Potentially Reckless, unethical, incomplete, false and self-serving advice from my Toyota Dealership

Another thing! .. After my new engine was installed I drove down the street and pulled into a parking lot. After I was treated so poorly by the Service Manager and I had lost trust in them something told me to check things out. I had driven two miles from the dealership and shut the car down and waited a couple of hours ( I had a couple of calls to make ) and popped the hood and checked the oil. The oil was over-filled. Past the top dot and was way up where the dipstick is crimped. What will happen when engine oil is overfilled like this?
Additionally, the coolant in the overflow reservoir was overfilled up to where the overflow tube enters the reservoir. What harm would this cause? They were extremely unhappy when I asked them to adjust the levels to factory standards. Crazy, crazy stuff.

 

The vehicle being 10 years old with 220,000 miles and zero service records showing any fluid changes; I thought changing them out would be a prudent and safe thing to do for the life of the vehicle. I don't believe that as a Toyota Service Advisor that if you suggest to your customers to continue to drive their vehicles after they tell you that you've got a CEL will end well for that Advisor or Dealership. Additionally, the dealership not having approval to begin to handle my new engine and install it for the price I stated that I was willing to pay .. how can that end well for the dealership? I have all this in texts to the Service Advisor.

 

This sounds like great advice. After the first hour after shutting the car down, I checked the oil at least 10 times over the next hour and a half. Each time the oil on the stick was way up at the crimped area of the dipstick. The dealership checked it as well and again, the oil was well over the full dot at the crimped area of the dipstick. The mechanic that did the oil and coolant which was up by the overflow tube exclaimed: Well, that's not like really high. I thought, yeah it is and you might be too. I have to believe that the Factory Engineers that designed the engine have a very good reason for placing high and low marks on the dipstick and fluid reservoirs for a reason so the vehicle isn't damaged as a result of over filling or under filling. Otherwise why mark the dipstick and reservoirs at all ? I'm not sure what this guy was thinking. Just do it right.

 

I asked my Service Advisor why he didn't inspect the EGR System when they were doing their de-carbon service and fuel system service and he told me that " There is not a Toyota approved way to clean the EGR and cooler." However as an Advisor that has access to Toyota information about the sticky EGR, you should recommend removing it, inspecting it and replacing it if needed. The Advisor stated that he didn't agree with me. He told me that Toyota states that it takes THREE HOURS to remove it at $180 per hour. This thing isn't hard to get to and yes, there's mounting bolts going multiple directions but that still seems really excessive. But he's got one job to do as a Service Advisor and that is to Advise Toyota customers in full and in a ethical way.
I'm hoping that with my new engine with the revised pistons and piston rings, brand new EGR System, new water pump, new fuel rail and fuel injectors, new PVC, new fuel sensors, new oil control sensors and other sensors in addition to the brand new revised intake manifold along with proper timely maintenance I'm hoping for at least another 220,000 miles.

 

Hello John. Thank you for your advice and good wishes. This story I think is a cautionary one that others can learn from when receiving poor advice or taking their vehicles to the pirateship/stealership.. especially for younger consumers, elderly consumers or consumers that are dealing with heavy personal situations like dealing with the death of a parent. We should be able to trust our Toyota dealerships not to take advantage of us, especially those I've mentioned. I have a 2003 MR-2 Spyder that I haven't had to do anything to besides fluids and a battery. Purchased it for cash in 2003 so this used vehicle has saved me a mountain of cash in contrast to buying a new car every four years for the last 21 years. Toyota produced it with a modified Corolla engine and it's been bulletproof. I also have a 2010 FJ Cruiser which I purchased about 10 years ago. Again, only fluids but also spark plugs. Hino produced this truck for Toyota. A very well made truck except for the junk metal that was used in it's frame which was supplied by Kobe Steel. Kobe Steel reimbursed many of it's corporate customers across many industries but evidently not Toyota as nothing has been documented. Two vehicles that have probably saved me about $100K with combined ownership years of 31 years. There's no pre-determined rate at which a vehicle will depreciate. However, within the first year, many cars will lose up to 20% of their value. After that, they may lose about 15% more per year until the four-or five-year mark.
With the average cost of a new vehicle in the US at nearly $50K, can you imagine losing $25K over and over and over again vs. keeping my other two vehicles for 31 years of combined ownership? Doing fast math, roughly $200K savings not even counting higher insurance and personal property taxes. So, it's not so much that used cars are the issue, rather it's getting used and taken advantage of at the stealership is... and yes, if I wasn't caring for my mom, I would have read up on the third generation Prius.. but I really failed when I trusted my Service Advisor.

