Oh god. You're right. HOW DID I MISS THIS PART That one had me cackling, I'll admit. OH HOLY FUCK you ain't kidding. That right there is the mark of an industry caught flat-footed. Something I think needs to be said here - dealers are detrimental to brands. When we set out to buy my wife's Fit, the first place we went started the negotiation at $4k over MSRP. When I said "why are you offering to charge me four thousand dollars over the sticker in the window?" they said "because we have costs to cover." When I said "so am I to believe that the price in the window is the price you pay?" they said "that's a nice watch. How much does a watch like that cost?" That's something I think Tesla is absolutely doing right - i suspect Elon Musk made the calculation that dealers could only hurt his product and decided that the only people who would be selling Teslas would be Tesla employees on salary.The issue involves defective inflator and propellent devices that may deploy improperly in the event of a crash, shooting metal fragments into vehicle occupants.
For its part, Toyota said it would begin to replace defective passenger-side inflators starting October 25; if parts are unavailable, however, it has advised its dealers to disable the airbags and affix “Do Not Sit Here” messages to the dashboard.
The thing about the Takata recalls was that it was never ending. Every time you turned around more cars were falling under the recall umbrella and Takata, who to their credit handled it about as well as possible, seemed to just keep stumbling. As for dealerships, every experience I've ever had has been pleasant, though I'm a but curious as to what it would be like to purchase a car without a dealership.
I've built a solid relationship with my local Toyota dealer and use them for all my service as they are only 6% higher than anyone else around me. I make sure to stop by the sales guys and say "hello" when I am there. Last time I was there for an oil chance I was joking about how much longer I can keep the car running before I need one of them. Not saying that this will help me, but it can't hurt. Still fretting the next car purchase, hopefully not for a few years yet.
This is one reason that the dealers are shitting themselves over Tesla's business model. I'll never buy on of their cars (too expensive for what they are), but I'd buy from any car company that sold cars in the same way. This is sort of how I ended up with a Scion. Back when I got the car, I wanted a manual. There were none available within 150 miles. Sigh. Thy told me to go onto the web site and custom out a car, click "have financing will settle at dealer" or something along those lines and wait for an email (in 2002!!) that the car was ready to be picked up. No haggle, no sales crap, got the car for exactly what Consumer Reports said the car was worth and got the exact vehicle I wanted. I had to go to the dealer, sign paperwork, deal with my trade-in, hand over the loan info from the bank, and within an hour of showing up I was out the door in my new car. I am filled with nothing but dread for when this car finally bites the dust. No car buying experience will ever be that good again.