2013 Scion FRS Denied J02 Recall
 

Hey guys, sorry to start a new thread but I think its now to a point where its really not in line with my previous misfire thread as I have found the issue.



quick notes:
-2013 FRS, salvage title car from Florida due to light front end damage.

-Figure out I have an outstanding recall after receiving car
-the mysterious misfire that developed after filling up with a failed valve spring causing one of the valve in #3 cylinder not to fire
-called and made a case with Toyota, asked about salvage vehicle being an issue or not, was told it isn't a problem
-I throw on my new fenders, bumper, hood and lights just to have it looking like a car before I take it down there, these are form a Series 10 front end I bought. Engine harness is FULLY plugged in and installed. Only things unplugged are some lights and side markers that Im still working on.

-Tow the car to toyota, toyota after 4 days calls and says "man it has mis matched vins, there are stuff unplugged from the harness, the motor may have been pulled, we need to get a head quarter rep in to check it out"




A week goes by and I get a call today "bad news.. the rep said we can't work on the car". I asked why is that? And he said "well, its salvaged so its been in a front end wreck, and you can tell that theres a bunch of stuff unplugged so someone has been inside of it" He then went to say, "I mean Im glad to work on it for you, I just need 3 hours of tear down time to diagnose whats wrong with it"




What in the actual fuck? It took everything I have not to speak my mind, instead I asked to get a written denial letter and was told to contact toyota direct as all of this should be updated in my "case file"



I am giving it some time before I call them so that I don't lose my cool and try an handle this as civil as possible. At this point I have no idea what my options are other than I am pretty certain they are 100% in the wrong about denying the recall.

just spoke with the customer care hotline again about this, they didn't have any of the information that was relayed to me by the dealer.



She had to call the dealer to find out exact details of why it is being denied. Only thing she told me was that "we stand by our regional representatives decision when they come out to assist the dealers in making the determination"



I told her when she hears back from the manager to give me a call.



Just for shits and giggles I asked, so if this does get denied, can I repair the recall items themselves and get reimbursed? She said "only a toyota dealer is able to do so, you cant do it yourself or have a 3rd party perform the recall"

I also informed her that if this does get denied that I want a written letter of denial with all the details and a signature from the toyota rep which I will be passing along to the NHTSA.



I am beyond fucking pissed at this point ... Don't really know what I'm going to do with it if it does get denied. Don't get me wrong, I am more than mechanically able and I am pretty certain that with some time I would probably do a better job replacing everything needed myself... but the point was to have the responsible company do the damn work. FML. I'll wait and see what they come back with..

and this folks is why you do not buy a car with a salvage title for anything but a track car.

Thanks for the very useful information bud.

Btw, if you were to track this car it would not change the outstanding recall. But yea, thanks.

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no dealership or shop is going to touch your car with it being a salvage and from what the shop is saying a poorly repaired salvage car. You need to properly fix your car or pay someone to fix it before anyone will touch it for the recall, this isn't them denying it to deny it this is a shop covering themselves. It sucks but its the nature of a salvage car.

edit: also I am not even sure if you would be eligible for any recall work with a salvage title.

A salvage title has no impact on the recall. This is per Toyota. I checked before taking the car in . And for the record, the car is perfectly fine. They are claiming the fog lights not being wired in as "someone already being inside of it ".



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I'm sorry that reality does not meet your desires.

From what I understand, salvage titles negate any and all warranties with the manufacturer.

A safety recall has nothing to do with warranty.

And again, if that were the case this would have been denied automatically upon original contact which I initiated specifically to clarify the salvage title issue.

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Get your car in drivable, safe condition then drive it to the dealer. Show them that everything works and all you want is the recall. Otherwise it looks like you're asking them to fix your totally fucked up car, and so they refuse to help. You're not a potential nightmare to them, you actually already are a nightmare to them, so they tell you to fuck off.

I'm not asking them to wire in my fog lights.
The only outstanding issue with the car is a failed spring, which is a recall item.

If the claim is that I need to put in fender liners and connect fog lights to get the work done to the valve springs then I find it funny..

