Dealing with Dealers - 101

Five years ago I bought a totaled 2006 and rebuilt it. I forgot to order the OEM hose from the hybrid electric water pump to the reservoir, so I bought a regular piece of hose the same size, and it has been fine until recently when it developed a kink. I had to bring the car into the dealer for the C0U water pump recall, which this hose attaches to. I checked the price of the hose, and found it to be available for under $20 online. Figuring that the extra shop time to remove the other end of the hose, and change it out when they are servicing the pump can't be more then a few minutes, so I decided to let the dealer change it. I dropped the car off this AM and went over the list of work needed, which included 2 other recalls, and P0420 - the catalytic converter, which should be under warranty. So, at noon today, they "stealership" called me and said to change the hose is $150 + $32 for the hose. Well, I had not problem with the $32, but the $150? I told the service guy that was an absurd price, and that the bulk of the labor was covered by the recall work. About 15 minutes later, they call back and say it is now $98. Well, at least things were moving in the right direction. Then I asked if they tested the catalytic converter. No, they won't do that until they change the hose, since the invertor might overheat and be damaged. I pointed out, that for the time the test is run, the load is very low, since it is a low load condition, and I had been driving it for a while like that, so there was really no risk, enough fluid had to be flowing. I asked to talk to the service manager. Half an hour later, I get a call back. "They spoke to upper management and will change the hose for free!" We will see what happens with the CAT. So far, the moral of the story is know what is involved with the work being done, so they don't take you to the cleaners.

 

It Friday night, and I can give a partial update, as the car is still at the dealer. The good news, is that the dealer is changing the CAT and the water valve, which also had DTCs under the warranty. The water valve has a high failure rate, so Toyota has extended the warranty on it. The 3 recalls were done. They are working on the last item. A few years ago, I posted about how I replaced the brake actuator. When the actuator failed, it blew a 30 amp fusible link in the fuse block. You would think Toyota would make it easy to change the link. No way! The whole block in the assembly that contains severable fusible links needs to be changed. I had made a temporary repair, that became semi permanent. I put a 30 amp 3AG fuse in a fuse holder with 14 AWG leads on it and pressed in in place. I purchased the fuse block, which costs $70 and tried to figure out how to install it. It seemed you had to disassemble the entire fuse block housing to change it out. It was not obvious how to do it, and the manual says nothing about it, so I just left good enough alone. When I spoke to the dealer on Wednesday, he said I should give him the fuse block, and he would give it a shot. I dropped it off yesterday. He called me up today, and said he really underestimated the job, having spent 2 hours on it, (they obviously had not done this before either) and still had not finished it. He agreed to only charge me for 1 hour of labor. The car is supposed to be ready tomorrow, but I will probably not get it until Monday after work.
The work took so long because they would not order everything needed at once, but rather, fix one item, then do the next test, order the next item needed etc. Oh, one other thing, I had Prestone antifreeze (about which I also posted before) in the car, about which they said nothing, and they honored the warranty with it in the system, actually making no comment at all about it.

 

I got the car back last Monday. My total bill was $565.33.
Here is what I got under the warranty and due to recalls at no charge:
Electric water pump with fresh coolant (The inverter, I needed the coolant, it was 4 years old.)
Bolt hole inspection on steering, replace bolt
Water valve assembly and more coolant (the engine also 4 years old)
Pedal Mod
Catalytic converter and gaskets
Here is what I did pay for:
Fuel Injection service (Dealer claimed that all cylinders were reading very lean) $199.95
Hose $32.80
4 wheel alignment $99.95
air cleaner $21
Vent valve $9
Labor $98 (1 hour) for changing fusible link for actuator (they spent 3 hours doing it, and never did it before, I had he part)
Other labor $59.95
Minor tune up $89

I'm skeptical about the need for the fuel injection service, but they claimed that it might have caused the early failure of the cat. I few cans of cleaner probably would have done the trick, but since they changed the cat, and did other work at reasonable cost, I did not complain. Overall, I was very satisfied with the dealer, after I got them to install the hose for "free". Also, they did not charge extra for reading the codes, since they did work related to the codes. They only charge if you don't do the work there.

 

73000. I think 80,000 is the limit