Bad service/diagnosis of Toyota dealer

JAbraham

My 2006 diesel Toyota Corolla was with Toyota dealer from 10th June '13 regarding 'starting trouble'. They couldn't yet fix this issue and each time they come back with set of solutions (replace XYZ... ). I was charged for the first diagnosis / repair which was replacement of glow plugs. In between they fixed / replaced two other components which they didn't charge me yet. Got a call today saying they need to replace another component which cost me 820 Euro so I asked deduction of 200 which I payed for the replacement of glow plug. He mistreated saying they won't give deductions and I can keep the car in the garage but they won't fix it until whole amount is payed. Could some one throw some advice / tips how to deal this.

Alanstrainor

Don't take a 2006 Toyota to a dealer. Go to an indy.

What part did they want to change for 820?

JAbraham

Now they think it's problem with Injectors ( 125 Euro each ) so total four injectors plus VAT and labor. it's already with dealer since June 10th. First they thought it's glow plug, replaced it. again they replaced fuel filter, then fixed fuel pump. I think in the long run they plan to replace everything except number plates :-)

JAbraham

by the way, what is indy ?

colm_mcm

JAbraham wrote: »

by the way, what is indy ?

Independent garage.

JAbraham

I use to service in local garages, but thought dealer may be able to fix it without hassle. think I was wrong

colm_mcm

JAbraham wrote: »

I use to service in local garages, but thought dealer may be able to fix it without hassle. think I was wrong

Main dealer has to do everything by the book and wants to sell you parts

djimi

If any mechanic/dealer had my car for 7 weeks and still could not diagnose the problem, while charging me for parts along the way, Id be getting the car back from them (either under its own power or on the back of a truck) and bringing it to someone else for a second opinion.

JAbraham

I was told that after two weeks main dealer went to Toyota Ireland for advice. It's strange they keep on replacing it. Service rep / manager was very harsh on phone when I asked for deductions (refund for glow plugs). He says even if I keep my car in their garage for long they won't fix it. Thought of getting sort it out by going to a solicitor.

Alanstrainor

What would you go to the solicitor for?

Or have they already done the 820 worth of work? Your post isn't terribly clear to me.

JAbraham

First they told me issue is with Glow plug, replaced it but still car didn't start. again replaced Fuel filter, still the same. Again take out fuel pump (opted to fix rather than replacement) still issue not fixed. Now they think problem might be with Injectors which they plan to replace. They haven't started replacing it and it costs 820E. Phone call with me and Service manager didn't go well. I regularly drive through M50 to office and had a tough time as I didn't get a spare car from dealer. Going to solicitor to check if i can go legally to fix my car sooner and claim for the expense caused due to this issue.

mickdw

Take your car away from there asap.

colm_mcm

mickdw wrote: »

Take your car away from there asap.

Ah yes, but what about the bill?

mickdw

I would seek legal advice to be honest re the responsibility to pay for repairs carried out on foot of false diagnosis.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Getting a diesel fixed in Dublin (If you're in Dublin that is) is an absolute joke. I have met but one competent Diesel mechanic. Even the main dealership couldn't fix my issue and still charged me for the "diagnostic".

"There was an error, sure we just deleted it. That'll be €90 please."

I had taken the car to 2 different mechanics previously.

JAbraham

I live in Dublin... believe I should take the solicitor route for wrong diagnosis / incompetence from dealer.

djimi

colm_mcm wrote: »

Ah yes, but what about the bill?

How much can a garage realistically expect to charge for repairs that didnt actually fix the problem, and for parts that it seems apparent were not required?

colm_mcm

djimi wrote: »

How much can a garage realistically expect to charge for repairs that didnt actually fix the problem, and for parts that it seems apparent were not required?

Happens enough times.

JAbraham

Does any one knows competent garage who can fix this kind of issue ? worried if dealer was correct about the replacement of injectors... another terrible week to go

naughtysmurf

djimi wrote: »

How much can a garage realistically expect to charge for repairs that didnt actually fix the problem, and for parts that it seems apparent were not required?

colm_mcm wrote: »

Happens enough times.

This is a bit of an issue though for people like me who don't have a good knowledge of car mechanics and leads to a bit of a general distrust of mechanics and other trades

I accept that an issue could potentially be caused by different faults but surely a bit of time could be spent to diagnose properly first, by all means charge for the time or have a fixed price for a diagnosis & then fix rather than just start wiping stuff out seemingly willy-nilly & replacing while expecting the customer to pony up for each new probably expensive part that doesn't fix the issue because that's just the wrong way to treat the customer

colm_mcm

The fact that toyota Ireland are already involved may work in the OPs favour.