But i guess I'll wait and see what they say.

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How do you know it’s a broken valve spring and not some random issue within that harness or an underlying issue from when it was wrecked?

Because the car drove perfectly fine while I did the cosmetic repairs.

If you read my other thread I was finally able to track it down to one of the intake valves on the #3cylinder not opening/closing and in a partially open condition causing a lowcompression/vacuum leak.



This occurred literally out of nowhere after driving just fine. Could there be other damage, like a failed rocker at this point? Absolutely. At this point I wish I just yanked the motor and did the work myself, the car would have been up and running a week ago.

Agree with OP assuming engine number could be matched to the recall (it might not be, or no way to verify engine number by Toyota USA would shut down the recall procedure) dealership should have torn down to identify problem as part of the recall, if problem unrelated to recall then the work stops and OP pays for additional repairs, recall proceeds as normal.

jsimon is right though, we don't live in that idealistic world and USA dealers are a total crapshoot on if they can even change your oil correctly.

So let me get this right, you had to tow the car to the dealer that was fucked up expecting them to fix for free and have it nice and running when you pick it up?

Sorry dude that's asking too much.

Shit sucks hard.

Track car comments are unwarranted, being for the track wouldn't have kept the spring from failing, the only thing it would change is the would-be pilot would probably have counted on blowing the motor eventually, though later rather than sooner.

From what you seem to be saying, they're denying the recall because it's in the process of having cosmetic damage repaired and has mismatching vins on donor sheet metal, NOT because the engine number does not match the car right? Now that an asshat has already said no it crushes a lot of hope, all that's left to do is to try and escalate the issue, but the downside to that is the car will sit undriveable for months(?) while the situation is wrangled. THAT's the thing that would crush me and I'd reach for my tools to sort it out myself.

Truth be told, you could probably get out of this for the cost of one valve, one spring, a shim, one headgasket and a tube of threebond, that is, if you assume lightning won't strike twice. Not terrible out of pocket costs, it's just the situation that's hard to swallow.

Well, aemravan, I'm thinking that circumstances have you hemmed in.

I suggest that you go with your plan B, as bolded up above. Look at it as a "joint project" with you and your fiancé. The recall springs don't cost that much and you would have to have had to take your car's engine apart anyway. This way, you know that the repairs will be done right - :thumbsup:


humfrz

First of all, the car runs and drives. Just has a misfire on #3.
Second of all, I have never asked for anything to be done free. I would be more than willing to cover cost of non recall items. I have made that clear to them.

The car was taken on a trailer bc it's not registered and doesnt have a plate. Plus it would be silly to drive it considering it was showing symptoms of a failed spring (recall item)

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Yea I think that's what I'm gonna do. I'm not afraid of the rebuild just figured it's something they should have done but oh well. Could have had it up and running by now :)

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And just to clarify for future purposes of the thread,

The denial of recall work was NOT due to them finding that the engine was not original.

It also was NOT due to the fact that it has an existing valve issue on cylinder #3.



what the guy tole me was "being a salvage car with obvious front end damage, as well has having a bunch of stuff unplugged (again, only things unplugged are related to headlight/turnsignal assemblies) its obvious that someone has been in it already"

So per their claim, if you have performed ANY sort of work that isn't documented on their end it is grounds for a disqualified recall.

I am far from trying to get some free shit out this. And as mentioned previously I don't mind doing the work myself. And if I tear into it, it wont be to replace 1 valve, 1 spring and 1 rocker just to drive it back over to them to do the recall, if I do it it will be do do all the springs at the same time (though a part of me really wants to get the car back together, get everything "clipped in" and drive it back to have them pull the damn motor and do the recall anyway. lol

I'll see what they say monday next week but I am very little on hopes of it getting reversed.

I will still be requiring an official denial letter from Toyota Headquarters as to the reason the recall wasn't performed so that it is clearly documented. I will file a claim with NHTSA as well just to make sure that is also on record. And I will be pushing toyota to cover my $100 trailer fee to and from the dealer as I clearly described my situation before committing to get the car over to them. If they even remotely mentioned anything about "we will need to take a look at the overall condition" I would never have take my car there before I fully repaired it to begin with.



