Dealer made me waste $260

My 99 prerunner has been making a ticking noise from the left cylinder head for a while, and I finally got around to taking it to toyota. Pull up and the service writer is more interested in checking out my truck then listening to my problem, and doesn't even write down my concern on the ticket, just customer complains of ticking. Get my truck back a few hours later, and they say it was bad coils and leads, quote of $623 to replace!!! I declined, payed the diagnostic fee, and decided to do it myself, after asking the service writer that they were 100% positive that it was bad coils and leads. He laughed and said of course they are. Ordered replacements off rockauto.com, and just replaced them, an guess what's still there. A valve train tick. And a loud one at that. Guess who will be going and throwing a fit down at toyota. This one pissed off toyota customer!

 

Bad Coil and lead wont make noise, make missfire

 

They told me they were arcing, and that was the tick I was hearing. And that they looked original so I needed to replace them

 

To me it sounds like a valve tap

 

Cracked exhaust manifold, pull the heat shield and look around and take pictures.

 

To be honest with you, OP, since you declined them doing the work, and decided to do it yourself, You won't get very far with arguing with them. The thing is, your coils may have actually BEEN bad. Only by testing your old coils would anyone be able to verify. If you had decided to let them do the work, and THEN came back and said the noise was not fixed, THEN a good argument could be had. I'm not trying to beat a hornets lest here with you, but just being honest.

 

He has a point. I had similiar bad experiences with the stealership. Hopefully everything gets sorted man. I feel bad for you.

 

This.

 

I figured they're not going to do anything major. I'd just like them to at the very least, look at my vehicle again and diagnose the actual noise. I paid $60 for them to check out the noise, and it wasn't what they recommended. It just bugs me that they try to move so quick at this dealer, they really don't listen to your problem. Nowhere written on the work order does it say from the left cylinder head, and I also tried to get him to listen to the noise, but he was more interested in writing me up and getting me on my way. I also still have my old coils. I have a multimeter as well. Any hints on testing them?

 

This is a possiblity, and I've been meaning to get my system checked for leaks, because I've been getting a P0420 code recently

 

Then what would you suggest? I work for $9/hr, $260 doesn't
Just grow on trees for me. It's almost my weekly paycheck

 

As I know how it is to make money at 18 ( I am 18), you didn't take it to the dealership, so I dont think they will give much of a flying fuck. I would of either have asked a few more people to look, or have done more research on the problem.

 

I've been trying to figure out what this is for awhile lol. Been researching on here a lot, but nobody can see to give me a real solid answer cause it doesn't seem to be all that common. I usually use a personal mechanic, and he listened to it and was really unsure where to start looking. He told me he wouldn't worry about it, but it's now getting louder/more frequent. It's an intermintent tick/tap from the left side cylinder head

 

Doesn't hurt to ask for a refund especially since you obviously don't feel you got your moneys worth.

Just ask to speak to the service manager and state your case calmly. Keep in mind the dealers largest profit center is service so its not personal. People get ripped off by dealers all the time.

One way in the future is to call several dealers first and pit one another on quoting you a price to diagnose the problem. Ive done that with success and usually find one dealer most affordable and realistic among all the others.

 

Im thinking I gotta take my truck to a dealer because I can't figure it out. Im worried about getting ripped off. It sucks not making much money I feel ya man hope all goes good.

 

I've been watching your thread. Still no luck?

 

I wish we had more dealers I could talk to, but there's really on 2, and down the street from me, and the others a good 45 min drive

 

Most part stores in the tool section have what looks like a doctor's stethoscope, with a long metal tip on the end. They are usually pretty cheap in price. You can use this to narrow down the location of the noise yourself, and be more informed and able to have more information to give if you take it back in to the dealership.

 

I know what you're talking about. My mech used it, but these trucks have so much valve train noise he had a hard time pinpointing it. All we could determine was it was from the passenger side cylinder head. Course it had gotten louder since when he looked at it

 

There's your issue well about 80% of it. The guys on here like myself can and will give you all the advice we know on how to fix something. And a lot of the times it works. But some of the time no amount of Internet or phone advice will work unless we can physically look at the truck and put our hands on it to know what is really going on. I have a tick in left side of engine ok. That could be for example a rocker, lash adjuster, Lifter, loose bolt, piston slap, Cracked manifold, vacuum leak. Do you see what I'm saying. Kinda like my shaking issue. We all want a quick this is what it is and cheapest fix we can find. But I have spent over 1k almost 2k trying to find my shake and vib issue. And still no help. Now the free fix might have solved it and for everyone that gave me advice I am extremely greatful. However I could have saved myself a lot of money by taking it to one of these guys and saying this is it what do I do.