Combination Meter Warranty Enhancement

You have a 10 year old car and you are expecting warranty coverage? Lawyers and accountants rule.

I'll tell you my story of an Acura which had a recall for the transmission. I took it in and was told in writing that my car didn't need the fix but it was warranted for 70k miles. All maintenance done on time. Sure enough at 72k miles a catastrophic transmission failure. Happened to be near the dealer I bought it from. No help from Honda, $500 help from dealer who had inspected the transmission and said it was good. Took it to local AAMCO transmission shop, $3k less than dealer even considering dealer's customer satisfaction consideration. Replaced trans. Drove it home, sold my two Hondas and bought two Toyotas.

And if after 10 years they fail, I don't expect anything from Toyota.

 

I would never rebuild another auto trans. I put a salvaged tranny into my 1990 ford probe for $600 and had a one year parts warranty. Rebuilding would have been $2200 at that time. The Combo meter is another case as my warranty is up as well (it is still working in my 2004 at 270k miles).

JeffD

 

Hey Mike,

I agree the car is getting old (although I plan to run it another 10 years at least). Warranty certainly shouldn't last forever.. and parts fail. Most regular failures I put on the owner to fix.. certainly. I guess in this case I think the part should have been replaced under a recall.. not just an extended warranty which has an expiration date. It's a safety issue (if the radio fails.. there is no confusion of what gear you are in.. and you can still turn off your car) and it's a circuit board that has a manufacturing defect (I believe it's some bad solder points.. but maybe I'm wrong there). Car works great in the summer... not as well in the winter. Toyota knew about the defect and offered to fix it... if you did it by a certain date.

Just seems like they should have recalled the faulty boards and taken care of it. I know they took care of the steering shaft.. which could fail.. and the brake light.. which could fail.. and other items as well. They have stepped up where there were other parts that were not made to their quality level (and were more likely to fail)... just seemed like this part would fall in that same category.

-Peter

 

What's even worse is that they offered to fix it after you'd already seen the problem occur and you still didn't do anything about it. Hate to say it but I can't fault Toyota either for this. Fortunately, taking the CM out only takes about an hour and you can put a used one in or have yours repaired for about $100.

If it were me, I'd go with the factory meter which is commonly sold by Toyota dealerships online for $250. The labor guide should be around 1.5 so it should be about $400 to have the dealer do it. Are you sure they didn't just accidentally add on an extra 1 on the left or were they really trying to overcharge you by $1000?

Given it only took me 1 hour to remove and I'd never done it before, 1.5 hours is probably generous.

 

It is happening to my 2006 Prius (my bro has it now). It started in Jan but it is becoming more frequent. The car was in service in March 2006.

He called Toyota Customer Experience and they would not stand behind their product. Disappointed.

 

By the time we got our letter, my 04 was already too old. It didn't have the problem either.

Now it happens multiple times a day, and it is driving me NUTS. I can't imagine what my wife goes through driving it every day.

Off to investigate if I can repair the CM myself...