Maintenance records, Service records, accident records, registration records, ownership changes and salvage title or other title information are all things that are available, typically, when you get a Carfax or AutoCheck Report. (The majority of dealerships big and small will actually provide one of the reports free of charge.) All this information is loaded in databases and shared. If the used vehicle that you're purchasing was exclusively serviced at Toyota Dealerships, you tend to get even more information. So that information is out there. Go to Carfax and purchase a Report for one of the vehicles that you own and you can see what I'm talking about. Ironically, tucked in with the owners manual for my 2013 Prius was a receipt that contained the previous owners name, address, phone number and email. It was a one owner vehicle and the owner lived in a very remote part of Arkansas not near any Toyota Dealerships so he had a local mechanic at a small garage doing his maintenance. Probably using 1970's style paper receipts without a computer. That's most likely the reason that only his purchase date, dealership information and registration information hit any database when I purchased a Carfax for this vehicle.
BUYING A CAR FROM A PRIVATE PARTY..Very few owners including myself have all my paper copies of all my receipts and service/maintenance records. Some private owners won't provide them especially if they're trying to hide something like multiple accidents or a branded title for examples. People are people and not all are honest whether they work at a organized racket like a dealership or selling individually.

This sounds like great advice. After the first hour after shutting the car down, I checked the oil at least 10 times over the next hour and a half. Each time the oil on the stick was way up at the crimped area of the dipstick. The dealership checked it as well and again, the oil was well over the full dot at the crimped area of the dipstick. The mechanic that did the oil and coolant which was up by the overflow tube exclaimed: Well, that's not like really high. I thought, yeah it is and you might be too. I have to believe that the Factory Engineers that designed the engine have a very good reason for placing high and low marks on the dipstick and fluid reservoirs for a reason so the vehicle isn't damaged as a result of over filling or under filling. Otherwise why mark the dipstick and reservoirs at all ? I'm not sure what this guy was thinking. Just do it right.

RJPARKER;
It's difficult to know if this Prius "almost certainly ALREADY had a blown head gasket. "
How many Gen 3 owners are on this platform? 200? 500? Have 'almost all' Gen 3 Prius owners with 220k miles suffered head gasket failure? 100%? If that's the case, your answer is valid. Also if that's the case then there is a root cause. What is that root cause? Let's say that no inspection or signs of a head gasket failure are able to be seen or detected. I'd be inclined to think that a good, experienced mechanic might have something to say here. So, the dealership gives me a false sense of security and say that they've checked the car out throughly and she's in fine running order and additionally misleads me by not sharing information that Toyota shared with them about the issues with this car through TSB's, Enhanced Warranty Letters, part and service campaigns, etc. Setting me up for future failure and dealership profits $$$. Is this what a Service ADVISOR should be doing? If his motive is enriching his paycheck and dealership profit, I'd say he's self-serving and doing a great job of it. If he's not really a Service ADVISOR then re-title these people. We can vote for titles. Lol. The dealership that sold me the car may (or may not) be a scammer as you insist my focus here is about the folly of the dealership and the harm that they caused. I do absolutely agree with you that the roughly $400 I was charged for the snake oil de-carbon service was an absolute scam. Especially when I saw how filthy the old engine was internally after it was removed. I don't think that fraud like this should go on like this at a Toyota dealership. Has any other unfortunate soul here been scammed in this manner with the expensive de-carbon service?
The dealer wasn't giving a blank check and what I asked for was fluids, spark plugs and a complete inspection and advice to keep this car healthy. It was the dealer that suggested this crock of a two-step de-carbon as a false sense of security and the process failed as revealed post mortem examination. The Service Advisor had one job to do and he failed me.