Valve Spring Recall- Heffner Toyota Kitchener
 

I scheduled an appointment with Heffner today for the valve spring recall. have any you of you guys gone done it? Service rep suggested changing the clutch at the same time with a cost around $750-$850 (mileage = 114K), what do you guys think?

also, has anyone call toyota roadside service for vichcle pick up instead of driving to the dealership yourself?

Did they give you a break down on that $750-850 cost? If not, I would request they do so in writing (maybe attack it a bit informal via e-mail).

A clutch replacement should be 15 minutes labour tops with the engine already out of the car. A flywheel and clutch 30 minutes tops.

That's what I would expect for a clutch job under normal circumstances. With the engine already out that's highway robbery.

$750 for a clutch job is normal rate. If they do it during the recall it should cost no more than maybe $400, and that's including parts. If you're replacing the flywheel too, then $600.

The engine has to come out to do the recall, anyways, changing the clutch while the engine is out should take maybe 10-15 minutes on top of the time of the recall work. At $750 the dealership just thinks you're gullible

Clutch and flywheel parts should be like $400ish, add 30 minutes labour and there's no way you're hitting $750.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Hey bud, I live in Waterloo as well. I have a '13 Fr-S that's on that list too, but haven't scheduled my appointment at Heffner yet. I have been hearing a WHOLE LOT of horror stories lately about Toyota techs botching this job and then Toyota not paying for repair costs.
Did you get your valve springs repaired? Were you provided with a rental car? and how is your car driving now? any response at all would be greatly appreciated!

I will post about my experience at Hefner and the valve spring repair
Feb 14 Hefner Finished my recall repair work
Feb 16 I had to tow my car in at my expensive because the motor was knocking
March 18 after multiple called and emails to Toyota Corp they Finally agreed to replace the short block and gave me a rental car until my car was done but parts where on back order
April 9 my car was returned to me with the new short block

It seams to be running fine so far I have about 1000km so far

I did ask I have 90day warranty on the repair

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately I guess my gut instinct could be right on this one, based on so many of these reports and now yours being so close to home for me.



How was yours running before the valve spring repair and at how many kms?



In hindsight, would you have taken it in at all or maybe ignored it?


And it looks like maybe you were approx 1 month with not even a rental car, and I'm sure a lot of your calls with Toyota were angry ones... are you pretty pissed at Toyota right now or do you feel like they have compensated you adequately?

I would have waited a few months to get the repair, I had 150,000km on her, the car was running fine before the recall

Toyota Corp Canada sent pictures and a report to Toyota Japan and they made the finial decision to get it repaired

It was 3 very stressful weeks not knowing if the repair would be done

I’m happy with the repair once Hefner got approval from Toyota Corp

Because it a Subaru motor the motor tech at Toyota don’t see them often enough, I’m sure if it was a corolla motor there would be no problems


Positive spin is I basically have a brand new motor

Glad to hear that you have a good feeling about this in the end! After so much stress, you deserve some relief.

So true about the Corolla motor... just another reason why a 2J or 2J variant would have been a much better engine option in these cars. Thanks for the update!

You may want to double check consumer protection laws.


There are rules about the minimum warranty they can offer on repairs that use new parts. I believe it's 1yr/12,000km but you will want to check that.


Thank you VERY much for updating your story.

It's not that it's not a Toyota engine... most Toyota techs never see work like this at all. The vast majority of work on Toyota's is brakes/fluid/filters, basically just replacing whole assemblies. I bet this is the first time an engine has been out in some dealerships.

Them Toyota engines are way too reliable to get pulled and disassembled haha. Someone out there with a 1992 corolla and 400k on the motor still running perfectly fine.