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Target Practice! Toyota Fortuner: A family car or coffin? (Un)Safety Standards Hi so we own, rather owned a Toyota Fortuner. One of India’s largest selling premium SUVs by volume from Toyota India. A really nice vehicle, felt nice and safe in it while on the highway or a member of the family was in it and commuting on the highways.
It’s supposed to have a host of safety features as well. But all this was before my driver totaled the car by going head-on into a parked tow truck. When my driver called me and told me “Sir, Gadi Khatam hogaya!” I refused to believe him and went there to check. I was stunned to see the state of the car and was thankful that all he had was a cut on his hand. And was otherwise physically okay.
What freaked me out was that no airbags had deployed and the passenger’s seat was where I was seated 20 mins before I had to dash to pick up my daughter from her school and asked my Driver Ram to drop my business partner to his hotel in Lower Parel. Can’t be more thankful that everybody is okay especially Ram who has been with us for as long as I can remember. He has never so much as scratched a car before. So glad that this was not fatal.
But now coming to the painful part of fixing this. We towed the vehicle to Toyota India’s workshop at Ray Road operated by Madhuban Toyota. Once the Toyota Fortuner reached the workshop by Madhuban Toyota we had a chat with the relation manager assigned to us. I asked Ganesh that we need an explanation on how come the Airbags did not deploy. He said we would look into it as soon as we run the diagnostics on the car. A week later this is what they had to say: Sir, we checked the airbag systems are all in place and seem to be working fine. They did not deploy because the sensor was not hit. Hence they did not open.
By this time I had been given an estimate of? 27 lac by Toyota India on the car for repairs and the insurance company had decided to total the car and give us the insured value. Ganesh that car was bought for ? 30 some lacs. The repair bill is ?27 lac. I don’t know about the sensors but when 90% loss to the vehicle happens, the airbags have to deploy. As someone who has spent good money on a car, to get this kind of reply from the company is like a fraud. Every customer relationship is built on trust, and after this incident, I feel like I have just lost faith not only in the car but in Toyota as well. The team at Toyota India told me they’ll look into it further and get back to me. Three days later I was in touch with Paul, the manager at Madhuban Toyota, Ray Road, this time around. Sir, the airbags only deploy when the sensors are hit. We checked the sensors and they are fine. It’s just that they weren’t hit.
So basically Toyota India is asking me to make sure we hit the sensor when we crash the car or we mark the sensors as marks for other cars to hit us. They asked me to email them but never replied. At this point I felt really cheated by Toyota. Their complete lack of understanding and empathy was shocking. Strange it is that a family car like the Toyota Fortuner, which is selling safety has such poor standards that the airbags don’t deploy in a crash where the chassis was broken and the pillars have cracked.
Here’s to what my Toyota Fortuner looks like now! There’s not much left of it and I would like to know what it would take to open the airbags!!! We seem to have hit everything but for those sensors! If this isn’t cheating a customer then I don’t know what is! Guys where’s that sensor at? Let me know so we can mark where to crash the car in case of any future accidents. Actually after this I think I’ll just not buy a car from Toyota India. We had rebooked the newer version of this car and the Corolla Altis they are supposed to have 7 odd airbags each. Just realised it won’t be of any use since they won’t open. Just cancelled these bookings.
Don’t know if anybody inside will survive so please do look at the image below. To add to all of the misery, they even charged us 1% to give us an estimate i.e. they billed me ? 27,000 to let me know that car had to be scraped. I asked “what’s this for?” With no straight answers from Toyota Madhuban, the entire experience has cheated me of my trust. At this point, all I want is for this review to be see by the right people.
And to warn anyone looking to buy a Toyota Fortuner in the future. Also apparently telling the driver and telling the owner are the same thing. Anyways they were kind enough to make the amount ?10,000 when I spoke to them. Only then did they release my Toyota Fortuner to insurance. Way to go Toyota India!! Thank for a terrible experience, one that could have been potentially fatal, if not for sheer luck!
NANAExterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase New | Driven forFew thousand kilometers |
Exterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase Used | Driven forFew hundred kilometers |
Exterior Definatly a huge improvement over the out going model.
Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) Good but not upto the mark considering the price tag of on road price of 37 lakhs excluding the accessories. A lot many features are missing.
Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox The engine is fuel efficient and the good things end here. A lot of noise from the engine comes into the cabin and it is really loud above 2500RPM. The gear change alogorithm is not upto the mark and the ECU is confused most of the time if it wants to upshift or down and this is most evident on turns when you slow down and then acclerate. The torque converter used by Toyota is horrible and the lockup capabilities or may be the programming is bad leading to no driving pleasure. One more very important thing, the paddle shifters on the wheel are not actually to change gears but are mearly to select the gear change range and in this regard Toyota has made a fool out of it's customers by advertising it as sequencial gearbox with paddle shifters. None of the expert reviewer have noticed it and they are simply stating that the auto box is slow in changing gears but in reality this is because by pressing the upshift paddle you are simply going to a higher gear change range and the gearbox will upshift only when the ECU thinks it should change the gear.
Ride Quality & Handling Really unstable ride quality and even minor variation in the road surface are amlified.
Final Words Do not buy this car unless you test drive it your self for a couple of hundred kilometers otherwise you might end up losing your money to a overall bad experience. This is a 37 lakh car not a Mahindra Quanto ( By the way Mahindra Quanto is a much smoother car to drive than this.).
Areas of improvement Try to match upto the service and quality hype Toyota has created.
Looks and fuel economyPoor Ride Quality, Worst Transmission, Unstable, really bad torque converter.Exterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase New | Driven forFew thousand kilometers | Mileage10 kmpl |
In 2016 I purchased a car from toyota (FORTUNER), as its been only less then 2 years and I have taken in car so many time for defects in car seat and other parts like shaking of dash board and gear shifting issues and ac compression gas and airbag problem. With time as many times I have taken in car for service they have just provided repairing in name of warranty and service. The car has driven 30,000km and the service they have been given has been dissapointing and and how they rectify the problems is unbelievable by putting tape and foam in car parts and using hammer, As many times we take in the car for issues the car comes up with new issues they cant even fix a simple dash in which they fix air bag and dash with double tape as the car is in acceleration it shakes and the seat is not even fixed since the time we have got it. The people in the company just keep saying that they will repair the parts, have we paid money so that 10-11 times we have to take in car to company for these issues and its never resolved n the issues comes back with 1 + 1 issue as beccomin worse. What kind of service is toyota providing even when company claims so much about there service and they cant even resolve these issues as things dont come free, we have paid for it and we are at loss everyday with the car taking in and the service is not upto mark. Its a new car and not jus small car that they ignore things like that, if a new car has so many issues dont you think people are better off with second hand car. That is the service and company we trust and put money in. When even simple things cant be resolved by them. I have even requestedt hem so many times to replace my vehicle if they are not able to solve these issues and the answer from their end is always same (we will arrange a call back to you) but I never got any call, and have to make complain again and again, On the name of Quality and service toyota is cheating people.
Waste of moneyCheating customersExterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase New | Driven forFew thousand kilometers |
Exterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase New | Driven forFew thousand kilometers |
Exterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase New | Driven forFew thousand kilometers |
Exterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase New | Driven forFew thousand kilometers |
Exterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase Used | Driven forIts my mate since ages |
Exterior is good, looks great, but so do most SUVs today.
Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) No cool features for a vehicle priced at 35 Lakhs. Interiors are average, especially the plastic fitting and the UI of the music player(looks ancient).
Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox Fuel economy is average and frankly people who are buying SUVs will not be too worried about fuel economy.
Ride Quality & Handling The suspension is again average, excpected a better response from the vehicle. There is a bit of a lag in the vehicle accelarating to full speed.
Final Words This is suitable for people who are hardcore toyota fans. Ford Endevour is a better propostion when compared to the Fortuner and is also offered at very competitive price. Also Toyota should look at providing ease financing options for customers, if they have to attract customers.
Areas of improvement Pricing, Interiors and include cool features that will make the vehicle really premium.
Good looks,Interior is average, average suspension, no value for moneyExterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase Used | Driven forFew hundred kilometers |
Exterior/Styles
Comfort & Space
Performance (Engine/Gear/Overall)
Fuel Economy
Value for Money/Features
Purchase Used | Driven forFew thousand kilometers |