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

The CEL was due to cylinder(s) misfires. This happened two months after my first service appointment with the dealership and their snake oil de-carbon service. Has a dealership offered this to any other owners here ? I notified my Service Advisor ( 65 miles away) and he instructed me to keep driving the car daily so coolant would pool in the cylinders. This in my opinion is really reckless advice because my engine could have possibly been salvaged before things got worse from daily driving. So when I took the car in, engine oil and coolant had mixed everywhere in the engine and in throughout the cooling system. At this point, now I need a new engine and they tell me that they found a junkyard engine with 63k miles but they can't confirm that for $9,600 or something like that. Absolute crazy advice from beginning to end. Yes, I had the dealer come to me ( just down the road) to see for themselves how high the oil and coolant was. I drove it back and they adjusted both to factory specifications. The dealer charged me $1,889.37 for my first service and $3,036.90 for the second service. The dealership didn't have my approval to begin installation of my new engine. I was in negotiations with the Service Advisor via texting about the dealership taking some accountability for the poor advice which I believe significantly contributed to the failure and extent of damage to my engine. I was in negotiation of the cost of installation. He could have told me to take it somewhere else. He definitely had that option but didn't. Now their doing unauthorized work and after I spoke to his Service Manager he became a bit unhinged and started telling me exactly what I was going to be paying and telling me he's going to see what else he could find and he did. He added several charges to jack the price up because he was upset that I had evidence on my phone. He added things like a $200 "engine handling charge" ( why not add wrench handling as long as you're at it? ) he added a charge for a service loaner car that I was told they were covering that I had used for one day two weeks before they finished the engine. Due to all of this, I'm inclined to dispute the total amount of what wasn't approved or authorized which is the total of the second bill. Keep in mind that additional I had to source and purchase a completely new engine on top of the dealership folly. That wasn't cheap and I believe they need to share in the responsibility and cost. I let them know this, they kept working. They could have stopped.

 

That's what they did Mendel; just trickled some out. I'm not sure how the did the coolant but it was put back to factory specifications. What do you think would happen to this engine if it were to be driven 5K miles if it had a full quart over the top mark on the dipstick?
Would the coolant tank being overfilled up to the overflow tube be an issue?
Worst case on both, what do you think could happen?

 

The dealer claimed that "the book time " to do this states: 15 hours @ $180 per hour. I was there when the service technician pulled my car into the service bay. I talked with him for awhile and he had just removed the wiper arms and I helped him lift out the cowling and then it was quitting time for the day. Maybe 30 minutes of work. I showed up at the end of the second day and to my surprise he had the engine completely, all manifolds on..Hybrid Pit shipped the new engine with the new water pump on, EGR System on, new fuel rail on, new sensors on. They told me that it was pretty much "plug and play" which saved him some time. I said: Wow, you work fast. Did someone help you? He said: No, I've done a few of these so they go pretty quick. He said: All I'll have to do tomorrow is add fluids and test drive it. He had been there for 10 hours. Subtract 30 minutes for lunch and two 15 minute breaks and that's 9 hours plus the 30 minutes from the previous day = 9.5 hours plus 1 hour to add fluids and drive it = 10.5 hours
@ $180 = $1,890.00. They wanted to charge me $2,700 originally. I told them that I was willing to do $2,300 plus fluids which was waaaaay more than fair. The service manager was like Billy Idol and wanted more, more, more. Lol. At that point I said that you realize that I'm being extremely fair.. he didn't care and then I said: you realize I didn't authorize or approve all of these extra charges or to do any of the work at all. I said, yeah, I've got it all on text too. I asked my Service Advisor why they wanted to charge me for almost 5 extra hours of labor on my car that they didn't do and he said: The technician should be penalized just because he's fast. What if I had a guy and it took him 27 hours to complete? I said: I'd tell him he's fired. What the what??? There needs to be drug testing in these places.

 

What kind of damage can adding an extra quart of oil beyond the full mark on the oil dipstick do?

I don't recall when I mentioned "sometimes" or "free". I apologize about that. Could you clarify please. Thank you

 

Sounds like Hooters.

Can you post a picture of your Carfax report?
What wasn't on your Carfax Report that you purchased for your vehicle?

I realize that there's a lot to keep track of here but I think that you may have gotten lost or glazed over several things. Most know that these "book time" numbers are significant inflated. I know this but I take exception when the Service Manager lies to me and tells me that the technician had "helpers" and that his technician did in fact work work on my vehicle for 15 hours when the technician himself told me differently, he said that he did the entire job on his own. If you'll take a quick moment to read the title of this thread, it doesn't state my beef is strictly about being lied to about the "book time. " Reminds me of a time back in 1990 when I moved to the Chicago area a took my 85 Toyota MR-2 into a Toyota dealership for some service. When they handed me the paperwork stating labor hours, parts, etc. I asked: Why are you charging me four hours of labor time. He said: That's how long it took. I said: That's not true. He asked: How do you know? I said that I got bored and decided to watch my car. The technician put my car on the lift and then began working on the car next to mine for three hours and just started on mine about an hour ago. I said; You can go and ask him. The Advisor then changed my invoice to reflect one labor hour instead of four hours. I don't mind paying a close ballpark but when you quote something five hours in your favor at $180 per hour, that's: $900. Do you want to give away a grand ? I asked my Service Advisor and he said: "I'm not going to split hairs with you." LOL. $900 ? Either the boy is well off financially or he has very thick hair. My credit card company has said that if the dealership didn't present me with the service order to authorize the work and my signature is on any documents, I've got plenty of legs to stand on. Additionally, telling me that Toyota Corporate has approved ways and processes to de-carbon vehicles that they've passed on to their dealerships is an absolute lie according to Toyota. I paid about $400 for things they stated were Toyota approved ways to de-carbon vehicles. Most of this post is a cautionary tale about getting lied to and taken advantage of, hopefully for the benefit of another Toyota service customer.

 

It sounds like you're missing something. Are you not familiar with the faulty piston rings and pistons that this particular engine suffers from? Toyota redesigned both in 2015 to correct their errors, for a very good reason. Carbon clogged EGR System and intake manifold are related. Head gasket failures are a by-product of the original faulty pistons and piston rings, among other things such as poor maintenance. Do you know or understand what all gets done to a Hybrid Pit rebuilt "Gold" engine? I can copy and paste but I'm sure you're capable of searching. It's completely rebuilt and ultrasonicly cleaned. Mine had a brand new EGR System, new water pump, new fuel rail and ultrasonicly cleaned and tested fuel injectors, all new sensors, on and on and on. TWO year warranty. The cost of the Hybrid Pit Gold engine was a little over $3K. The Toyota Dealership Service Advisor advised that I should go with a junkyard engine with mileage that they could not verify
It would have the old and faulty pistons and piston rings, more than likely a completely clogged up EGR System and intake, maybe a slightly bent connecting rod and who knows what else for the great price that I think you'll really like of: $8,900. Now who's really making the "huge profit" ? Clue: It's not Hybrid Pit. A person would have to be completely stoned to go the Toyota Dealership Service Advisor way.
Are you kidding me? And you: "still can't believe what you're reading " ?
If you don't understand this, I'm not sure that I can help you. Does someone else want to help our friend evaluate the differences in the two engine choices?
You don't have to "agree" with my choice to ensure that I wasn't getting ripped off at the dealership however, the Toyota Service Manager completely agreed with me and that's all that really matters. Who doesn't want an extra stack of cash in their wallet?
Now you wish that the dealership puts "a rookie on my car that spends five hours on my car and screws everything up" That's kinda hateful and mean. Do you work at a Toyota Dealership?