The Process

What did I do and how did I do it? I know absolutely nothing about the legal system except what I watch on TV and movies. What I did know from the start is that you need a LOT of evidence if you want to win your case. With that in mind I tried to be as methodical and meticulous as possible when dealing with anyone or anything about my car.

Here is the breakdown of how I dealt with my car and Toyota:

The most important thing to remember is DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT!! Record ANY interaction you have with ANYONE about your car. This is crucial to winning your case. I recorded phone calls, dealership visits, oil change/service visits to other dealerships, and anywhere else you might catch someone saying something about the windshield crack issue. I have hooked the recorder up to land-line phones, cell phones, my office phone, stuck it in my portfolio on dealership visits, carried it in my hand during oil changes….don't leave home without it. I seriously carried my recorder on me 24/7 and I believe it is what won my case, not to mention all of those windshield replacement invoices from Safelite Auto Glass.

Don't forget to take photographs of your windshield with a small ruler taped to the windshield to give measurements of the crack. Each time a crack happens make it a point to photograph it. Make sure to take many shots of the windshield including a full windshield photo, a full crack photo, and then some close-ups of the crack itself. Try and get the windshield from many different angles. Why do you need to do this? Well, for one, it provides hard evidence of the crack including size, oritentation, and the fact that there are no impact marks to cause the crack. Also, as has been my luck, after I got the final crack I decided not to replace my windshield going into the lemon law process. The windshield, after 2 months of driving, ended up having a 24"-26" long stress crack, a fifty-cent piece size starburst next to the large stress crack with radiating cracks, 3 dime sized chips in the glass, and about 6-9 pits about the size of a sharpend pencil tip. That is in only 2 months. I was lucky that I took photos the day the crack happened because later that week I picked up my first large dime sized chip close to the crack. Without photographic evidence they could have said that the chip caused the crack, when it actually happened later.

To learn how to take photographs of your windshield and have the cracks show-up in detail, which was kind of tricky, click here.

Also remember to save any written documentation about the car or for the car. This can be correspondence with Toyota/Scion about your issue, letters from your dealership, service or maintenance receipts, windshield replacement/repair invoices, the bill of sale for the xB, registration, or anything else that even remotely has to deal with your car. Keep all of this stuff in a folder for your records. It sounds like a real pain, and it sort of is, but it will payoff in the long run.

I would also suggest keeping a log book of any interaction you have with Toyota/Scion or your dealership including date, time, the person you spoke with, and what the call was about. I suggest also keeping a log of the cracks you have gotten on the windshield including the date, time, location of the crack on the windshield, address/location where the crack occurred, what you were doing when the crack occurred, and how large the crack was. If you have to take your case to court having this information will make you sound very professional because you won't be guessing the date you spoke to "someone" at Toyota/Scion. It may seem redundant and sort of pointless, but the more information you have at your finger tips the easier it is to build a case.

One final note I have on documentation: KEEP YOUR ORIGINALS! Make several copies of all of your paperwork, correspondence, invoices, EVERYTHING! Even my attorney didn't get originals of my paperwork. If it comes down to a court case and your attorney or someone else loses a crucial piece of original documentation it is ultimately your fault since you gave someone else the original. Also, when going to the dealership to start your fight take copies with you every time and NEVER give them an original of anything. By doing that you could be destroying your own case before it even starts.

Final Deal & Car Buy-back

How does the actual deal go down? It usually takes about 30 days from start to finish. If you are on top of your game it can take a little less:

Audio Recording Phone Calls

Depending on which state you live in recording telephone calls have their own laws you will need to follow. Luckily, in my state, only one person needs to know the call is being recorded. Since I am the one who knows the call is being recorded I did not have to inform the other party in the conversation. I did a little research and have created the following table to show "one-party states" and "two-party states". Of course, since I am only a regular guy and not a lawyer/attorney, I cannot offer you legal advice. What I can offer you is my opinion and what I found in my research looking at the various states' laws. Please contact your local attorney/lawyer, or my attorney for a refferal, to have up-to-date and accurate information.

For more information on telephone call recording laws please checkout this site.

Some tips I have for recording audio are pretty straight forward:

1. Start recording and state your full name, date, time, the person you are contacting or will be speaking with, and the nature of the visit/call. This will help you and others understand what the call is about later down the road.