Lesson learned.

To be clear, I'm not saying you're an asshole. If I thought you were, I'd say so no problem. No, I just think you look like a nightmare to the dealer. I don't think the Toyota peon on the phone would know that. That's just how it is. If you can fix this yourself, go for it. I bet Toyota could even claim that the valve spring broke because of the crash.

With all the bearing failures post recall I’m sure the dealers will look for any excuse they can to avoid performing the recall. Even if it’s something as stupid as a series 10 front clip that isn’t plugnplay. I suspect they took a brief glance at the car and saw some connectors hanging and just write it off without even identifying what the connectors were actually for.

I was following your other thread about the #3 valve not closing all the way. I don’t blame you for not driving it in that state. The recall is intended to prevent a broken spring but it also clearly says that the recall covers people that have already had a spring failure and from what I understand, salvage titles aren’t excluded from safety recalls.

I’ve not priced the valves and springs but I can tell you a gasket kit which includes the head gaskets is $240. You would also need 3 tubes of TB1217H which are about $20 each. The engine is incredibly easy to pull but rebuilding is a pain in the ass with all the sealant you have to scrape off and clean up. If you can’t get the dealer to do their job then at least your not going to be out of pocket a ton of money. Consider yourself lucky you can do the job yourself.

Oh also, if you do the work yourself I wouldn’t bother doing just #3 and then making another attempt to get the dealer to do the recall. The odds are high they would still say know but even if they said yes it’s not worth the risk of them not rebuilding it correctly resulting in spun bearings. If you do end up rebuilding on your own, use the recall instructions for all the packing related stuff. It’s way more detailed than the original service manual.

It is not any work. What that technician saw was shitty work. There is to much liability to the shop to work on your car. Take your car and get all the systems back functioning titled and registered. I bet there will be a different outcome.

And don't forget, all dealers are franchises, NOT corporate run stores. It makes for varying policies and workplace ethics at every dealer.

I highly recommend putting the car back together and trying a different dealer.

I had a mitsubishi eclipse that i was doing some stereo work on, had the entire interior gutted to pull wire and install gear. I accidently blew the radio fuse, that on the eclipse is in a little yellow accessory block in the underhood fuse block. That yellow block allowed them to disconnect all the vehicle accessories while shipping the car, so shorting the radio killed everything from power mirrors, to interior lights, to the windows that i had rolled down.

Not knowing what this block was, i spent close to 4 hours looking for a fuse everywhere and not finding it. I finally gave up and brought it to a mitsu dealer in that state so they could fix it. They almost didn't due to the majority of the interior missing. But agreed to take a look at it begrudgingly. Important to note it was a 12year old car by this time, so there was no warranty involvement.

They found the bad fuse, and i learned an important lesson on fuses for $380(after all the required diagnosis time).

As an electrician, I've had a couple of jobs that are also like this, where the customer knows 'something about electrical' because their distant relative was an electrician(apparently it's genetic in some races), they butcher something up and then give up and call is in to look at it as a last ditch effort.

My boss always makes it clear in those situations that it's an hourly rate plus materials for whatever we find, and that while there's a guarantee on what we fix, and that expires if they start tinkering with the same devices--had a few customers where we would fix their crap work, they would tinker with it, screw it up, and expect us to fix it again for free.

Point here is that no one wants to walk into someone elses half-finished job being expected to warranty it. And no one wants to try warrantying a half-finished job because the liability for getting blamed for something else going wrong is huge. While you say you asked toyota corporate about the salvage title issue, you don't say if you asked them if the car needs to be complete. Which is really the issue at hand here.

So my suggestion is to give them a completely functional car if you want the warranty work.

Sounds like you should have put the car back together 100% before going in, towed it across the street, drove it the rest of the way and never mentioned a salvaged title. And just say “my car is on the recall list for valve spring fix it please.”

