better judgment they tried buffing it out. I didn't understand how you could buff out a chip which goes right to the steel, but they tried anyways. That just made it worse. Now, not only was there a series of chips, but the clear coat was almost removed where they tried buffing. Everyone at the shop said there was no way they could repaint this and fix it because there was so much damage. Almost the entire passenger side starting by the passenger mirror, rear of the car and I only saw one chip on the driver’s side rear. Almost all the chips are within a band up to the door handles and about 1 foot below and on the back of the trunk from the top to the license plate. There is almost zero damage outside of this band.

It's very suspicious damage as the chips are all really small and there are no large ones. The collision centre said it was almost like someone spun the tires on a gravel road, but then why only on one side of the car, no damage above or below this band and only small chips? If it was gravel you would thing the damage would be more sprayed like the dust you get on the side of your after a rain when you drive through puddles. Also, you would think the chips would vary in size from small to large; they only seem to go from really small to nearly invisible.

So I had the guy at the body shop call the dealer and I waited there until I heard him do this. Then I went back to the dealer and started talking with my salerep. Up until this point neither one of us has even mentioned what the other wanted. I wanted a new car, but I hadn't said this and I had the feeling he was leaning towards a new car as well. He said he needed to call Toyota Canada and that the person he needed to talk to wasn't in today and would it be ok if he took until tomorrow to tell me what they would do for us. I said ok, he thanked me for taking the time for them to gather the information and for the inconvenience and I was getting ready to leave. Then the dealership manager came out and tried saying how they were going to sand down the car and repaint it. That's when I let them know this would be unacceptable. I said this is a brand new car and you can't start repainting it. You will lower the value of the car dramatically; the colours won't match and will fade at a different rate, not to mention the quality would be much lower than the factory. Then he said the most ridiculous thing, he said that I was lucky the chips were so small because they weren't visible unless you looked extremely closely. Lucky? I said that they will be more than visible in a year or two when the car is covered in rust.

This is when I discovered my salesrep had some power because he was getting upset and said to the manager, let's have a talk in private to him. They walked away; the manager got ticked off and walked away. My salesperson I bought from came back and said, "You're getting a new car identical to this one, you can drive this Yaris until your new car is ready on Friday." We signed some paperwork regarding transfer of ownership to the new Yaris coming in Friday, I thanked him profusely and I left happy.

What I didn't tell you is that all the people I dealt with (Salesrep, Service Manager, and Collision centre tech); except for the manager; were Japanese. I come from Western Canada and I find the standards of service in the GTA to be abhorrent. I am German Canadian. I have been lucky enough to have gone to Japan. The Japanese people give amazing service, far beyond anything I have every experienced and in Japan there is no such thing as a tip. There is no space on the bill for a tip in any circumstance. I feel that I was really lucky to have dealt with all Japanese people in this experience. I can't believe how quickly and fairly they resolved our problem.

On a side note, we were originally supposed to receive our car this Friday, but for some reason we got this damaged one last week. Now we're getting one on the prior mentioned delivery date. I think we're getting the car we were ordered and perhaps someone tried to pawn off a car they knew was damaged on our salesperson.

Who knows what happened to this Yaris, but come Friday my Wife and I will be very excited to pick up our new Yaris after we examine it with a magnifying glass!

Thanks for all the support in this forum, this has indeed been a learning experience.

[sherryberry]

woohoo i'm so glad you're gonna get a new car. wonder what they're gonna do with that damaged yaris.

[death is my gift]

I am planning to spray mine with 3M Adhesive and sprinkle glitter all over it.:wink:

:bellyroll: :bellyroll: :bellyroll:

[voodoo22]

woohoo i'm so glad you're gonna get a new car. wonder what they're gonna do with that damaged yaris.

Thanks sherryberry!

I hope they use it as a demo and don't try to sell it to someone, because in a year or two, that car is going to be covered in rust specks.

[Pavel Olavich]

Why would they use a paint damaged car as a demo?!?!?! Don't you think if you saw the damage, other potential buyers will too?!?!

[kurokoma-kun]

Congratulations voodoo22! Glad to hear this got resolved :clap:

[Violin]

Is this what they mean by a "happy ending"?

