Low Idle/Cam gear - Anyone request to inspect your old/replaced parts?
 

In California when your car needs replacement parts you can request your old parts back and I believe the mechanic must provide them by law.

Has anyone who has had their cam gear, timing chain, or other parts replaced inspected the old parts? The reason I ask is, I wonder if a batch of cam gears was not hardened correctly or perhaps some other premature wear issue occurred leading to unstable cam positions.

It would be interesting to inspect the parts and see if anything obvious stands out.

That would be cute. I could do some material characterization experiments and maybe take some high magnification photographs. I wonder how far I can get trying to recover my old parts.

I think you misunderstand. There is an example I have read about on a GTI forum where (I believe it was a cam sprocket), was not hardened correctly. The owner had a picture of the defective part and it was abundantly clear that the teeth were badly worn when compared to an unworn part. The dealer illegally disposed of the part preventing the owner from doing a chemical analysis proving there was a manufacturing issue and costing VW a ton of money. I am surprised you are mocking me. My curiosity and enjoyment of getting my hands on dirty car parts would cause me to at least want to take a look at the old parts.

...mocking you?

You wouldn't be able to. The dealer has to send the parts back to Toyota for them to inspect it since it is a warranty job, or else the dealer will get back flagged for the items and the job.

I believe your word choice of cute was somewhat unsettling. Perhaps you meant cool.


I thought Toyota/Subaru were taking in these parts and investigating themselves? I feel they would have more resources than us in determining problems...

here

Yruyur was able to take a look at his parts, including the cam gear. Not sure if it's something visible to the layman. Might even be something not outwardly visible at all. Not sure.

Warranty parts are not returned to the customer. End.