JAbraham

I lost my trust with Toyota Eire and their prestige dealer.

georgefalls

Would it be normal for all four injectors to go wrong, at the same time..? Seems odd to me..!

hi5

I don't know why people put up with this? you should only pay for the exact items and labour that were needed to repair the problem.
If the garage misdiagnosed, then you should not pay for their incompetence.
Lots of garages make out that a repair is some sort of mystery thrown at them by the gods, and that you the customer should share in the whole mystical process by stumping up continuously.

mickdw

I guess there are occasions where a garage cannot pin point a fault and might suggest fitting a sensor or something of that nature a a first option and if that is not successful, getting into more expensive issues. In those kind of cases, I think that is ok as long as costumer had been put in the picture and agrees to that course of action.
In the ops case, it looks like blind substitution until cause is found. I wouldn't be paying for that.

naughtysmurf

mickdw wrote: »

I guess there are occasions where a garage cannot pin point a fault and might suggest fitting a sensor or something of that nature a a first option and if that is not successful, getting into more expensive issues. In those kind of cases, I think that is ok as long as costumer had been put in the picture and agrees to that course of action.
In the ops case, it looks like blind substitution until cause is found. I wouldn't be paying for that.

Absolutely, that should be the way it's done but it seems like the garage has the OP over a barrel because they are holding the vehicle hostage until payment is made

Toyotafanboi

naughtysmurf wrote: »

Absolutely, that should be the way it's done but it seems like the garage has the OP over a barrel because they are holding the vehicle hostage until payment is made

i am pretty sure the garage is well within its legal rights to hold the car until the bill is paid.

naughtysmurf

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

i am pretty sure the garage is well within its legal rights to hold the car until the bill is paid.

Probably but as Mickdw says the route a garage is going to take to solve the problem should be clearly communicated to the customer first so that both parties understand what's going to happen & both agree with the plan of action, doesn't seem to have happened in this case

JAbraham

Just an update:

Met solicitor and decided to deal this legally.

JAbraham

georgefalls wrote: »

Would it be normal for all four injectors to go wrong, at the same time..? Seems odd to me..!

I think dealer make story in order to get the cost of fuel pump they repaired in between. They told me fuel pump repair cost them 650 Euro. After the repair car still has starting trouble. now they come back saying all injectors has to get replaced with a bill of 820E. Only GOD knows what's the real story.

thewintermute

I'm in a similar pickle with an '04 Golf 1.9 tdi that was sounding like it had dmf trouble. (140K). The missus took it to her indy of choice who has given it back twice with the issue unresolved, still making a racket when the engine is under load. Indy reckons he's put two new clutches and flywheels into it. I explained that trying the same solution repeatedly and expecting different results is not a great method of diagnosis. He has undertaken to return my money and my car with the original clutch and flywheel replaced. I will be taking it elsewhere, but I'm not sure if he's just incapable of doing the job right, or if it's not the dmf after all.
Apologies if this is a thread hijack, but it does show that some folks will admit they're wrong and you shouldn't pay for misguided guesswork.

Any suggestion on what else could be askew with the motor gratefully received.

dieselbug

This is the kind of stuff that gives garages, technicians a bad name.

Communication. ie You need to talk to this garage and get as much detail about the problem as possible and they need to talk to you.

What facts have been established ?

If the pump was faulty it's likely that the injectors were damaged as a consequence due to swarf in the system.
Did this garage explain to you in advance about these issues and warn of the cost? Did they seek clearance from you before the work was carried out?

Glow plugs will have no influence on cold starting except in very cold weather but, it may be that they were faulty and were changed by way of good practice, again perhaps poor communication.

On the other hand, this garage may well be incompetent and are just guessing, throwing parts at the problem in the hope of hitting the bulls eye. Without knowing the details it's impossible to say.

JAbraham

dieselbug wrote: »

This is the kind of stuff that gives garages, technicians a bad name.

Communication. ie You need to talk to this garage and get as much detail about the problem as possible and they need to talk to you.

What facts have been established ?

If the pump was faulty it's likely that the injectors were damaged as a consequence due to swarf in the system.
Did this garage explain to you in advance about these issues and warn of the cost? Did they seek clearance from you before the work was carried out?

Glow plugs will have no influence on cold starting except in very cold weather but, it may be that they were faulty and were changed by way of good practice, again perhaps poor communication.

On the other hand, this garage may well be incompetent and are just guessing, throwing parts at the problem in the hope of hitting the bulls eye. Without knowing the details it's impossible to say.

I have described whole story in first page - please for more details.

it's not indy, but main dealer of Toyota Ireland where my car is now for last 6 weeks. Glow plug replacement - They says it was faulty, so they replaced it and promised it will resolve it, which it didn't.
They didn't explain why injectors got faulty - instead they didn't take money for the fuel pump repair. They asked 820E for replacement of Injectors (I wonder how all the four got faulty at the same time !!! ), asked refund for glow plug replacement, because I payed due to their wrong diagnosis. - service manager was screaming "I can't give any discount" where I didn't ask for discount but for deduction. 200E is not small amount I believe !!!!!

dieselbug

The main dealer "should" be in a better position to to make the correct diagnosis over an independent garage. This due to having access to equipment dedicated to one make, training, and the relevant data. Not always the case though.

