Dealership won't fix 2012 TSB about the cricket noise on my 2013 FR-S

[Conor]

Originally Posted by official_george

Typing this in the dealership..

Service guy told me the issue is for 2012 FRS only, it should not apply to 2013 (the TSB is marked 2012). Anyway, he wants me to come back on a weekday when the parts foreman or something is here to further inspect the noise.

Originally Posted by Jesse

Try a different dealer. I don't get some dealers, its a free warranty claim for them. Just missing out on free $$$.

Toyota leans extremely hard on dealerships to not perform warranty repairs unless absolutely necessary. If a TSB exists for a concern and a VIN range is specified, Toyota will oftentimes decline to authorize payment for a warranty repair.

Dealerships do not have carte blanche to throw parts at cars and have Toyota corporate pay for them. "Free $$$" for the dealer actually isn't that much money either since they have to buy the part from Toyota, charge minimal mark-up and Toyota warranty labor times are very low compared to normal customer pay warranty times. For example.. it might cost a customer 1.5 hours to have a water pump changed but Toyota will only pay .8 hours.

Toyota has, in the past, cracked down on specific dealers that performed lots of warranty repairs and audited those dealers previous repairs as well, charging the dealership back when they found improper documentation of Complaint/Cause/Repair (aka CC&R) or even missing "mileage out" on repair orders. They get very nitpicky.. They are a business and businesses do not make money by giving stuff away.

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by Conor

Toyota leans extremely hard on dealerships to not perform warranty repairs unless absolutely necessary. If a TSB exists for a concern and a VIN range is specified, Toyota will oftentimes decline to authorize payment for a warranty repair.

Dealerships do not have carte blanche to throw parts at cars and have Toyota corporate pay for them. "Free $$$" for the dealer actually isn't that much money either since they have to buy the part from Toyota, charge minimal mark-up and Toyota warranty labor times are very low compared to normal customer pay warranty times. For example.. it might cost a customer 1.5 hours to have a water pump changed but Toyota will only pay .8 hours.

Toyota has, in the past, cracked down on specific dealers that performed lots of warranty repairs and audited those dealers previous repairs as well, charging the dealership back when they found improper documentation of Complaint/Cause/Repair (aka CC&R) or even missing "mileage out" on repair orders. They get very nitpicky.. They are a business and businesses do not make money by giving stuff away.

I see the issue here as the dealership being deceptive. There is no 2012 FR-S, only 2013 FR-S. As long as the car falls within the VIN range, the TSB applies. If the car doesn't fall within the VIN range he can talk to Toyota/Scion Corporate about it.

[fistpoint]

Originally Posted by Conor

For example.. it might cost a customer 1.5 hours to have a water pump changed but Toyota will only pay .8 hours.

Good. Everyone with even an ounce of auto knowledge knows that the books used to determine labor hours are exaggerated by a factor of 2-3 times! If your statement is correct, they're still making profit from unspent labor hours than needed.

[pinoy_dorifto]

Originally Posted by fistpoint

On these cars you mention, did they make the noise from the very first time the engine started? Or was it like the twins where the noise came after hundreds if not thousands of miles?

According to you, our DI was broken the first few hundred or thousand miles and only began working "properly" like all the others after it unbroke itself?

My point is, the cricket noise is just like the whinning noise the super charger makes, the woosh noise the blow-off valve makes or that clunk on a diesel engine. There is nothing wrong with the car, just get used to it.

Other cars with direct injection has the cricket noise also, maybe not all, or not in other places(higher octane gas?), but when I heared it on a kia w/di, and even on a lexus is(not sure is 250 or 350) that was idling, I was preety much convinced.

Some or most of us here is new to Direct-Injection technology, preety much the first car owned w/Direct injection, so we wear some thing not normal does not mean something is broken or something is wrong.

[White64Goat]

Hold on.....I found a picture of a 2012 FR-S:..



wait...what.......that's not a 2012?

[LavosTRD]

Originally Posted by pinoy_dorifto

My point is, the cricket noise is just like the whinning noise the super charger makes, the woosh noise the blow-off valve makes or that clunk on a diesel engine. There is nothing wrong with the car, just get used to it.

