Quote:
Originally Posted by kopecma
45k miles on the car.
They were non-committal on the mechanism of the rod bearing failure “it’s a known issue with this engine”. Stated that they didn’t believe it could directly attributed to the recall work.
I was told multiple times that “Toyota will contact you” so I thought I would have a chance to plead my case with them. When I attempted to contact them I was referred to the PR person at the dealer who gave me back to the service manager.
I was hopeful that the labor would be included since the short block was deemed to be covered under the powertrain warranty. At that point though, I just wanted my car back and understood that I was going to be stuck writing a check no matter whether or not Toyota covered the labor.
The whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth, but I get that all parties probably share some responsibility in paying for the failure. I drove the car for several years putting some wear on the bearing. Toyota donated a $6800 short block with a one year warranty. The dealership discounted their labor and gave me a rental for a month (but also probably compromised oil flow to the rod bearing in the first place).
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First of all a rod bearing isn't actually a bearing. Oil is what forms the bearing. What is referred to as the bearing is actually just a shim that is used to create the perfect oil clearance to form a bearing. In a perfect world the bearing never makes contact with the rod or crank. You can pull bearings on a car with 100k miles and they will still look brand new assuming the car had proper oiling its whole life. If there is oil starvation they basically go from mint condition to completely destroyed in seconds. They don't really wear with time as they seem to be making you think. What I think is going on with these recall jobs is they are either using too much packing seal on the timing cover, cam caps or valve cover and then it is breaking loose, making its way down to the pan and then clogging the oil pickup or when they scrape off the old packing seal on the cam caps and valve cover the old packing is falling into the engine which makes its way to the pan and then into the oil pickup. No way in hell have there been 3 people all with the same bad luck that they just happened to have a bearing spin right after this job.
Also, a short block isn't $6800. Hell even if you paid MSRP it isn't 6800. If I recall MSRP is 2050, I paid $1860 for mine.
I would put up a fight on this one.