Too Stroked
Member
They're better than nothing, but not very accurate.
More dealership woes
- Thread starter kkqewl
- Start date
They're better than nothing, but not very accurate.
Just to respond to all the comments, I have dealt with my fair share of dealers of the past forty years having owned numerous Fords, many Subarus and a handfull of Hondas and have never had such a situation happen to me in the past.
Yes I did get a loaner but only after my sales rep got involved and wasting four and half hours at the dealer for a job that should have taken a hour max leaves a little bummed.
Regarding the stripped knuckle I was told that they had to remove the brakes to change the busted stud and then when reassembling the knuckle was stripped, not sure if others are correct in that the knuckle should not have been involved , then that makes it harder to understand how they messed up.
I generaly do my own maintenance , oil changes and tire / wheel rotations etc. but this given that I needed tires mounted and TPMS sensors installed I decided to let the dealer take care of this.
My concern now is how many of the other wheel nuts are over tourqed and being stressed to the point of premature failure in the future, I plan of checking all them with a torque wrench once I get the vehicle back.
Yes I did get a loaner but only after my sales rep got involved and wasting four and half hours at the dealer for a job that should have taken a hour max leaves a little bummed.
Regarding the stripped knuckle I was told that they had to remove the brakes to change the busted stud and then when reassembling the knuckle was stripped, not sure if others are correct in that the knuckle should not have been involved , then that makes it harder to understand how they messed up.
I generaly do my own maintenance , oil changes and tire / wheel rotations etc. but this given that I needed tires mounted and TPMS sensors installed I decided to let the dealer take care of this.
My concern now is how many of the other wheel nuts are over tourqed and being stressed to the point of premature failure in the future, I plan of checking all them with a torque wrench once I get the vehicle back.
BlackWorksInc
New member
Ick, that sounds like a crappy time at the dealer for sure...
From my experience it could either be the lube tech who installed the tires or the previous installation that caused the broken stud. I had one customer years ago with a new 3rd gen Tacoma with barely 20k on it, came in to get his tires & wheels swapped out and I was torqueing the wheels down and had two studs break on the passenger wheel. Got my service manager and showed him that basically every other stud on the vehicle was breaking off at factory torque. Turns out after he burned through his free oil changes because he didn't trust the dealership, he had been getting his vehicle serviced at Les Schwab; they way over-torqued the wheels when they put his winter set on and unlucky for me when I went to mount the new wheels the studs were too stretched out. The customer tried to blame us for it, but none of the studs were cross threaded and all I did was take off his wheels and attempt to install his new ones to factory torque (for reference I use my 3/8" cordless which gets them to about 50~60ft.lbs and then finish it with my 1/2" torque wrench). He threw a fit and we ended up him 24 new studs and lug nuts under warranty (we really shouldn't have, but squeaky wheel and all that).
As for replacing the stud, you need to pull the rotor off to access the hub and install a new stud, so brake caliper comes off to allow removal of the rotor. Though, stripping the threads in the knuckle seems really strange to me... I know a lot of places will just run the caliper bolts on with an impact and go with the "good 'n tight" spec and give her a little extra oomph if the threads are crusty. I did that for a while and then I bought a fancy Snap-On digital torque wrench and needed to justify the cost so I started torqueing every damn thing I could with it, found that some calipers don't need that much oomph... I did have one vehicle though strip out on me many years ago, I want to say it was a Tundra? Turns out they had tried to helicoil the knuckle after I'm guessing it had stripped out on them due to rust (this thing was a crusty SOB I was doing brakes on), ended up needing to replace the whole knuckle and explain to the customer why we wouldn't just helicoil it again.
I can't speak to that dealership and their service or their technicians; but I can say that likely it was a lube guy who was doing your tires and they broke a stud (either because they installed it wrong or the stud was just too stretched out). Then it was likely given to a "back shop" (i.e. Certified/Expert/Master/MDT) technician to fix that broken stud. How the striped knuckle happened I can only speculate, so not much to say on that. Unfortunately sometimes shit goes side ways in this industry despite your best efforts, though it does sound like you could have been treated better from a customer service standpoint.
I will say that just because a job "only takes an hour" doesn't mean your vehicle will be done in an hour. A lot of customers forget that they are not the only person getting their vehicle worked on and very rarely do you pull up, get a repair order written up, and the vehicle immediately dispatched and worked on (even if you're a waiting customer). There's almost always someone before you and/or someone else who's vehicle is already in queue; sometimes customer's being excessively pushy causes problems. Just something to keep in mind.
I hope everything else turned out fine though, I feel your pain on that whole fiasco; just reading it made me cringe.
