Broken skid plate bolts?

after my first service at 5,000 I noticed that a zip tie was holding the front of my skidplate on and on the driver side the bolt and nut that should have been welded in place spun freely.

I cut the bolt and the. After the dealer I purchased from, and the service dept from another dealer pointed fingers at each other and then called me a liar I decided to repair it myself and move on with life.

JB weld and a new nut was working fine until my 10,000 mile service. Another dealer broke the jb weld and simply didn't replace the nut or bolt and let me drive home until I checked underneath later that day. They claimed it was "missing" and I am pretty sure that didn't happen as it was there when I left. I wouldn't even care if they had said "hey, the bolt and nut broke off."

So I am asking if any of you here have had similar issues?
How did you address it?
Are all service departments this inept?

 

These bolts are always a problem spot. They corrode. I had them so corroded by my first 5k mile service that 2 were ruined when I removed them.

Not sure how others deal with it, but I’m just putting anti-seize and it seems like that helps them a bit.

 

These caused me a lot of headache on my 2nd gen. The sway bar mounts in particular, the nuts are spot welded inside the frame rail.

 

I believe many Toyota staff providing service need more training or common sense perhaps both. I changed my oil yesterday and found the two bolts at the front of the skid plate were cross threaded and the back two were over tightened. I had to actually use a breaker bar to assist me to loosen the oil filter housing, I was lucky nothing broke. I know this was by the dealer since I performed my initial oil change early at 2500 miles and I had the dealer do the second. I decided to do the third oil change and I encountered all these concerns. Really made a challenging job much more difficult. I will be sharing my experience by meeting with the service manager. The last time I had to meet with the service manager is when I found the old oil filter on my wife's RAV4 last time the dealer changed my oil and filter seeing the old purolator filter still installed after 10,000 miles. Best wishes

 

How's the frame looking yikes

 

Zip tie?! Someone is messing around with your safety if they are willing to do shoddy repairs like that to your truck. Hope you reported it to Toyota Corporate and to their regional service manager. I had an inept service mechanic leave my plates barely attached because they couldn't line up the holes after a oil change- I found their oil filter wrench wedged between the plate and oil pan when I got home and was able to secure the skid plate as normal after that... Sometimes, nothing is more frustrating than expecting a good repair job!

 

Don't let minimum wage monkeys change your oil.........

I removed every bolt on every skidplate on my 15'' Taco and antiseized them, then replaced them. Having many other [mostly FJ40s] Toyotas in the past, you pretty much HAVE to do this if you ever want to get them off without cursing, throwing things, and breakage and workarounds.

Personally, I like GM's type of captured nuts [the split compression type]much better as they can be replaced and for whatever reason, they hold up against rusting MUCH better.

 

Use a bolt and a nut with no jb weld

 

So to clarify, the nut where the bolt threads in is completely broken off. I used JB weld to replace with another nut which worked fine.

I have complained to corporate and the issue is my car fax shows the Chevrolet dealer changed the oil. I did take it to the Toyota dealer after I purchased it for the 5,000 and inspection so they should have seen a massive fing zip tie then and informed me.

Toyota wanted 300 to fix issue, and after going back and forth the Chevrolet dealer told me that I told Toyota I replaced it with a zip tie and buggered the threads, which I didn't.

I fix it myself refusing to do business with either again.

So I then take it in to a different dealer rather than spending $40 to do the oil and here we are again dealing with deception/just plain stupid.

There is no way to access the other side of the skidplate to secure it without welding another nut. I have acces to a welder, so I may just do that.

Never welded on a vehicle, is there anything I need to know? I don't want to fry the computer.

 

"Never welded on a vehicle, is there anything Ineed to know?". You already know this but there's always that one other who may or may not- keep a good fire extinguisher close at hand, and heat shield everything above and around your work!!!

 

Disconnect the battery

 

I think I can actually take the entire bracket off to weld it. Just didn't want to if I didn't need to.

I'll make sure to keep a fire extinguisher handy.

 

A tack or two will due just fine. It's the monkeys using air/battery operated tools that break little nuts/bolts like these.

 

To answer your questions....

No...!
Do my own oil changes (No monkeys allowed)..!
Quite possibly. ... I will not chance it..!

 

My experience is the they are inept and habitual liars...I have had things like oil plugs not put back in or loose when the cars returned...After I purchase an Toyota product I stop using the dealer...everything is done at Firestone Auto care and I never have any problems or issues...for major stuff I have a local guy do everything Firestone can't do...

 

Where can I buy replacement bolts? My are in pretty bad shape after 50k miles

 

Do your own Oil changes. My wife took her corolla in once for an oil change and they either put on the wrong oil filter, or didn't tighten it, because it fell off about a quarter mile from the shop and then ran out of oil a mile later. Needless to say, her once 275k mile Corolla is now a 112k mile Corolla, for free.

 

Wow! And I have done my own other than the 10k and 20k mile oil change. I have been changing every 7k myself since then. They were clearly cross threaded pretty bad after the 20k oil change.

 

Get a good tap and chase the threads or retap. Otherwise get a friend with a welder to put new nuts in.

 

What is the size of the skid plate bolts so i can go find them at home depot or lowes. I need new ones that zip tie holding my skid plate is sketch.