Quote:
Originally Posted by jam23r1
Update left the dealership drove to the gas station put gas in the Runner and it starts acting up but i got it all on video. So i take it back to Toyota show them the video andddddd now they mite know what's wrong (as if me telling them the exact same thing as the video some how video is magic ) now there pulling the hole dashboard apart.
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No offense to your intelligence or ability to describe a problem, I'm sure you did a good job explaining the issue; it's just most dealership technicians and service writer's tend to take a customer's description with a grain of salt. In my experience most (if not the majority) of customers are not able to correctly explain their issue to a service writer (who also probably does a crap job explaining it to the technician via the RO and spoken word). Not to mention that your description could mean quite a few different issues depending one what you are or aren't doing and/or what the vehicle is and isn't doing at the time. It's not that the customer is stupid or ignorant (well, that's not the root cause), but diagnostics are not exactly easy even for technicians; so expecting non-technical people to accurately describe a problem is asking a lot.
We see plenty of people who confuse the "Maintenance Required Lamp" with the MIL (Malfunction Indicator Lamp/Check Engine Light) or are unable to parse what the Tire Pressure Warning indicator implies (even if the multi-information screen is telling you exactly what your tire pressure is at for all 4 tires). I also get customers who regularly have a difficult time explaining their issue to me, I had a young lady today who didn't speak English very well trying to explain to me her acceleration concern in her Prius. Turns out she never had a Hybrid before and didn't realize that you need to really step on the gas if you want to get up to speed unless you're using "Power Mode" which tightens up the accelerator pedal sensitivity. I've also had customer's mistakenly tell me the wrong lights are lighting up on the dash or they forget/confuse a detail that leads me in the wrong direction (i.e. I had another customer who's English was better, but between her and the service writer they had come up with "vehicle makes noise when braking on turns or driving a while" the issue ended up that she was hearing her secondary air pump kicking on AFTER turning the vehicle off after the vehicle was driven for a while.)
The reason I bring this up is because I always encourage my customers to drive the vehicle when we go on test drives (a few reasons for that 1.] If they wreck it or get pulled over for speeding, it's not my fault 2.] If they are doing something weird/wrong/or have some special way to make the noise/complaint happen I want to see them do it 3.] I can take better notes and focus on noises/issues better in the passenger seat, my main concern on a test drive is to confirm the noise and find a way to reproduce it for later, not diagnosis) and in the instances where I cannot confirm a complaint I encourage them to take pictures/video of the issue because that at the very least can be used to verify a complaint and get an idea where to start looking. I always tell my customers, "it's not that I don't believe you or think you're crazy; you wouldn't be wasting your time to come to us if you didn't think you have a problem. I just need to verify the issue and be able to reproduce it so I can find out what's wrong with your vehicle, I want to make sure we fix your vehicle the right way the first time."
Bottom Line-
It never hurts to snag a video, picture, and/or ask for a test drive with a technician if you know the "trick" to making the problem happen, the more evidence and information you can provide a service writer/technician the better. Also expect to be told "no concern was verified at this time" maybe more than once on an oddball intermittent issue (not saying this as an excuse for lazy diagnostics, but sometimes problems are difficult to pinpoint/replicate in some of those cases); it's just as frustrating for you as it is for the technician most of the time. As a technician I get paid more for fixing your vehicle than I do diagnosing it, customers are more willing to pay 1hr of diagnostic time if it results in an estimate for a repair; they're less likely to do that if the technician is requesting an additional three hours of diagnostic time because they've sunk 4+hrs of their time trying to figure out the problem.
Post Note-
That is a seriously weird issue, I rarely see Toyota ignition switches going bad on newer units. Glad it finally worked out for you; I can totally see that becoming a very frustrating situation for such a relatively simple fix. We had a Tundra that kept blowing the dome lamp fuse every once in a blue moon; had a TAS case open, had the vehicle in and out a few times. In the end, it turns out that one of the punch outs on the metal circuit had not been pushed far enough apart and under slight pressure the two metal parts would contact and short the bulb socket out and blow the fuse. We needed a magnifying glass to verify the issue once we noticed it.
You could be dropping fuel pres. 'intermittently' (caused by: failing fuel pump/partially clogged fuel filter issue) for that matter; which could cause the very same symptoms; a severe drop in RPM, a partial engine stall...etc.
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