From my experience it could either be the lube tech who installed the tires or the previous installation that caused the broken stud. I had one customer years ago with a new 3rd gen Tacoma with barely 20k on it, came in to get his tires & wheels swapped out and I was torqueing the wheels down and had two studs break on the passenger wheel. Got my service manager and showed him that basically every other stud on the vehicle was breaking off at factory torque. Turns out after he burned through his free oil changes because he didn't trust the dealership, he had been getting his vehicle serviced at Les Schwab; they way over-torqued the wheels when they put his winter set on and unlucky for me when I went to mount the new wheels the studs were too stretched out. The customer tried to blame us for it, but none of the studs were cross threaded and all I did was take off his wheels and attempt to install his new ones to factory torque (for reference I use my 3/8" cordless which gets them to about 50~60ft.lbs and then finish it with my 1/2" torque wrench). He threw a fit and we ended up him 24 new studs and lug nuts under warranty (we really shouldn't have, but squeaky wheel and all that).
As for replacing the stud, you need to pull the rotor off to access the hub and install a new stud, so brake caliper comes off to allow removal of the rotor. Though, stripping the threads in the knuckle seems really strange to me... I know a lot of places will just run the caliper bolts on with an impact and go with the "good 'n tight" spec and give her a little extra oomph if the threads are crusty. I did that for a while and then I bought a fancy Snap-On digital torque wrench and needed to justify the cost so I started torqueing every damn thing I could with it, found that some calipers don't need that much oomph... I did have one vehicle though strip out on me many years ago, I want to say it was a Tundra? Turns out they had tried to helicoil the knuckle after I'm guessing it had stripped out on them due to rust (this thing was a crusty SOB I was doing brakes on), ended up needing to replace the whole knuckle and explain to the customer why we wouldn't just helicoil it again.
I can't speak to that dealership and their service or their technicians; but I can say that likely it was a lube guy who was doing your tires and they broke a stud (either because they installed it wrong or the stud was just too stretched out). Then it was likely given to a "back shop" (i.e. Certified/Expert/Master/MDT) technician to fix that broken stud. How the striped knuckle happened I can only speculate, so not much to say on that. Unfortunately sometimes shit goes side ways in this industry despite your best efforts, though it does sound like you could have been treated better from a customer service standpoint.
I will say that just because a job "only takes an hour" doesn't mean your vehicle will be done in an hour. A lot of customers forget that they are not the only person getting their vehicle worked on and very rarely do you pull up, get a repair order written up, and the vehicle immediately dispatched and worked on (even if you're a waiting customer). There's almost always someone before you and/or someone else who's vehicle is already in queue; sometimes customer's being excessively pushy causes problems. Just something to keep in mind.
I hope everything else turned out fine though, I feel your pain on that whole fiasco; just reading it made me cringe.
Something_Awesome
New member
Time is money. There isn't enough time in a day and the guy lost four hours. And that's not even the entirety of it. But the bottom line is that time is the most precious thing we have. I do my best to respect the time of others because it can never be gotten back. Perhaps your value of time is not the same as the OP's, but that's a YOU problem.
Moreover, the dealership represents itself as offering the best service available for their Toyotas. They also charge you a premium because of what they are offering. The OP did not get that. In a sense, it's a breach (not a total breach).
The fact that any of this requires an explanation is surprising.
DallasTRDPro
Member
I'm glad I didn't let them touch my wheels for my 10K service since Discount Tire had just finally road force balanced them. I always worry about them screwing up an oil change, but I'm not doing it myself. I'm over that in my life.
Discount Tire is no stranger to overtorqueing and breaking studs. Best is to watch as they work and be ready to jump in if they are about to cut corners. No problems since I started doing that.
Just close out the saga , went back to the dealer to pick up the vehicle after the repairs were completed.
Got to the counter to review my bill and sure enough the replacement knuckle was added to my bill for an additional $500 ! What , after a few minutes of discussions with the service manager they of course removed that charge along with all the labour involved with the work.
On the plus side the Magnetic grey 4Runner has never looked better shod with the TRD Pro Gun Metal wheels and Toyo AT-3 tires.
Got to the counter to review my bill and sure enough the replacement knuckle was added to my bill for an additional $500 ! What , after a few minutes of discussions with the service manager they of course removed that charge along with all the labour involved with the work.
On the plus side the Magnetic grey 4Runner has never looked better shod with the TRD Pro Gun Metal wheels and Toyo AT-3 tires.
