February 18, 2010

• My Toyota Recall 

  I drive a 2007 Toyota Camry SE.  Let me detail all the repairs that I’ve had since I’ve bought the car… 

  10k miles or less:

  Driver’s side chair squeaks because of loose bolts – Under warranty. 

  Rear shock/strut bolt rattle because padding between washer and bolt was insufficient - Under warranty. 

  28k miles or less:

  Occasional rattle in my roof  – No fix, dealer unable to replicate. 

  38k miles:

  Rattle in my roof is more regular – Dealer wouldn’t fix because out of warranty (36k mile warranty).  Currently the rattle occurs every time I hit a major bump or if the car does a dip coming off a driveway.  Sounds like it’s a loose metal bar that wasn’t screwed down properly.  Doesn’t affect performance of anything, sunroof works fine.  Dealer offered to fix for $500 (not worth it in my opinion, item not repaired).

  45k miles: 

  Oil spurts everywhere out of my engine.  I refill all the oil and it does no good.  Oil leaks out and theres a little tinging sound from the engine.  Later I find out that’s what they call “pinging.”  Covered under powertrain warranty, dealer says they’ll fix.  They order the part and get the wrong part.  Then they get the part they need but find they need more parts.  Each part order takes about 7-10 days to get the parts.  The $30 worth of parts is on national backorder.  I do some research and find out it’s a known “oil tube” leak from the VVT-i line that affects RAV-4′s and Avalon and Camry V6 engines.  Some owners report smoking engines/burning smells from the oil leaks.  Someone jokes that you should just keep driving it so the engine dies, which would force them to install a new engine. 

  I find the TSB (Toyota Service Bulletin) online posted in a forum.  TSB’s are fixit instructions for the mechanic.  That means it’s known issue that Toyota is keeping hush-hush.  They provide me a free rental car for over month and the bill comes out to about $1200, all billed to Toyota, charged at the daily rate.  I get my car back and they did a wash, interior detail, engine steam clean and me and my friend examine the engine.  They resealed the engine.  That means they had to clean up some major mess. 

  46,500 miles:

  Power steering locks while making a normal right turn with my friends in the car on July 4.  I have to jerk the wheel hard to the left to unjam the steering so that we don’t hit the curb.  I find my steering is fine, but the steering wheel doesn’t return all the way to 12 o’clock after some right turns, instead stopping at 2 o’clock.  I take it to dealer again and they can’t replicate. 

  57k miles: 

  I take my dealer this week to get my recall fixes.  Service manager says, “You have the trifecta!”  That means I need the brake pedal adjustment, they need to mod my floor/floor mat, and they sneak in a VVT-i update.  I later check the VVT-i update and it says hose replacement (same hose that caused my engine to furiously spurt oil).  Funny how now they decide to make this a recall item when people were reporting this years ago. 

  I have them check the steering issue and dealer tells me I need a new rack and pinion because there’s a hard spot which is causing the stick.  I say, “This is covered under warranty, right?”  He says, “Do you have extended warranty?  Because I don’t think powertrain warranty covers rack and pinion.”  He quotes me a price… $1400 (includes labor).  I look up the price online and it looks about right (online sites say anywhere from $1100-1800 for the fix).  The steering issue isn’t unbearable, just a minor annoyance.  I will wait this out and fix when it’s absolutely needed.

  Dealer also lets me know that one of my bearings is rattling so he ordered a new bearing for me (covered under powertrain warranty). 

  Does This Sound Like Quality?

  My car is almost 4 years old.  I bought a first generation of the new Camry so there were gonna be some small annoyances like little rattles.  A fairly new car shouldn’t have issues with it’s power steering locking up nor should any car have oil shooting puddles out of it’s engine.  Add that the dealer didn’t want to fix my roof rattle because it was finally reproduceable in the shop 2k or 3k after warranty expires, I would think twice about buying a Toyota. 

  Toyotas are smooth driving cars, probably one of the smoothest on the road for it’s price range.  I like the interior panel, dash, console set up.  There are enough cup holders, plugs are easily accessible, enough room to put your keys, glasses and some gum.  Toyota’s problem is that because they knew their cars drove smooth, they figured people would and should automatically translate that to reliablity, blaming chance instead of their own car.  They are slow to acknowledge and comp fixes on cars because they are cocky… Why?  Because their cars are built that good.  Now that all this news is coming out and America is conducting a full witchhunt, they decided to make all the little fixes official “recall” items even though they still can’t pinpoint the problem of the big complaint… the acceleration issue.   They will announce as many recall items as they can… get all the bad news out there now, let the stock take the full hit, which will allow them to bottom out and work back up from there.

  Toyota’s cockiness is visible for all to see.   They had a slow response to this issue, when it was already making major news a year ago.  Even my oil tube issue should’ve been made a mandatory fix years ago.  The head of Toyota is reluctant to show his face at the February 24 congressional hearing (I think he will show, after seeing the public backlash at his commenting that he probably wouldn’t show).   What else would you expect?  A delayed knee jerk reaction, just like everything else to this point.  

  Who else out there drives a Toyota/Scion/Lexus?  Any issues with your car?

  • 10:30 am
  • 6 Comments