Your car being partially put together with things unplugged and being towed in. Going in with so many “red flags” Is just asking for them to deny you. You could also try a different Toyota dealer with the aforementioned tactics and see what happens. They often times don’t document things very well or communicate up the chain or to different dealers, although with all your phone calls they probably have it all documented now.

He can't do that because it has to pass inspection before being registered, and it won't pass inspection running on 3 cylinders.


It's the perfect shitty situation.

The only reason you will be getting denied is because of mismatched VINs. If this engine was not the original engine in the car its not covered by the recall. I've had one where the guy wanted to bring in just the engine and have us preform the recall on just the stock engine he yanked from the junk yard... We denied that too... Not my call, but it comes from above.

soundman98

thanks for taking the time for that input. I certainly understand the point of not wanting to walk into someone else's job, especially since the risk is with the dealer as only 12-13 hours of labor are covered by headquarters.
I should have been more specific about the status of the car, though I am fairly certain they would still say "bring it in, shouldn't be an issue, we'll take a look"

Also, just to reiterate, anything pertaining to what they are working on/removing is fully functional, put together, intact. They are only using "salvage title/accident/unplugged harness" in combination to have grounds for denial. But its all gravy, im not sweating it too much, I do understand it to an extent.





As far as putting the car back together to get it over to them, that would be doing too much, and honestly... I have a feeling I would end up with a blown motor at the end of the day anyway which then they would DEFINITELY not cover by stating that it wasn't 100% when they started so they can't warranty their work. That is a battle I am far from wiling to fight in the future lol.



I am pretty confident I can have the motor out and apart in an easy weekend, and possibly replaced and ready to drop in the next weekend. Will just take some time printing out all the manuals and reading over them carefully just to make sure I know what I'm getting myself into with regards to the small details. At the end of the day its a motor. I've been in and out of my supra a bunch, replacing the valve stem seals last go around. So I already have all the necessary valve job tools.



My only concern is the extent of damage to the valve and if it did any damage to the guide or not.

I'm also not sure exactly what I would be replacing other than all spring, the rocker (which I am pretty sure also failed), the valve. I don't know if I should do the valve stem seals or anything else like that so it's off to more research.

this is why the internet is a dangerous place for information. That is false.

the mis-matched vins on the fenders only drew a red flag to begin with. You can strip all your vins from fenders hoood and bumper and be ok.


The motor was also the original motor from the car, so that as well wasn't grounds for denial.



The only grounds for denial was not wanting to get in the middle of a half-finished wrecked car without knowing the extent of how much someone has tinkered with it. Period.

Too bad this car is automatic and for my fiance as a daily driver :)

If it wasn't for that I would have done a bit of a more thorough rebuild it wasn't for that and slap on a turbo or supercharger and call it a day :)



with that said, I am considering maybe upgrading springs but more than likely will just go with a factory set

2013 Scion FRS Denied J02 Recall
 

I have a 2JZ also and I’ve rebuilt it before and it’s not even close to the level of difficulty of the FA20. Difficulty isn’t a good word. It’s not difficult it’s just a pain in the ass. Plan on spending about 2 - 4 hours pulling it. That is the easy part. Tearing it down is also easy. But plan on spending an entire weekend cleaning up all the packing material. This isn’t a 2JZ where all they glue is the pan. It’s freaking everywhere. Long story short, don’t expect it to go as fast as your 2JZ. As for replacing stem seals. I would at least do the seal on the bent valve (assuming it’s bent). I wouldn’t bother on the others.

You could get a look at the valve guide before going at it with a borescope but I don't think it's likely. I also think it unlikely that the rocker would have failed. Seen plenty of bent valves, seen no rocker or guide failures, so it's just springs and one valve.

Be sure to grab all the documentation supplements from the failure thread in regards to precautions with the FIPG, that seems to be the only touchy part of this job.

Thanks fellas.

Already got the documentation handy and looked through a lot of it. Doesn't see too terrible, just need to print it out in order and take a quick look to make sure I know what at least general sequence of steps are and where I can find what I need.



im going to also grab an excerpt of the head removal portion as I know i'll be getting one head off for sure.