Something_Awesome
New member
Pics of the mounted tires
And they probably put that $500 bill on just to see if you would pay it, with every intention of removing it if you made a fuss. That service person is probably getting dinged for this blunder in some capacity? If so, pretty terrible to charge you $500 to save their own ass.
wsgoat
New member
I'd never use that dealer again, period. I'd also be sending a letter off to Toyota Corporate outlining my experience and sub-par service received at the local level.
even some of the tire shop over tighten the lug nuts. i had my tires replaced once and was unable to loosen my lug nuts when i am about to rotate it. in my opinion, it is always a good practice when you get home to loosen the lug nuts and tighten to your specs.
So, what's your end goal by doing that? Is it REALLY that big of a deal? They fixed the issue for free and gave him a loaner. They know they screwed up and I'm sure that tech got his ass chewed out already. Why spend any more of your time on the issue? Just go to another dealer or place to get your work done from now on. Sh*t happens.
wsgoat
New member
Yes, it REALLY is a big deal. The dealer put an incompetent mechanic on his rig and he screwed it up. They then tried to stiff him on a loaner and get him to pay for the parts/labor they buggered. You obviously have lower expectations and are ok with shoddy work when you visit a dealer. Shit does happen, but unlike you, I try to limit my exposure to it.
rdruss
Senior Member
Agree!
Lower expectations? Absolutely. It's a car dealer for Christ's sake. It helps me sleep when things go south. Humans are human.
Ok with shoddy work? Absolutely not. I'll just move on with my life afterward and go somewhere else. That dealership knows they suck already. I don't need to spend more time to take it further and let corporate tell them too.
wsgoat
New member
Well that's were you and I disagree. Corporate should absolutely know that they have a shitty dealer in their network who's fielding unskilled mechanics and diminishing the brand....things you don't loose any sleep over.
You are correct to be more than a little annoyed. A couple of thoughts from many years of experiencing fixing cars and having other people fix my cars.
1. Almost never should you wait for the car. It's a waste of your time and these things always take longer than expected. Uber (easier than a loaner) is your friend.
2. They made it right, but the screw up is troubling. Don't argue with them, be super polite and professional, but when the inevitable survey comes from Toyota, then be honest (but not vengeful). Toyota will be more upset than you will be, trust me (as would any of the majors - they ding the dealers pretty heavily, in financial terms, for this stuff).
3. Dealers and mechanics are a pain, and they all screw up from time to time, across all brands. One of the reasons I love our 4Runner is it allows me to minimize contact with all mechanics. A couple of stories to make you feel better: My wife's Pilot requires a valve clearance check around 100k. Get the car back (she picked it up), and next morning I notice a small pool of oil under the car on the garage floor the next morning. They didn't button up the valve covers correctly. I was pretty pissed, like you. You pay for dealer techs because you don't want low grade morons working on the car and you want original quality parts, not the crap manufactured by Indonesian children. They offered to come and clean it up, etc. and I insisted that they re-do the entire valve adjustment with a different tech, because Hondas burn valves as they get tighter with age. They were apologetic, but it was a big screw up. I had a BMW mechanic who installed new brakes on my car before a driving school and didn't tighten down one of the rear calipers correctly. Had used this guy for 10+ years. It was a lot of fun when I put my foot down at the end of a long straightaway, heard a loud metallic bang followed by the pedal pretty much going to the floor. Almost stained my pants. Finally, our local Toyota dealer managed to strip one of the threads for my TRD skid plate. How a professional does that I have no idea, but they didn't tell me, I found it, and we had a good conversation about it, I'll put it that way.
What I would do is that if this is a shop you've used for a long time and this is an isolated screw up, forgive and move on (maybe get some service coupons out of it). If this is how they normally do business, find someone else. But at least the truck is repaired correctly now and they didn't drop it off the lift.
BlackWorksInc
New member
In regards to both of your statements, I actually agree with both of you to varying degrees. People make mistakes and I find it very funny how many people tend to hold their mechanics to a higher degree of expectation than they do their doctors. Doctor messes up on a diagnosis or doesn't figure out what's wrong with you in one visit? Most people go, "oh, that's okay at least you're taking care of me now;" mechanic leaves one lug nut loose out of 24, they should be taken out back and shot. The double standard I see people have not just with mechanics, but in general amuses me to no end.
Anyways, I sit in the middle with you guys; I think you should realistically accept that no one will ever do anything perfectly, it's impossible, but you should also hold people accountable if not for anything else to hope that it will improve the next person's experience.
