While I get what your point is, for practical purposes what exactly did you think the outcome would be there?
#1) you've already deduced that the updated is mandatory just like it is on virtually every other piece of hardware these days
#2) did you think a CS rep was somehow going to push a magic button that was going to exempt your one vehicle from the update?
#3) when you phrase it as " what it might break?" were you expecting this rep to have an intimate engineering knowledge that is someone better than the actual engineers who've designed the update and obviously don't expect it to break something?
#4) how does the size of the update affect you? It's not like you can store your own data on it that the update would somehow prevent you from doing nor are you paying for the cellular data that toyota uses for it.
Be grateful they were nice enough to acknowledge your accusing argumentative email with a useless form response
Thanks for your feedback. It's a bit of a long post, but I feel that it really needs to be understood that random SW updates with zero info is not OK. I think you may have misunderstood a few things.
Yes random SW updates are a pet peeve so is bad customer service. This is the perfect storm here. I think you figured that out.
As you noted I was a bit terse in the email. However, if the CSR doesn't know what to do they need to ask questions or elevate it. I should not be grateful that they send me a form letter for a problem they created after I spend $50K on a truck. They need to be grateful that I chose Toyota for the third time, and I'm corresponding with them about my concerns, and they are getting feedback. I am their customer, not the other way around.
Yes the email is a bit blunt and at the same time Toyota needs to understand that not everyone want's to do their tech support. If it's broken, they should tell me, "Come talk to us and we will fix it." That's what a warranty and repair shop is for.
I'm not trying to be a dick here (although, as noted I can be) just stating the facts. I deal with this stuff all day long. Working in Silicon Valley and I fix software and hardware bugs for the design engineers.
Probably half the valley does what I do, so I'm not special but I might have a bit more insight into what happens and how it can go wrong. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I would rather ask the question than spend my weekend trying to fix something that I could have avoided.
Forcing customers to do their own tech support seems to be a growing trend. It's like you buy a toaster and it needs a SW update? WTF, I just wanted toast!
Their SW update and response are just not good customer service. If I told a developer that he/she needs to update the SW with no information about why, they would run me out of the building.
To your points.
1. For clarity, it doesn't say mandatory. Software is updated and hardware is replaced; however, SW can change the physical behavior of the hardware. That can be confusing.
Right now, it's just annoying pop up and Entune is not working. It does not happen when the phone is not in the car. So I have no idea if it's updating my phone or my car.
2. No one, anywhere, should ever push a "magic button" and update anything that they are not 100% responsible for. That would be problematic, because the behavior and features might change without the user knowing it. Also if it were to render the system unusable (happens all the time) or wipes out the user configuration/preferences/data, then someone needs to go fix it. If it's mandatory it should be done by the shop, not a random cell phone connection, by a random guy, in a random location.
What if this was a rental car or fleet vehicle?
There are too many variables for Toyota to say with 100% certainty that it will work.
3. "... were you expecting this rep to have an intimate engineering knowledge that is someone better than the actual engineers who've designed the update and obviously don't expect it to break something?"
No, but they should know more than what's on the screen, and sort of answered the question on what would break - Entune will no longer work.
So how do I get ride of this, delete the Entune app from my phone?
By the reply I sort of think it was a robot response. They parse the text and phrases, then send back a standard answer record.
No one ever "expects" their stuff to break. I'm sure that Toyota does a million regression tests every night on the SW builds, seriously. However, they don't know what they don't know and random corner cases show up. It could be something stupid like the re-tuned the GPS ADC and it now gets interference from the Bluetooth with an iPhone 6S in the gold case only.
4. "how does the size of the update affect you?"
Several reasons
- It has nothing to do the the head unit storage capability. I really don't care about the head unit flash memory size. Although, I'm sure it's extremely large.
- Data costs me money. My family doesn't live on their phones and don't generally stream data/video. So we do not have an unlimited plan. There is no reason for it. If it's 50-100M, I can live with that. If it's a 10G download, it's never going to happen. I suspect it's pretty small, but I have no context by the lack of information given.
- It takes time. Is this a 2 min download or a 2 hour download. 2 mins would be acceptable, but I can't sit in my car for 2 hours.
- The bandwidth in the area is very limited these days. Everyone is home and using the crap out of anything that keeps the kids busy. Back to how long does it take.
- What if it stalls on the download? I get 1/2 an image, does it start over, etc... See this post on Taco World.
2020 Entune 3.0 | Tacoma World
The list goes on...
So a random SW update with no information raises a lot of flags. For all I know, my truck was hacked and the Russians are taking over.