The only reason I am mentioning a rocker is because the valve does not move at all.
I know a bent valve cant close/seal, but even in that case, if there was contact from the cam, it should be pushing the valve open as it has no option to go anywhere and since the cam doesn't directly drive these I figured the rocker must have at least popped off or something... which makes me really curious as to what the inside of valve cover looks like right now.. I guess time will tell :)



I'm pretty excited to get this going though... already put together a list of the parts I believe I'll be replacing and priced them out online, so far up to 450ish bucks, which isn't terrible. I was expecting to have to spend 500-900 at the dealer for the additional work

Oh, I hope she doesn't read this forum - :eyebulge:

If she does, just wait till you're married and she "throws together" some supper for you - :iono:

:D


humfrz

:lol:
I didn't mean that I won't do a proper rebuild of the motor :) I just meant that if I was building this for myself and it wasn't an automatic daily it would definitely get more upgrades. I think thats the word I should have used ;)

;)


Yep, after you're married, hopefully, you will quickly learn to phrase things more "carefully" when referencing your wife - :D

:eyebulge:


humfrz

^^ I've already found that out a few times and I'm not even married yet lol.



Just spoke with the customer care center again regarding the denial and the call literally ended with me laughing and just saying "ok, thank you"



Here is what I was told:


"the field technician determined that that repair to the car was not adequate so thats why we can't perform the recall work" < what repairs? lol. They keep going back to the fact that it had an accident, but how does that affect the fact that the valve springs INSIDE the engine are under recall? But, whatever, I understand the skeptical tech seeing the car in the condition it is in.



The reason for my hysterical laughter: I ask "in the case I don't decide to fix all this myself, if I get the car fully repair titled/registered, etc. will I still be eligible for the recall work is it is black-listed from now on?"

"well sir, if the vehicle shows up in out system as non-salvaged than ofcourse you would still be eligible for the recall" < insert my hysterical laughter here.





It is clear the dealer is just covering his ass and looking for any reason to fall on not doing the recall work, and to a degree, I would understand it, however, I would very much appreciate a straight forward answer and not the circle-jerk, beat around the bush approach they have taken with me thus far. At the end of the day its probably better that they did not do the work because I have mentioned earlier..with my luck, the engine would also fail like the number of previous ones and they CERTAINLY would then say "go eat a big one, the car is salvaged and we don't warranty any of the recall work because of it"

Here is a list of reasons I have compiled over the last 6 calls:


1. "its got mismatched vins on the fenders and bumper man.."

2. "this motor has been pulled out and probably swapped out.. there are a bunch of unplugged connectors (< to the headlights lol)"

3. We don't have way to verify if the motor is original or not..we'll have to wait for a field rep to come take a look"

4. "field rep took a look and said that someone has worked on the car so we can't touch it for a repair, but I'd be glad to diagnose the problem for you for 3-5 hours of labor"

5. "the car definitely had an accident and has a salvage title so we probably can't touch it" <...uh...duh?

6. "the repairs weren't done adequate" <cosmetic



and all that needed to be said was: "Sorry, we can't perform the recall due to the fact that we would be taking a very big liability as the current condition of the car suggests that there has been a lot of work started and not yet finished" or something to this extent. I would have thanked them, ordered the parts and gone on my happy way. Buttttt all gravy.



I'm hoping maybe I can talk them into getting me some parts at cost, or at least matching what I was able to find online :) but even now, im looking at like 440-500 dollars depending on what/where I get.

There's a shim between the rocker and valve, if it dropped when the spring failed, that valve will lose a lot of lift, so if it's stuck partly open, with a dropped shim, it may not move much.

With that said, when you open up the valve cover, be careful not to drop it.

Umm if you dropped a valve with the engine turning over you at least bent a valve and will be pulling the head(s). Just doing a simple leak down test will tell you how bad your are off.

The valve is visibly open so yea I'm fully counting on taking off the head and replacing at least 1

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