I had an experience with my own dealership this year where I was too busy with the workload to do the oil change on my parent's vehicle so I paid for our lube department to do it (turned out they didn't have any more free ones like they thought). The next day they were packing up to head back home and texted me that they saw some oil on the driveway under the car, I told them to bring it to the dealership; one of my lube guys had left the drain plug loose. I was livid because of how many things they did wrong when they should know better. I cleaned up the car and tightened the drain plug and marked it, then I mentioned to the service director and shop foreman what I found and the situation. I was going to find out exactly who had done the work and rip them a new one, but in the end I realized that their vehicle is fixed and they're okay and that my service director would rip the lube tech a new one and either they would get with the program or he'll be finding a new job.
I have mentioned to multiple people here before to be polite and professional, but to escalate things if they are not happy with their service. At the end of the day the dealership is representing not only their parent company (the company who owns the dealership), but the manufacturer as well. If the dealership isn't willing to listen/accommodate a reasonable/justified complaint/concern of a customer, then they should escalate it to corporate (in some cases, it's not even that the dealership is at fault, rather warranty is a tricky thing and calling corporate as a customer will sometimes cause Toyota to push through a claim that the dealership was having difficulty with on their end.) It always bothers me when I hear horror stories of other dealerships or service shops, I try to make an effort to not be one of those "bad techs" or work at one of those "bad dealerships," because inevitably good people and places get lumped in because of dipshits who give the industry a bad name.
Stripped skid plate bolts are ridiculously common on Tundras, Tacomas, 4Runners, Land Cruisers, etc. Just about anything that uses a solid plate with a bolt in a threaded hold seems to get stripped out by lube techs, Jiffy Lube, etc. Drives me nuts because it's often from people bending a skid plate out of the way instead of removing one extra panel to fully take it off. Or hell if you're going to bend it out of the way, take a dead blow or hammer and tap the end of the plate once or twice to line the holes up! I can't tell you how often I end up rethreading skid plate threads, I have a jar of take-off M8x1.25 bolts from our accessory department to replace stripped/mangled skid plate bolts.
The TRD skid plates almost always end up stripped and cross-threaded because of how annoying they are to hold while trying to screw in (even more so when people lose the captive washers that hold them in the plate to begin with). It's basically just people being lazy, in a rush, and not taking pride in their work; the general "it's the next guy's problem, tight now" mentality.
U
USStrongman
Guest
#giggle Being upset is one thing, being a victim is something entirely different.
The fact he went to a dealer in the first place is reason to be partly culpable. If anyone ever learns a single thing from this type of site is - never use a dealer service department except for warranty (and Toyota is the leader in doing the right thing IMO with warranties). We see only one side of dealer mishaps - the ones that end poorly. No one comes on here and says "I had an amazing experience at the dealer and can't wait to go back and overspend for service again"!
Charles Bronson
Member
I'll say it again, I wish BlackWorksInc was in my town. This is the tech we all want and need.
I recently had a really bad experience with a Toyota dealership and a tech. I was really upset by it and some of the work done (or lack there of) by the tech as questionable and frustrating. BUT I also know how tech's are required to do their jobs and the processes they're required to follow. He was clearly trying to fix the issue and in the process, he missed some things. But when I stepped back and assessed the whole situation from the 30,000 foot view, I could see how some of these were inadvertently missed. I always kept my cool with the service advisor and tech. I was firm, direct, and "nice", but it was clear to them that I had concerns about what they were doing and their approach. In the end, it was clear from our dealings with the service advisor and the way the work order sheet was written that the dealer and Toyota definitely had some things to sort out amongst themselves as both parties dropped the ball. They were surprisingly transparent through the whole process.
Now if someone is being a jerk to me and they don't let up, then I can be a very different person. I'm still not going to yell and throw a tantrum though.
I recently had a really bad experience with a Toyota dealership and a tech. I was really upset by it and some of the work done (or lack there of) by the tech as questionable and frustrating. BUT I also know how tech's are required to do their jobs and the processes they're required to follow. He was clearly trying to fix the issue and in the process, he missed some things. But when I stepped back and assessed the whole situation from the 30,000 foot view, I could see how some of these were inadvertently missed. I always kept my cool with the service advisor and tech. I was firm, direct, and "nice", but it was clear to them that I had concerns about what they were doing and their approach. In the end, it was clear from our dealings with the service advisor and the way the work order sheet was written that the dealer and Toyota definitely had some things to sort out amongst themselves as both parties dropped the ball. They were surprisingly transparent through the whole process.
Now if someone is being a jerk to me and they don't let up, then I can be a very different person. I'm still not going to yell and throw a tantrum though.
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Something_Awesome
New member
No, it's not. All the culpability is on the party that did the damage.
Toyota warranty's the car. And it's their dealer's techs that they want you to visit. All the culpability is on the dealer. Literally all of it.
