Another dealership horror story

LOL! I was gonna say something, but I don't wanna be a dick everyday..

Why the fuck would poking a hole in the filter be a good idea. It isn't going to drain the filter back into the engine. Or it shouldn't due to the anti-drain back valve in the filter.

And the filter housing has a built in drain...

 

A thread derailment of this nature is allowed. Go on, spill the beans.

 

Poking a hole in the filter allows air in and lets the oil drain back despite the valve . At least the Taco has a catch funnel with drain port - my old '77 FJ40 2F engine has the filter mounted face down and no way to catch any oil , they make quite a mess if you don't poke holes in the filter first .
One of these days that old truck is getting a relocation head added to flip the filter the other way .

Sarge

 

Well the sales department was cool. I've talked to a bunch of them and they seemed to be just fine. I've also talked to the parts department quite a bit and they were fine as well. I did have serious issues with the service department though.

Ok, here we go. Disclaimer this review was written for yelp, not for the tacomaworld audience.

This was the worst customer service experience of my life. I have never seen a worse disregard for a customer property and satisfaction.

I brought my truck in for warranty replacement on my headlights. The fog light lens on the 05-11 Toyota Tacoma trucks will melt due to heat. Toyota has acknowledged the part is faulty and extended the warranty on them to replace them for free. To have them replaced you must bring your car to a Toyota dealership and let them replace them.

So, I scheduled an appointment with Manhattan Beach Toyota and brought my vehicle in for service. I dropped my vehicle off went on a walk around Manhattan Beach and I received a phone call my vehicle was done. When I returned I immediately noticed they had installed the wrong headlights. They had installed the same headlights that they had just replaced. With the exact same meltable lenses Toyota had acknowledged are defective. I immediately spoke to a service representative that this was incorrect. He assured me it was the right headlight and that the service department had confirmed it was correct. It was not until I produced Toyota documents that showed the correct replacement part # and the service document that showed the incorrect part # did they finally attempt to confirm my suspicion. Upon further review they determined they had in fact installed the incorrect headlights. I could easily forgive this mistake. But, things got much worse. (FYI, if you have had this done at Manhattan Beach toyota, make sure you have the right lights, they said they had installed the wrong headlights in 200 vehicles)

While inspecting the incorrect headlights I also observed they had damaged my vehicle itself. There was a dent on the passenger quarter panel with a large scrape going down the side of it. Because my car was dirty you could also see that someone had run their finger across it to see how bad it was. So there was a line of clean along the entire scratch. This was not mentioned to me when I received my truck. So someone damaged my truck, noticed they damaged my truck, inspected the damage and then said nothing about the damage. I then began inspecting the rest of the vehicle. To my shock I found multiple scratches around the headlights where the mechanic had been trying to fit the headlight into its spot. But the most frightening thing was when I observe my fog light bulb and wire dangling in front of my drive side tire. They had removed the bulb for some reason, which is not required to remove the headlights, and then never installed it back inside the fog housing. The entire assembly was dangling inches from my front tire.

I was assured everything would be taken care of and they would order my new headlights. I had another service appointment for the following week. 45 minutes before my appointment I received a call that the headlights had not arrived. My appointment was pushed back another week.

I arrived for the appointment and the service adviser did a quick walk around the vehicle to note any current damage to the vehicle in case further damage occurred. I couldn't imagine they would do it again after how poorly things were done the first time. They installed the correct headlights and I received my vehicle. And to my unending shock my vehicle was once again damaged. I told the service adviser and showed him the damage, we were both stunned.

The only way to explain what was done to my vehicle was malice. I refused to let them do anything further to my vehicle.

So what did they do to make it right? Well nothing. I refused to let them take possession of my vehicle again to attempt correction on the paint. So I asked for a part I had been wanting for my truck. This is when I met Joy Anderson. She offered to give me the part for exactly what they would pay for the part. For some perspective this ends up being 17 dollars less than I would pay elsewhere (camelbak toyota). This is not taking responsibility for their mistakes. Joy seemed genuinely annoyed that I had a problem with them damaging my vehicle. She was almost impossible to get a hold of. I had to leave three messages before she called me back. And then she was extremely short with me when I brought my vehicle in.

I ended up filing a complaint with corporate and nothing ever happened. I do remember the guy from corporate saying he couldn't even get a hold of Joy the last time I spoke to him.

 

^^^Wow that's a crazy and unfortunate issue!

 

Same here, I do everything myself.

 

I also have the "lifetime warranty" from my selling dealer. If you read your warranty, you will likely find text like the following: Note, you DO NOT have to have the dealer do your maintenance to keep the warranty in effect - see item 3.
Extracted from the "Lifetime powertrain warranty" document delivered with my new Tacoma.

 

Very true . It's just the principle of it all. If I were there to hear the service mgr. say that the nips are disposable, my nostrils would flare.

 

I used the same method on my 1974 Mazda Rotary PU back in the day. Never a mess to clean up.

 

If you guys need a new housing drain cap, just get a vacuum plug from an auto parts store for 50 cents. That's all it is.

 

The function is to keep any residual oil in the drain cup from dripping down the front of the engine, onto the belt.

 

This was after I had left, pops has all the tools one would ever need (and some you don't) over the course of 30+ years in the automotive industry.

 

where do you poke a hole ?

 

On top of the filter.

 

you mean drill one ? can it be done without a drill (is the metal that soft) ?

 

Just take a screw driver and poke a hold in it. It's soft enough to do so.

 

Okay, so why again would you do this on the 2nd generation Tacoma? When you remove the filter anyways, presuming it drains which I don't think it will unless you bought a cheap Fram without a back flow valve, you would still get a bit of oil in the drain cup because you'd never get the filter to totally drain back.

So why not just use the catch plate as intended and let it catch the oil as it runs out of the filter? I've never had a spill doing it this way with a coke bottle.

 

this seems like a sketchy proposition, to say the least...

 

The upside down filter creates a vacuum, not allowing the oil to drain. Poke a hole and the oil can drain back without having to wait. Same concept as when you put your finger on the end of a straw (as mentioned by someone earlier.).

This way, there is NO mess in the catch plate to begin with.

Either way it works fine, just my shops method of doing it. Faster and cleaner is all.

Not sure why it would be sketchy. If you're unsure about it, try it out on a used filter.