Horrible dilemma
 

Okay, the story starts kinda like this. My car is parked in my parking lot, a short school bus backs up and hits it on the bumper passenger side, cracking the passenger tail lamp and destroying the bumper. Sad, sad day.

So, I obviously claim through the insurance company, and get all of it squared away. Bumper and tail lamp get replaced.

Today, I notice tail lamp condensation in BOTH tail lamps, so I take it into Toyota. Toyota says that its not their fault, but the body shop who did my bumper work cracked the tail lamps at the bottom where the tail lamp cover meets the bumper. I take it into the body shop, and they say it is Toyotas fault.

-_- whos to blame? The body shop said they would take off the bumper and the tail lamps and look at them to see if they are cracked or not. Note that I only got the passenger tail lamp replaced by them (and the bumper obviously)

Go to a different dealership.

They already know there is a TSB for this, I don't see why they have to give you a hard time about it. Depending on location, you might be better off going to a different dealership than trying to convince your dealer to do this.

frankly, accident or no accident, with a TSB out regarding the condensation its bullshit your dealership is giving you issues. i would immediately call corporate an issue a complaint.

But could it actually be the body shops fault? When they attached the bumper i'm assuming they could have broken the seal/cracked the tail lamp.

extremely unlikely if not impossible to just casually break the seal, you cant even bake them apart. is the taillight cracked anywhere?

The tech at Toyota claimed it was broken at the bottom on both tail lamps where the bumper meets the tail lamp cover, but cannot be seen unless the bumper is removed and the housing is taken out to see the actual crack. The body shop is doing that for me. I told them to take pictures also.

How did they even know you were in an accident?

I thought that TSB mentioned something about making sure to properly torque the nuts holding the kit in place. What I got out of it is too much torque is the root cause.
This is likely to be problematic for a lot of repair work if these lenses are that susceptible to cracking...

Probably the insurance claim...

man that sucks ... If I remember it correctly, this was a Toyota supplier issue. It's in one of the topics in these forums.

It is BS!!!!

You do not have to remove the tail lamps to replace the bumper.

Only the tail lamp that was broken was replaced. It is a bolt on part. Can not crack the housing seal when bolting on to car.

So if I read that correctly... You literally got hit by the short bus? Gotta admit that's pretty funny, even though the outcome is not.

Dont mention the repair when you go to the other toyota dealer. Just say "these have condensation and I know there is a recall, can you look at it for me?"

If they look at it and tell you there is other non related damage, then you can talk to the shop.

Wasn't the condensation issue related to the torque they were using when bolting the lamp to the car? Wasn't the fix just an adjustment to the torque setting on install?

Take to a new dealer and dont tell them it was in an accident problem solved.

For Future Reference,

Warranty work on any car, technicians don't really like to do because the pay isn't the best. They rather work on something that's customer pay. And I think they tried to coax you into thinking you need the new parts and pay the labor into repairing the issue. Plus techs will simply look at parts and make a judgement call without disassembling anything. So he probably didn't even take your bumper off.

I was under the impression that I had to take it to the dealership from which I bought it, no?

Also, should I just let my body shop disassemble the bumper and take pictures?

Thanks for the advice :]

So toyota is making the shop fix the right tail lamp, while they will fix the left tail lamp. Da fuk toyota...

You can take it anywhere you want.

You can take you car to get serviced/warrantied at any Toyota Dealership.

Have the body shop take detailed pictures and present them to the dealer when you tell them they're not cracked at all.

The dealer is really giving me problems about this. They said if the right tail light is not broken, then the body shop would have to fix it, but they would fix the left tail light they would fix if it isnt damaged.

infamous short bus

Similar issue.
 

I had the dealer say the same thing when my quarter panel got hit( right side). I took the car back to the body shop and they removed the lights and dried them out. As an attempt to finish up their repairs. Took a note from the body shop and showed the dealer what the body shop has done so that they will stop blaming the accident or the body shop. Only a few days later, water formed again and they had no choice but to follow and change the taillights.

Just report it to insurance so they can get you a supplemental check. They just missed it during their quotes and repairs. Body work has warranties.

Sent from my flux capacitor using Taptalk

if the dealer is giving you grief on this issue,if i was a betting man,
i would say it's because the compensation from toyota is NOT forthcoming
right away,sooo,the dealer is tryin' to blow you off!. hope i'm wrong!
as mentioned,there IS a (t.s.b.) on this.

The way it works(working at a dealer before), the dealer purchases the part and has a tab of what parts have been warrantied, then at the end of the month the manufacturer pays the dealer for the parts that have been applied to the warranty services. Its like a big IOU, but very expensive and you get payed back.

what dealership is this, dude...

what about the dealer's "labor" to install those parts under warranty?
surely toyota compensates for that! no wonder they are ''always" 'pushin' off the street service! basically they just get "payed back" for parts already bought under established warranty policy! (w.t.f) is that? hell,no wonder ya can't catch a break at a dealer! gotdamn manufacturers hold the dealers hostage!. ehe! he! he! just sayin'

Of course Toyota compensates for the technician's labor on correcting the issue. Though the pay to repair warranty work is a lot lower than customer paid repair.

Also, if an item is repaired under warranty, the manufacturer asks to receive the part back for inspection so that it was correctly warrantied. If it was neglect of the technician and he mis-warrantied the part, the dealership will be charged for the part.

geeeez! (hot damn!) no wonder they try to
get ya to pay for the repair,even though it's covered by warranty.
always tryin' to "game" ya! (see how far they can get with ya!) "shameless hustlers!" ehe! he! he!