Suburban Toyota of Troy

I am going to break my review down into two parts; first I will review the car and then my specific dealer experience with Suburban Toyota. I purchased a Toyota Highlander Platinum from Suburban Toyota in I will review the car and then my specific dealer experience with Suburban Toyota. I purchased a Toyota Highlander Platinum from Suburban Toyota in Troy, MI, I test drove the car and loved it. The car rides incredibly smoothly; I don’t think there is a smoother driving car out there if that is what you’re looking for. The pros: super smooth ride, very quiet, easy to access and reach the 12.5 inch navigation system. The platinum package is incredibly loaded with all the latest technology. The 3.5L V6 engine is powerful and accelerates smoothly. The steering is extremely smooth and easy. The front and rear suspension on the car is very nice. Overall styling is pretty sharp for a Toyota. Toyota is doing a better job with styling now. The cons: The engine sucks gas, I was getting about 17 miles to the gallon The car settings are not very configurable. For example the Lane Departure Alert with steering assist is basically on or off. The Lane Departure assist will keep you from drifting into another lane. If it senses you drifting it will automatically move the car back into the lane. The problem is if you want to actually switch lanes the warning alert will start beeping three times. It’s a safety feature and putting the turn sign on will keep the car from beeping. Well it sounds good but I guaranty that nobody uses the turn sign to switch lanes all the time. The beeping to switch lanes will drive you crazy. I have talked to other owners who complained of the same problem. Your only option is to turn it off. Other manufactures allow several different configuration options to stop the beep or have it vibrate in the steering wheel instead. These setting were configurable to low, medium or high settings on other cars. I found that most of the driver assists setting on the car our not very configurable. Almost all of the car settings are configured through the small in dash display in front of the steering wheel. The car has a 12.5 inch navigation and radio display system. Why not configure all the car setting through the NAV system. Configuring through the in dash display in from of the steering wheel is slow using the up, down and right or left arrows. The description in the small display is in acronyms or small icons. I found it difficult to navigate and figure out what the options were. Both Lincoln and Ford use the NAV system to configure all car settings. The remote lock and start have a very limited range The third row seating is very difficult to access and does not really provide enough head or leg room for an adult. It’s really a two row seating SUV with a very large storage area in the back. When remote starting the car the driver settings are again not very configurable. Like having the heated seats start automatically, having the rear defroster start or having the car start with the front defroster blowing. The car defaults back to blowing through the vents blowing directly into the car not on the windshield. Suburban Toyota Dealer Rating: 1 Star My car was delivered with a scratch in the front windshield glass. I didn’t drive 10 feet in the car before I noticed it and went back in to tell the dealers. How does a dealer car go through detailing and have a scratch in the glass not get noticed. Sure they offered to fix the problem and that’s when the competence of the dealership showed up. After waiting a few days and nobody contacting me to drop the car off I went back to complain. They apologized and said the 3rd party glass company would contact me. I was contacted the next day and he told me he would order the glass and it would arrive in a week. After a week I did drop the car off. When I picked it up the next day and started driving home I noticed the cars steering acting funny when I was switching lanes. I immediately went back to the dealership and explained the problem. They apologized and said the Lane departure system uses a camera eye in the mirror connected to the windshield and was not calibrated. I left the car again and picked it up the next day. A few days later it was raining lightly and now I noticed the intermittent auto sensing wipers no longer worked. Apparently connected to the windshield has another sensor that controls the auto sense for the wipers. It was not correctly installed. I waited 1 week to try in get the car back in again without any luck. At this point I now owned my new car with a scratch windshield for almost a month and there were still problems. You would think if there are specific sensors that connect to the windshield they would test those components and make sure they are working before releasing the car. Suburban Toyota failed twice to get this fixed correctly. The sales representative Lazer Volaj knows nothing about how to use and configure the options on a car. He didn’t even know my Platinum Highlander had the hands free lift gate. He really doesn’t know how to configure the setting. When I went back to ask him how to do many of the setting he didn’t know and differed me to the Sales Manager. Toyota wants to sell there Connect Service which allows you to remotely control your car through your phone. You get 1 year free then its $80 a year thereafter. Well, my intent was not to renew the subscription and just remote start the car with the key fob. So I asked my sales rep (Laser) and he did not know how to remote start with the key fob. I called the Toyota 800 service and they told me I need to do it through the connect service on the phone. Strange I paid for the remote start feature on the fob so why can’t I do it without the $80 phone connects service. I went back and talked to the sales manager who finally went back to and asked one of the service technicians. Finally after talking to 4 different people I got the answer on how to remote start the car with the key fob. The car is not bad but it needs to be more configurable. I would personally recommend you try a different dealership if possible. More