Do you own a 2018 or newer Toyota ?

[Stormy Peak]

If so, this might be of interest to you if you haven't yet heard about it.

Toyota is planning on charging $80 a year for you to use your car's key fob features - you will still be able to manually unlock your car and start it, but all other features of the fob will be locked unless you pay up.

This feature is going to be retroactive for ALL models going back to 2018.

For more detail...this guy is a lawyer that I watch on YouTube every so often -- you don't need to watch the whole thing, he kind of gets to the point pretty quick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLlzAv2GTdc

I sometimes can't comprehend the greed of major corporations.
I also don't understand how they can legally go in and retroactively do this to people who bought a car without any clue that the company could pull something like this later on. If it was brought up before or at the point of purchase, and one could then make the decision...yeah...fine. I hope there will be some kind of lawsuit to stop this kind of greed and control over something you've already paid for.

Like the lawyer said...what next... a fee to use the heated seats or windshield wipers?

Stormy

[Arthur Cutler]

From what i understand from a friend who works for Toyota its just the remote function of the fob....Remote function meaning if you want to start the car from inside your house remotely if you have that function on your fob.... I believe thats what you will be paying for...All the other features should still be free as for as opening your door with the fob and starting your car by pressing the start button

[Ren Marston]

late stage capatalism at its finest

[Stormy Peak]

From what i understand from a friend who works for Toyota its just the remote function of the fob....Remote function meaning if you want to start the car from inside your house remotely if you have that function on your fob.... I believe thats what you will be paying for...All the other features should still be free as for as opening your door with the fob and starting your car by pressing the start button

This was explained by the lawyer in that link.
However... it's a piece of .... move by Toyota, to sell cars and then even years later, hold people hostage over features the customer already paid for and should have the absolute right to use -- All The Features of that fob.

If the key fob hostage/subscription racket was mentioned BEFORE someone made a choice to buy that brand...then that's fine - people can at least make up their minds if $80.00 a year to use an item that has always before been considered to be in full ownership of the customer, when they bought the car...then at least they know what they are getting into.

And again, the greed behind all of this....

I did just a very quick, Google search:

In 2020 Toyota's PROFITS were $20 BILLION Dollars !!!!
Yet they feel like they need to do that to people who bought their cars? And try to nail as many of them as they can for $80 a year....even after they have earned $20 Billion in profits.

In the 1st Quarter of 2021....Toyota: $8.2 billion profit (yeah, just 1 quarter of the year)

I hope there is a class action against what they are doing and the customers win.

Stormy