Other cars with direct injection has the cricket noise also, maybe not all, or not in other places(higher octane gas?), but when I heared it on a kia w/di, and even on a lexus is(not sure is 250 or 350) that was idling, I was preety much convinced.

Some or most of us here is new to Direct-Injection technology, preety much the first car owned w/Direct injection, so we wear some thing not normal does not mean something is broken or something is wrong.

While I will agree that DI engines are far noisier than standard Port Injection, if there was not an abnormal noise coming from it, Toyota would have never released a TSB/ would have told everyone the noise is normal/ would not have spent how many dollars trying to come up with a fix for it. All the info I have gotten about the noise is that during intial assembly of the pumps, a certain part was not indexed correctly, cause the fuel to not route itself as intended causing the noise. There was nothing ever wrong with the design of the pump, hence the part number never changed. There were just defective when they were built.

[Conor]

Originally Posted by fistpoint

Good. Everyone with even an ounce of auto knowledge knows that the books used to determine labor hours are exaggerated by a factor of 2-3 times! If your statement is correct, they're still making profit from unspent labor hours than needed.

It's an inherent flaw in how many mechanics are paid (flat rate/per job). It's a high-skill trade, they have to provide their own tools and maintain knowledge. You're not just paying a mechanic for his or her time to perform service, you're paying for all of that, too. Kind of like how you're not paying a wedding photographer just to snap photos, you're paying for their skill, their high-end equipment, travel expenses and suchlike.

Further, warranty times are typically times that are so low that they assume the technician in question has done the repair before/knows each step of the repair exactly. In the case of new models and low-volume models (both of which the FR-S is), a technician is going to be doing pretty much any repair for the first time. To make matters worse (for Scion owners, anyway..), the FR-S is virtually all Subaru and very little about it crosses over to Toyota in terms of maintenance familiarity.

Having said all that it's not surprising that a dealership would want to avoid unnecessary warranty repairs on an FR-S at all costs.

[fistpoint]

Originally Posted by Conor

It's an inherent flaw in how many mechanics are paid (flat rate/per job). It's a high-skill trade, they have to provide their own tools and maintain knowledge. You're not just paying a mechanic for his or her time to perform service, you're paying for all of that, too. Kind of like how you're not paying a wedding photographer just to snap photos, you're paying for their skill, their high-end equipment, travel expenses and suchlike.

Further, warranty times are typically times that are so low that they assume the technician in question has done the repair before/knows each step of the repair exactly. In the case of new models and low-volume models (both of which the FR-S is), a technician is going to be doing pretty much any repair for the first time. To make matters worse (for Scion owners, anyway..), the FR-S is virtually all Subaru and very little about it crosses over to Toyota in terms of maintenance familiarity.

Having said all that it's not surprising that a dealership would want to avoid unnecessary warranty repairs on an FR-S at all costs.

Yea, I've heard all that before. The solution is simple, raise the price on the hourly rate rather than lying about how long it took.

And here's why your statement is false: has anyone here actually gotten a "refund" on the unspent labor hours when the job did in fact take multiple times less than the book quoted? I think the answer is going to be a unanimous NO.

They claim it takes 3 hours, they call you back with the car ready to pick up after 1 hour...you still paid for all 3. Obviously it didn't take 3 if it was done in 1...so why do they charge the full amount? Because the book is full of shit! It was written with a first time mechanic using hand tools AND taking both a shit and lunch break in mind...working out of a broken garage.

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by fistpoint

And here's why your statement is false: has anyone here actually gotten a "refund" on the unspent labor hours when the job did in fact take multiple times less than the book quoted? I think the answer is going to be a unanimous NO.

Great story, relevant to this but not the OP so sorry.

Dad's F150 was running poorly, would die while cruising out on the freeway. Temporary solution was to pull over, let the car sit for about five minutes and dust off the air filter. Went to a dealership since they treated us well under warranty with little things and the diagnoses was "#x coil pack is dead, needs replacement" (coil pack had something to do with the spark plugs iirc)

Cost to fix? $600-$900 bucks, (can't remember it was almost a decade ago).

How'd they diagnose it? They pulled each coil pack individually and replaced it with a new one until the truck was running properly.

