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?