It's difficult to give a diagnosis over the internet without knowing what tests have been carried out and the results of such tests and what led this garage to their conclusions.

I would'nt fancy my chances in court though. Based on the information posted here I would say it would be quite easy for the garage to justify their work to date, rightly or wrongly.

JAbraham

dieselbug wrote: »

The main dealer "should" be in a better position to to make the correct diagnosis over an independent garage. This due to having access to equipment dedicated to one make, training, and the relevant data. Not always the case though. .

May be because of that 'better' position dealer is replacing each component every time. in plain english it's called ' incompetence '

It's difficult to give a diagnosis over the internet without knowing what tests have been carried out and the results of such tests and what led this garage to their conclusions..

Service manager was in a hurry to close the call always whenever I ask more questions. Hesitated to answer those questions

I would'nt fancy my chances in court though. Based on the information posted here I would say it would be quite easy for the garage to justify their work to date, rightly or wrongly.

we don't live in a stone age I believe !!!! hope the court listen to my part as well and not just dealer's justification. Complaint is already registered with Toyota Ireland and Toyota Europe. Solicitor already initiated legal notice to all of them.

i had a car before with an oil leak took it to garage, told me rocker covers needed replacing. did the job next day oil still dripping onto driveway. took it back to mechanic and he said he would start with oil seals at the top of the engine and work his way down. i refused as to me this wasnt any kind of diagnosing just replace until he got lucky. i'm a tradesman myself and there is no way i would be charging a customer for a misdiagnosis.

knotknowbody

If the glow plugs were faulty the engine management light would normally come on, they are very easy to test, any competent mechanic could test them in about 10 seconds with a short bit of wire ran back to the battery.

I had an intermittent start problem on a diesel avensis recently, went through a few things, luckily I can test most things myself, it turned out to be the starter, basically it was faulty and when it came under load it would sometimes draw too much power from the battery, this in turn led to the scv being starved of power and not functioning, as the scv turns on the fuel supply the engine was not getting fuel and would not start. The car was starting 99% of the time but would let you down, it tended to happen more if the engine was warm. The car sounded normal to start and seemed to turn over at the correct speed when starting

I don't know if your problem is intermittent but I called to, and discussed my issue with the mechanic's in both my local Toyota dealerships and both wanted to go replacing glow plugs and injectors I knew were good, they are not so much mechanics as parts salesmen, my local indy's first suggestion was to go for the cheap and easy to replace stuff first, when the starter came off and was tested it was drawing four times the power it should have been. You really can't beat a competent indy once a car is a few years old.

JAbraham

knotknowbody wrote: »

If the glow plugs were faulty the engine management light would normally come on, they are very easy to test, any competent mechanic could test them in about 10 seconds with a short bit of wire ran back to the battery.

In my case, there was no engine lights. accepted the gospel from dealer/service manager about the glow plug replacement.

I had an intermittent start problem on a diesel avensis recently, went through a few things, luckily I can test most things myself, it turned out to be the starter, basically it was faulty and when it came under load it would sometimes draw too much power from the battery, this in turn led to the scv being starved of power and not functioning, as the scv turns on the fuel supply the engine was not getting fuel and would not start. The car was starting 99% of the time but would let you down, it tended to happen more if the engine was warm. The car sounded normal to start and seemed to turn over at the correct speed when starting

I don't know if your problem is intermittent but I called to, and discussed my issue with the mechanic's in both my local Toyota dealerships and both wanted to go replacing glow plugs and injectors I knew were good, they are not so much mechanics as parts salesmen, my local indy's first suggestion was to go for the cheap and easy to replace stuff first, when the starter came off and was tested it was drawing four times the power it should have been. You really can't beat a competent indy once a car is a few years old.

I have the same situation as of urs (please see the one in bold). made a mistake to contact main dealer as my friend insisted to go to dealer. maybe I have to replace starter as well. thanks for the tips dude.

derry

There is a thread from few days back 2004 Toyota Eventus similar statring problems and turned out to be intermittent faulty connection on the ECU a quick clean of the contacts problem solved.

Ball park the injectors are nearly always good to my knowledge until at least ~200,000 miles or 280,000 kilometers unless you been using a lot of that washed fuel from from small garages suppliers on the take .The acid can eat the injectors away and reduce their life .We don't have age and mileage of your car to help the story and if your the only owner in case it had bad history before you bought it .