2. Make sure when you begin speaking with the person to have them state their full name and where you are located. Most in person conversations the person will greet you and tell you their first name, ask them what their last name is. Then ask them what the name of the dealership/location is and act sort of clueless and lost. People on the telephone will probably not want to give out their last name, but make sure you have them stating their first name and their place of employment; such as Scion Customer Experience. Just act overly "lost" and people will go out of their way to "help" you.

3. If you are meeting someone in person I suggest carrying a small leather portfolio with you where you can slip the recorder in one of the pockets and keep the portfolio unzipped. As you are speaking with them make sure to point the recorder in their direction as best you can. If you need to sit the portfolio down on a table or desk make sure the recorder is facing them as well. This will help in making the conversation easier to hear when you play it back.

4. Try and stay away from areas that have a lot of ambient noise, such as a service bays or areas with a lot of echoes. Also, keep an ear and eye out for where you set your recorder. Sitting the recorder next to a desktop computer that is humming and blowing air from its processor is going to disrupt/distort the conversation. You want to make sure the things that are said are as close to crystal clear as possible.

5. Try and stay calm. I know that I have a really short temper when it comes to incompetence and when I feel I am being jerked around, but recording a conversation where you blow-up and completely yell at a person will not look good in court. You want to appear cool, sophisticated, and calm during the entire conversation. If this means putting the person on hold for a few moments so you can cool down and breathe, then put them on hold. Don't be your own worst enemy.

6. Let the other person do most of the talking. I like to agree and speak a lot during my conversations, but I found this was more hindering than helpful in my collecting evidence. After I listened to recorded conversations I saw I would tend to agree verbally and break into their flow of speech. They might not say anything further on the subject, but if I was quiet I might have gotten more information out of them. What I found to be more helpful was to nod and remain silent while they were speaking. This not only allowed them to say more, which in turn would provide you will valuable information, but they felt they were in control of the conversation and would put them more at ease, thus divulging more information.

7. Play the "best friends" game. The entire situation you are in is one big game, seriously. So, you have to play that game as well. When you speak with anyone at Scion Customer Experience or your dealership act like they are your best friend and are looking out for your best interests. Tell them you only want to speak with them about your issue because you "trust" them. After a few phone calls where you can get them to laugh or tell them you "totally believe in them" and that they are "really helping you out" and you give them some praise they will consider you a friendly person they can be more open with. By being more open they are more than likely going to say something that other people might not hear, like stating that the windshield stress crack issue is a known problem to Toyota, but one they are not officially recognizing. You will be a pleasure to speak with and they will look forward to your next exchange, as should you.

8. Don't lead the conversation by planting little hints in your speech. By leading the other person in the conversation you can't really use that as evidence. What you have to do is have them stumble on the information you are looking for on their own. One example I have of when this happened to me is easy enough:

I took my xB to another dealership to have the oil changed. When filling out the paperwork the service representative will HAVE to do a walk around your car to note any body damage or defects. Of course I had a huge stress crack on my windshield, so he mentioned this in his walk around. Since he brought the subject up, not I, I asked him if he saw many xB's with stress cracks. He in turn went on for about 2 minutes telling me how his manager told him about how the sun would flex the frame in the sun and this would put too much strain on the windshield and it would crack. He also told me his manager was standing next to an xB when it happened.

Pretty good information and evidence for just dropping off my car to have the oil changed.

9. Record EVERYTHING! As the above example showed you can happen across information to help your case everywhere. If I hadn't taken my recorder with me and recorded that conversation I couldn't prove that it ever actually happened. Also, if I hadn't taken my recorder I highly doubt I could ever get that technician to say those exact words again and asking him to repeat them verbatim on my next visit would be highly unlikely. I suggest you devote a pocket or a portfolio to your recorder and carry it everywhere. If you don't have it setup in time to record a phone call, let that call go to voicemail and call them back when you have your recorder running. When I first started recording my conversations I missed some very big pieces of evidence because I got impatient and wanted to speak to the person pronto, without recording it. This was a big mistake and one you don't have to make

What sort of James Bond gadgets did I use to collect my evidence? Head over to the equipment section to find out.

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