How much did the diagnoses cost? $60

Laughed, drove it home, bought a coil pack at Craigens and a couple weird extensions to get around the stuff in the engine bay for less than $100 and did it over the weekend. He's done it 2-3 times since then on his own.

[mezdup]

i thought it was decided among the forums that ethanol free gas was the only solution to this

[Conor]

Originally Posted by fistpoint

Yea, I've heard all that before. The solution is simple, raise the price on the hourly rate rather than lying about how long it took.

And here's why your statement is false: has anyone here actually gotten a "refund" on the unspent labor hours when the job did in fact take multiple times less than the book quoted? I think the answer is going to be a unanimous NO.

They claim it takes 3 hours, they call you back with the car ready to pick up after 1 hour...you still paid for all 3. Obviously it didn't take 3 if it was done in 1...so why do they charge the full amount? Because the book is full of shit! It was written with a first time mechanic using hand tools AND taking both a shit and lunch break in mind...working out of a broken garage.

It's a standardized labor time. If you do a job 100 times you're going to get really good at it. Why should you punish the skilled technician working on your car for being good at what he does?

Real world example: It pays ~3.5 hours to change the timing belt on a lot of Toyota cars/trucks/vans/SUVs/etc. If I set you up in my garage at home with the factory repair manual and all of my tools (yes, even air tools), do you think you could change the timing belt in my Camry in 3.5 hours?

This includes:
- walking to the back yard to get the repair order (like walking to the office in a professional shop)
- walking to the front yard to get parts
- going across the street and halfway down the block to get the car, pulling it into the garage
- doing all the work, not screwing it up or getting the car dirty
- road-testing the car
- filling out paperwork
- walking back to the garage to begin your next job

I can do most Toyota timing belts in under an hour. Because I've done them a zillion times before. Does that mean I should only charge an hour of time for my expertise?

And for the record, when it comes to diagnosis, I often don't use up the full estimate when it's something ridiculously fast/simple like a loose gas cap. YMMV, everyone's different.

[frslee]

My car was assembled in 12/12, so technically I guess it's a 12' car.

[5AD86D]

Hey guys, just so you know the TSB replaces the high pressure fuel pump that you are getting the chirping from but I can assure you the chirping is ,unfortunately for us all, normal. The TSB replaces most of the early release buyers pumps which had what they call an abnormal chirping sound. I'll try and upload the video we get for our TSB tommorrow. Trust what the rest of the guys who have been thru this have told you though, its normal and unless you purchased yours fairly early after it released, thats probably the sound you will hear for awhile. If your car applys to the fix the parts guys can easily tell once your VIN is put in our systems. If it doesn't anything they replace will more than likely give you the same effect.

[CamryDS]

Originally Posted by Conor

It's a standardized labor time. If you do a job 100 times you're going to get really good at it. Why should you punish the skilled technician working on your car for being good at what he does?

Real world example: It pays ~3.5 hours to change the timing belt on a lot of Toyota cars/trucks/vans/SUVs/etc. If I set you up in my garage at home with the factory repair manual and all of my tools (yes, even air tools), do you think you could change the timing belt in my Camry in 3.5 hours?

This includes:
- walking to the back yard to get the repair order (like walking to the office in a professional shop)
- walking to the front yard to get parts
- going across the street and halfway down the block to get the car, pulling it into the garage
- doing all the work, not screwing it up or getting the car dirty
- road-testing the car
- filling out paperwork
- walking back to the garage to begin your next job

I can do most Toyota timing belts in under an hour. Because I've done them a zillion times before. Does that mean I should only charge an hour of time for my expertise?

And for the record, when it comes to diagnosis, I often don't use up the full estimate when it's something ridiculously fast/simple like a loose gas cap. YMMV, everyone's different.

People think labor means the amount of time spent -- it takes into consideration the expertise that the person working on your car has. If the work is averaged 3.5 hours but the guy puts in 4 hours -- he's only allowed to charge 3.5 hours. If you have done it in an hour, just consider yourself lucky that the person can do it faster and you didn't waste your time twiddling your thumb.

Since i've been doing work on my own car, I look at mechanics with a whole new point of view. Though I still hate the stupid ones.