Rear End and Transmission Fiasco

Well my truck isn't spotless anymore. In some traffic I pulled up and crawled behind a zip car and looked in my rear view me to see this guy coming up behind me blabbing on cell phone looking away from road. I didn't have time to put my transmission into N and I was in second gear when it hit. It pushed me forward, made a loud crunch and stalled. I did not have my foot on clutch.

I am able to drive away, but notice a minor tick shifting into second as I accelerate away. The next morning as I shift into second I get a small grind.....great. I tell insurance everything and adjuster makes note of it. Work begins....


Fast forward two weeks later and the body work is done. They bring it to a toyota dealership to get trans looked at. I join the tech and he drives it with me. He feels the gear a little off from the others, but says they need to drive another one to see if there is any difference. We look on the lot but no 5 speeds.....no big surprise there. The body shop guy tells me that have to tear it down to see if there is damage. My thoughs are that means the gears and synchros all have to be taken apart from the input shaft to see if 2nd is damaged.

Four days later I get a call that the transmission is taken apart and ready for the adjuster to look at ($1000 btw). I ask if they see any damage and they say no. I ask them what the second gear synchro looks like and they say that they can't see it because they only cracked open the case to look at teeth and oil . They aren't qualified to take all the gears apart.

So it's a waiting game until the insurance adjuster looks at it, but what is he supposed to see? It doesn't shift the way it did after the accident and you have to take apart the entire shaft with gears to verify anything is wrong. Toyota doesn't do this they just swap with re-man cases. Starting to look like I'm screwed here, but I can only hope it goes well. Carnage is minor but here ya go...... Updates to come.

 

Today is the day the transmission repair was finally approved by insurance. Yes that's 51 days so far. It sat at the dealer with the transmission on the bench with the case apart for over 2 weeks and no one did anything. The Auto Body shop brought the truck to the dealer after the bodywork was done. No one contacted me about the status, so after a week of trying to get a hold of the adjuster he finally answered his phone.

He told me that he needed to see evidence of damage and that the dealership can't show him damage because they cannot take apart the transmission. They were not qualified to nor had the tools to look at all the gears.

I was pissed to say the least. I called the dealer up, paid the $600 break down fee and had the truck (transmission out) on a flatbed to a transmission shop. The guy called me 30 minutes after it arrived and he saw the damage from the accident. All related to the second gear parts(I was in 2nd when hit). He ordered the parts and contacted the adjuster. He also saw the bill for $600 on my seat from the dealer and bitched out the insurance as to why I had to pay for this. Also my rental car ran up about a week ago, so that was a $400 bill as it stands.

Moral of the story is: don't give up on anything related to issues whether it be warranty or insurance. Just keep fighting it and you should be OK in the end. I will be OK when I get a check for $600+$rental car costs.

I don't get back the $180 I had to spend on moving day not having my truck and renting one do I? Sorry that's just being a PITA I guess. What do we get paying for insurance again, lol?

 

who was your ins company?? just wondering here

 

Liberty Mutual. They did the body work well and have been ok with customer service so I can't fault them. The body shop and dealer on the other hand...... Let me say that I've had many over the years and I've learned it's a coin flip. To add insult to this whole mess my apartment got broken into a week ago. I had rental insurance with Liberty as well. I had things stolen and had a check in my mail in 3 days for the losses. Go figure huh?

 

A co-worker's 4-runner got rear ended while parked in the lot at work by the snow plow driver and at first they thought it was just body work but his auto tranny starts really shifting weird and then broke completely. The insurance/auto shop pulled the same crap as OP described. We don't do tranny work, you have to pay the tear down fee or else we can't be sure it was the accident and we'd have to send it to a dedicated shop. He couldn't afford the tear down fee at the time so he ended up getting the shaft by the insurance co. Thankfully they ended up covering yours.

 

Well my transmission is fixed, but when I went to pick it up there were 2 door dings and someone backed into my front bumper. Insurance guy says im screwed since they can;t prove whether it was dealer or trans shop.