My 2 liter diesel 1993 Toyota Carina with ~300,000 kilometers is coming to time for fuel pump replacement (kit) as fuel flows back to tank when the car sits for 24 hours so i need to clamp the fuel line with a vise grips every night i park it or it wont start . The injectors are probably needing replacement as it was before a taxi so the fuel sources for many fills were cheapo diesel which has higher risk to be washed stuff. I bought car for €250 not sure if i want to spend €1000 on it .Somebody offered me for €250 a 1200cc lancia Y low milage sub 50K with no marks on it so probably buy that instead to fix my Toyota

If you do do the injectors get the old injectors from the garage have them inspected in case they are still good .You might be able to sell them
The small court will do this case for €6

The garage to my knowledge has no legal right to keep the car even if you owe them some money.However moving a car that doesn't work costs money if its a ambulance job typically €130 to hire the ambulance truck and so much for each kilometer often not much change from ~€200 but might be worth it if you can find good indy who knows his stuff

ball park diesel cars will start to give a lot of problems around the ~300,000 kilometer mark but once fixed will often do another 300,000 kilometers no issues but the costs versus value of car most people wont spend that money

Derry

JAbraham

Ball park the injectors are nearly always good to my knowledge until at least ~200,000 miles or 280,000 kilometers unless you been using a lot of that washed fuel from from small garages suppliers on the take .The acid can eat the injectors away and reduce their life .We don't have age and mileage of your car to help the story and if your the only owner in case it had bad history before you bought it .

My car is 2006 Toyota Corolla D4D, 120K Kilometers, second owner, myself bought the car in 2009 May and never had issues until now other than this starting troubling, also I'm the only one using it. Always fill fuel (standard diesel) from TOPAZ. used to replace Diesel filter for every 10K kilometers too.

derry

JAbraham wrote: »

My car is 2006 Toyota Corolla D4D, 120K Kilometers, second owner, myself bought the car in 2009 May and never had issues until now other than this starting troubling, also I'm the only one using it. Always fill fuel (standard diesel) from TOPAZ. used to replace Diesel filter for every 10K kilometers too.

Well I would be very unlikely to agree to change my Injectors on such low mileage .Its not impossible they are the problem if something like metal got into the system but it would be so unlikely based on what your saying .
Do a search on forums to see if there is some well known problem with this car type for injectors going south with low mileage.
If that draws a blank also try forums which have similar cars and see if there is some known ECU problem or some similar issue with the fixes .
Its relatively young car relatively low mileage with good service history I would aim to look at ECU issues stopping the pumping of fuel for some reason as more likely reason . Sometimes remapping a cars program can solve the problems

Derry

JAbraham

derry wrote: »

Well I would be very unlikely to agree to change my Injectors on such low mileage .Its not impossible they are the problem if something like metal got into the system but it would be so unlikely based on what your saying .
Do a search on forums to see if there is some well known problem with this car type for injectors going south with low mileage.
If that draws a blank also try forums which have similar cars and see if there is some known ECU problem or some similar issue with the fixes .
Its relatively young car relatively low mileage with good service history I would aim to look at ECU issues stopping the pumping of fuel for some reason as more likely reason . Sometimes remapping a cars program can solve the problems

Derry

Thanks dude for the tips.

.jacksparrow.

If you have a spare key just go in and take your car back, 6 weeks is way to long to not be able to fix something.

JAbraham

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

If you have a spare key just go in and take your car back, 6 weeks is way to long to not be able to fix something.

I was thinking the same unless they fix it by this week.

JAbraham

Quick update -

Issue is fixed, villain was 'Common rail'. it was replaced and car now starts perfectly.

dantastic

JAbraham wrote: »

Quick update -

Issue is fixed, villain was 'Common rail'. it was replaced and car now starts perfectly.

The injectors?
Wasn't the rail itself I presume?

Just reading through this now. Suggesting glow plugs, in June!?

discombobulate

JAbraham wrote: »

Quick update -

Issue is fixed, villain was 'Common rail'. it was replaced and car now starts perfectly.

Did you get it fixed by the same garage?

JAbraham

dantastic wrote: »

The injectors?
Wasn't the rail itself I presume?

Just reading through this now. Suggesting glow plugs, in June!?

yea glow plugs, then fuel filter, then fuel pump, the injectors, finally - Common Rail. Pressure wasn't building up which they find out by swapping parts with another car (same spec).

JAbraham

discombobulate wrote: »

Did you get it fixed by the same garage?

same garage - it took 2 months 1 week to get find the exact issue / fix it.

dantastic

To be fair to them, for the distribution pipe to fail.... It's about as common as having pigs fly....

dieselbug

dantastic wrote: »

To be fair to them, for the distribution pipe to fail.... It's about as common as having pigs fly....[/QUOTE

Unlikely to be the rail itself, but one of the sensors attached to it.

Pressure control valve or pressure limiter or both, depending on system fitted. Some manufacturers will only supply these sensors, valves complete with the rail.

Not an unusual failure at all.