How Should I Talk to My Dealer?

Talked to a second dealer, who is a friend of a close friend - long-story short, said everything I recounted was consistent with what he's been seeing recently as well, although he disagreed that replacing the head gasket would automatically require machining like the second indy told me.

He said a lot of dealers would rather not have the headache, but his store does them regularly enough. He said if I didn't want to go that route (see if I can get away with just replacing gasket, possibly machine the block), that he would actually recommend the refurbed motor over one built from scratch with new parts, mainly because there would be a documented warranty for 3-years on the swap vs a 12-month authorized dealer work guarantee (apparently enforced/honored by Toyota NA).

I'm going to sleep on it another night and go talk to my local dealer in person tomorrow.

 

Quick follow up here - I had the car shipped a few hours away to this other dealer (ironically, not too much more expensive than getting it towed across town) and they'll start looking at it Monday. They have a tech who is sort of their older prius specialist and he's actually purchased two himself with blown gaskets to repair. The advisor I spoke to said when they moved it a couple times, they didn't even hear a rattle. Fingers crossed damage is minimal.

I'll let you all know how it turns out. One reason I think worth sharing is options are limited right now, will probably become moreso soon, and the whole cost/benefit dynamic is radically different at $3 gas vs. $7+ gas.

 

Very true and that was half the problem I had with my local dealer this time around (I guess I was always lucky with my previous service advisors - one guy was so great, I even gifted him the take-off wheels and tires off my truck).

At the dealer I sent it to, both the manager and advisor I talked to knew their stuff and made me comfortable with what was essentially a decision tree they would navigate based on what they find when they start taking it apart. My local basically said pay up for a new motor or pick your car up. The indies basically said if they couldn't repair it, they would just toss a junkyard motor in for about $5k+ (no option for a refinished motor).

No warning light/codes, no overheating, nothing wet around the block, no burning oil, coolant level was good, etc. Just a handful of light rattles occasionally on startup and then one day, felt like I was going over a rumble strip under quarter load around 30 mph.

 

Quick update - tech we wanted to look at my car was back and had a chance to check my car yesterday. Engine looks good overall/no damage, etc., so they recommended rebuilding the gasket and changing the water pump and timing assembly while in there (first thing I asked when I received the quote, around $4,500).

Asked them to proceed, so hoping to have the thing back in the next month, but we'll see. I may drop in this weekend to meet them in person and see it taken apart.

 

So bummer update here - car was ready last week, went to pickup (about 4 hours away). Got a hotel halfway back and car seemed fine - worst part was a smell I had gotten rid of before came back after baking in the sun for 6 weeks).

MPG was really low the first ten miles or so, but averaged out close to my normal after that for about 100 miles on the highway. Next day took it to dinner and the sputter/vibration issue came back when just driving around in a 35 mph area. Tested it a few times and recorded it, and it's basically the same issue but doesn't smooth out as much now. I left the car and we're arranging a tow back to the dealer now.

I was really excited at the idea of having a beater where all the key components were refreshed/new, but now I wonder if I'll be able to trust the car again unless they give a good explanation on why the thing barely made it a day before having the same issue again. I really don't want to get a new or different car, but now going through the exercise in case it comes to that.

 

Both dealers said the spark plugs were wrong, so those were replaced, but none of those other items were in the parts list. I'll be connecting with them later this afternoon and tomorrow, so will definitely raise those.

 

Quick update here, then I'll do a short summary later with all the options considered, their current cost estimates, and what I would do differently if at square one again - to answer my own original question.

The rattle was in fact caused by the intake. P****d me off to no end when they nonchalantly said, oh yeah, the tech had that happen to his car too. My whole purpose for sending it to someone who's done dozens of these and owns a couple, etc. etc. was I wanted that advisory upfront. I even threw an extra several hundred in parts at it previously too. Either way, they worked with me to keep the additional cost down to a point I was comfortable with.

Car is home now and I'm trying to add as many miles to it as quickly as possible now. Wish me luck, thanks for all the help and insight.

 

I wasn't complaining about the cost of the job, I was complaining because they didn't ask me to replace the intake while they had everything apart. I understand the carbon issues from the many posts you and Mendel have made across the forum. But fwiw, I simply didn't have time to do it myself and when I tried to get an indie to do a cleaning or replacement of those items back in the spring, he looked at me like I was crazy and said come back when it was demonstrably a problem.

The Plan B option at both of the indies was not acceptable - throwing in a salvage motor for $5-6k. Their Plan A was better, but it wasn't $1,500 for a hg job there, it was $3k, plus I'm assuming another $500 give or take if the heads had to be machined (one would do no matter what, but the other indie and second dealer told me both that could introduce risk by taking them outside the acceptable variances). Factor in all the new parts I threw at it, it's not the massive cost difference you might think (backing out the extra parts, it would be about $3,600).

One thing that's a big takeaway is how a top gen-3 issue (intake & egr) is minimized by shops, hybrid indies included.

At the end of the day, I'm not bothered with what I paid, even though it stings - the whole cost/benefit equation is becoming radically different in this market, especially with gas looking to spike again after this short reprieve. Hourly rates are up big the past two years, the cost of rebuilt and salvage motors appear to be up 3-6x in the last six months alone.

My biggest frustrations are the time I lost trying to find someone who wouldn't lock me into a decision upfront and then having to retrieve the car twice because they didn't simply ask if I'd like to replace the intake too. Other than that, fairly excited to have four big issues on the car reset in the past 12 months and outside cosmetic items I've done, my all-in is about what a 130k mile '12-14 would cost today, for one that probably wouldn't have had any of these items addressed yet.

You guys have been a massive help, not just in the thread, but with all your other responses, signature links, etc. Don't think I ignored it at my own peril, I had to work with and weigh the options in front of me

 

There was a gap in the documented service history, so after 3-4 months of not getting around to doing it myself, I took it to an indie and they didn't really want to do it. I replaced the egr valve shortly thereafter at my dealer bc they were willing to do it (at my expense) bc there was a previous campaign.

It looked like it was the original and had some carbon caked on it, but it was in the middle of the range of severity for the ones I've seen in pictures here and in the youtube videos.

 

@rjparker we're not disagreeing on any of these points... I asked them to do the campaign anyway, they did a deep clean, $150 cost to a shop prob means 2-3x markup to consumer, and no codes were present based on the carbon buildup.

The tech had done it to his own car and didn't suggest I do it to mine, which is why we had the redo. Either way, it looks like I paid wholesale, so outside the impact on my time, the cost was less than it would've been for just the part in the first place.

I've shared what annoyed me, the rest is fine/good - it's a different environment now and I'm not going to pretend it's 2018 when approaching repairs. Most of the points in this thread from me are that the cost expectations need to be updated for people (your gasket estimate is literally half what I was quoted twice). Engines were a dime a dozen and places had plenty of staff before, that's no longer the case.