[kimona]

What I didn't tell you is that all the people I dealt with (Salesrep, Service Manager, and Collision centre tech); except for the manager; were Japanese. I come from Western Canada and I find the standards of service in the GTA to be abhorrent. I am German Canadian. I have been lucky enough to have gone to Japan. The Japanese people give amazing service, far beyond anything I have every experienced and in Japan there is no such thing as a tip. There is no space on the bill for a tip in any circumstance. I feel that I was really lucky to have dealt with all Japanese people in this experience. I can't believe how quickly and fairly they resolved our problem.

I'm glad all worked out well for you! You were so lucky to have met with Japanese to discuss the problem with your Yaris.

I lived and worked in Japan for 6 years, and I can attest to the fact that customer service is first class everywhere, everytime, without exception; there is never any confrontation or hint of a negative attitude; and all are motivated to arrive at a satisfactory win win resolution quickly.

Sadly, Americans (and Canadians) haven't got a clue...

[indyyaris]

can people post close-up pictures of their paint-chipped yarii?

[clayky]

What colors do you guys that have/had paint problems have?


I'm beginning to think the sedans and LBs have different paint jobs. Mine's great after 11k and I have lots of hwy miles....just got it in January.

[naossoan]

One thing I noticed on my yaris is along the sides of the car under the door that ~4 inches of metal the paint is...weird looking. Like, the rest of the paint is smooth, but that part LOOKS bumpy, but it's not when I run my hand along it. At least not that I remember.

I asked a couple of my car friends and they said that's normal because it's got some different paint that helps to prevent corrosion and stuff. So I don't worry about it. Other than that I don't *think* I have any pain chips, but I don't really inspect my car every day lol. I just get in and get out.

[hasher22]

thats great to know ur gettin a new one!!! sweet as....

but this thing shouldnt happen in the 1st place.......

what colour did u get btw?

[RocknRollRon]

Mine's Polar White and should hide defects well (Ive owned other white vehicles). I've had mine 2 months and 5,000 miles and have only seen a few minor blemishes in the nose area, one small stone chip, and removed a gazillion dead bugs...BUT the harsh NJ winter anf road salt test is coming...

don't stress...after all there are much worse things that could happen and hopefully won't!

RocknRollRon

[Meteorite Man]

Where the "Damage" you mentioned was, passenger side (low) and rear leads me to think your car was on the lower level, rear position on the transport truck. This is why you see high-end cars delivered in an enclosed trailer. I worked for a company that delivered new BMWs and Mercedes. Also a few Porsches and Volvos. They will be delivered open sometimes to a dealer but the didn't make the whole ride open. They got dropped in a holding yard or similiar close by.

Looks like your car COULD of been the victim of crap that gets tossed up off the shoulder. It's a virtual sandblaster on that side with the debris that gets kicked up. And being POSSIBLY on the tail end, now you get the vortec of dirty air swirling around. Ever see how dirty your back end of the car gets after a rain storm or how caked it get with snow and slush, same dirty air. I drive truck and pull two trailers, the rear trailer door is almost impossible to open if you've been driving in the snow or slush for a long period of time. Always stopping to chip ice and crud off the taillights.

Maybe that was the cause and the lot guy just passed it off.
With the high-end cars, everything went through inspection before they signed for the car. Inside under lighted conditions. I've returned a few due to the slightest imperfection.

Glad to hear everything worked out.

[sherryberry]

One thing I noticed on my yaris is along the sides of the car under the door that ~4 inches of metal the paint is...weird looking. Like, the rest of the paint is smooth, but that part LOOKS bumpy, but it's not when I run my hand along it. At least not that I remember.

I asked a couple of my car friends and they said that's normal because it's got some different paint that helps to prevent corrosion and stuff. So I don't worry about it. Other than that I don't *think* I have any pain chips, but I don't really inspect my car every day lol. I just get in and get out.

yeah that's quite normal now. My bf's vw rabbit also has that.

[black2yaris]

[QUOTE=naossoan;117330]One thing I noticed on my yaris is along the sides of the car under the door that ~4 inches of metal the paint is...weird looking. Like, the rest of the paint is smooth, but that part LOOKS bumpy, but it's not when I run my hand along it. At least not that I remember.

that stuff that looks bumpy is a rock chip protectant that toyota puts on rocker panels to protect the paint most US car MFG'ers don't use it . my has it also .. It's a good thing soo don't worry about it !

[voodoo22]

thats great to know ur gettin a new one!!! sweet as....

but this thing shouldnt happen in the 1st place.......

what colour did u get btw?

We have Pacific Blue.

The replacement car is quite noticably darker than the origianl, but we still like it's looks.