Steering Rack is Toast

[trailbound]

There will be lots of "camps" on this but IMOHO most fall into either

*Have enough money and choose to spend it on letting a shop do all the installs. This camp likely will do the same if something outside of warranty comes up

*The more "DIY" who even if the mods caused issues down the road they will buy the part and do it themselves. Things that come to the top of my mind are wheel bearings, I expect I am shortening the life if my bearings and would not expect Toyota to pay for that so when they go I will buy new and install my self.

Major failures of anything on the 4runner (Tranny/Engine) are extremely rare and most of the "mods" wont have much of a negative impact. But short answer is yes, if you modify your 4runner from OEM you are taking on some risk that it could create a failure and they wouldn't fix it. A remote example could be if my transmission went out down the road. I could see Toyota saying well because of Increased weight, wheel size, suspension lift, abuse off road etc etc I created undo wear on it and caused the failure.....depending on the circumstances I would likely argue hard about this but in the end could go find a used tranny and install it or have it installed at an independent shop and not have much concern. Life is way to short to worry about all the "what if's" - Keep them in mind, know the risks but do what you enjoy.

P.S. Having a decent skill set and small emergency fund makes life much less stressful.

Exactly my thoughts on this. Many people out there are also unaware of the Magnuson-Moss warranty act. The dealers will try to scare you saying "oh you installed a lift so we cannot cover that under warranty" and most people buy into this end up paying for the repair. You have the legal right to call the dealer out on their refusal to honor your warranty. The best thing to do work up the ladder past the service adviser and get the service manager involved. Be polite but firm and mention that under federal law they need to prove to you that the lift or other accessory caused said issue. If they won't budge then kindly explain that you will be contacting Toyota corporate to ask for a assistance under the Magnuson-Moss act. Corporate will get involved and while this process takes time to get resolved you will usually get satisfaction in the end. YMMV but for myself and several people that I know this has worked out for us.

 

[STX4Runner]

Tell her if she wants to raise her averages she needs to lower her expectations.

Everyone knows the angle of the dangle changes in proportion with the heat of the meat...

 

[5ontheFloor]

I'm at the dealership now. I feel like I should be live-blogging the progress. It's almost comedy.

As suspected, the service manager told me "ohh that's lifted, we can't fix that". On asking why, he replied "'Cause it changes the angle of the dangle" --- Verbatim.

Dont you hate it when the angle of your dangle gets tangled???



On a serious note, I hope it works out for you. I love a good debate with the dealership about aftermarket mods

 

[SoCalTRDPro]

So the dealership was really nice today. They went ahead and put a wrench to every bolt on the suspension. Steering was not blown at all. They said the coil was slipping, which was do to the spacers. Understandable. I walked away at no charge.

Hearing that, I called Toytec to ask them if they've seen that problem. Toytec told me could be slipping or UCA contact.

Back to the suspension shop in the morning on monday to either reseat the coil or gut the thing for icon stage 7

 

[1engineer]

So the dealership was really nice today. They went ahead and put a wrench to every bolt on the suspension. Steering was not blown at all. They said the coil was slipping, which was do to the spacers. Understandable. I walked away at no charge.

Hearing that, I called Toytec to ask them if they've seen that problem. Toytec told me could be slipping or UCA contact.

Back to the suspension shop in the morning on monday to either reseat the coil or gut the thing for icon stage 7

Somebody had no clue. Do not take it to that somebody.

 

[Antman]

Somebody had no clue. Do not take it to that somebody.

Please change the name of this thread to "Utter Bullshit" so I can access it easier at a later date.

W.
T.
F?

 

[wfo9]

So the dealership was really nice today. They went ahead and put a wrench to every bolt on the suspension. Steering was not blown at all. They said the coil was slipping, which was do to the spacers. Understandable. I walked away at no charge.

Hearing that, I called Toytec to ask them if they've seen that problem. Toytec told me could be slipping or UCA contact.

Back to the suspension shop in the morning on monday to either reseat the coil or gut the thing for icon stage 7

Figured the steering rack was fine.

Hard to go wrong with ICON... because they kick butt on a dual porpose rig IMHO. Although, I much prefer the dual rate springs and long travel MT setup in the rear.

Sway bar or UCA contact are the most likely causes of your noise... Sometime a goPro works to diagnose things that only happen in dynamic scenarios.

 

[Jaydub514]

Somebody had no clue. Do not take it to that somebody.

Care to share who the 'some guys' who took a look at it originally were? Especially if it's a shop in SoCal so we know who to avoid like the plague.

 

[SoCalTRDPro]

Care to share who the 'some guys' who took a look at it originally were? Especially if it's a shop in SoCal so we know who to avoid like the plague.

Hey, I DM'd you the details. I don't necessarily want to flame a shop that did a lot of good work on my truck... They had a slip-up. It is what it is.