Sneaky Underwriting?Clutch FRIED at 38k miles-Dealership Deception?

In late 2014 I found a DCSB Sport 6 spd and factory supercharged at a dealer with 20k miles. Everything was great until I pulled the car fax. Clutch had been replaced twice, I assumed because of the supercharger and bad habits of the previous owner. Still interested. Then I ran into one of the techs I was friendly with from mountain bikeing...he said that clutch was a nightmare. Original clutch was replaced at under 5k, original owner was an over-the-road truck driver. Something seriously wrong from the factory but still not covered under warranty. Second dealer installed clutch only lasted another 6k miles.
I’m not sure how helpful this is, but my point is these clutches can have some serious wear issues. Good luck...shifting is worth it!

 

The clutch disc will not fit backwards. There is no recess in the flywheel. The pressure plate has the room in it for the center/hat of the clutch disc.

If it was backwards, the disc would be mushed into the flywheel bolts (constantly spinning) and you would not be able to get it into gear at all. The truck is not getting shipped, it's not even backing out the door.

 

I’ve seen a lot worse! I bought a Toyota for my son when he was a teenager and it needed a new clutch. Good father/son moment changing it out, six months later he had fried the new clutch to the point where there was zero pad material left. He changed that one on his own!

 

Rebuilt, huh?

So wait...I'm just a tiny bit confused here...

What I'm understanding so far:

• Your truck had smelly issues and loss of power
• You took it to the dealer
• They gave you a quote to replace the clutch
• You haven't paid them yet because you're here on the forums asking "how is this possible??" etc etc
• But you have pictures of the flywheel and clutch so....

If you haven't paid them yet...how/why did they do the work to inspect your clutch? I have a hard time believing the dealership put your truck on a lift, and did the several hours work to drop the transmission and remove the clutch just to "take some pictures for ya".

Either you already paid them (or authorized) to do the work, or they sent you some random pictures from a different clutch to scare you. There's no in between.

 

They told me they would need to drop the transmission in order to properly diagnose the problem. I think the "diagnosis'' charge for this service dept was something like $108? I agreed to their doing that. I was told there was no other way to know for sure.

Are you suggesting they wouldn't have done any of this until it was mutually agreed that they would repair the problem, no matter what? I think my $108 was sufficient compensation for the "work" they've done up to this point.

 

lol...you're kidding right?
Dealerships usually don't even plug in their OBD2 scanner and look for CEL codes for $108. They sure as hell aint gonna spend 5 hours dropping your transmission to take a look.
You should be more careful.

If they are being truthful, then your truck should still be taken apart and in a bay on a lift. Go take a look and see where your truck is.

 

Would a large dealership seriously take the risk of sending someone phony pictures of "their" parts?

 

So, they're either pulling the Roto-Rooter scam, instead of showing someone video of *their* pipes filled with invasive tree roots, they have a piece of shit burned up flywheel as a scare tactic?


Or they're convinced that I took the bait and won't be taking my truck anywhere else, so it's safe to actually get things started?




........makes it seem all the more dramatic when I think back to the kid saying he "wouldn't even trust taking it off this lot".

 

lol...

I've spent the past few weeks getting royally fucked about a VERY large dealership. The Darvish family (who owns DARCARS) owns 22 dealerships and has a net worth of $400 million. Their Yelp page has 87 reviews, and a 1.5 star average.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/darcars-toyota-silver-spring-silver-spring-3

After my frame replacement, they sent me home in a truck with a brake pedal that went to the floor, and a broken steering shaft. They didn't brake my steering shaft, but they didn't say a word about it, even though a technician had it in his hand on multiple occasions an they re-installed the extremely worn shaft using new bolts.
I took my issues to them, and they refused to do anything, not even re-bleed my brakes. I then found their Yelp page and facepalm'd myself real good.

Hang around these forums long enough, pay attention to when friends and family go to a dealership long enough, and you start to notice a pattern.

"blah blah dealer lied to me about..."
"blah blah dealer sold me a bum car..."
"blah blah dealer won't honor XXX warranty"
"blah blah dealer lied and told me XXX wasn't covered by warranty, then I found out it was!"
"blah blah dealer told me they couldn't hear my bad wheel bearing because it was snowy out, they told me to come back later"

What do they all have in common?
$$$

 

Let me tell you what happens next, this is a classic transmission shop trick:

You paid them $108 to "take your truck apart and dig out the clutch"
They sent you pictures "YEAH YEAH! IT'S REAL BAD DUDE. WORST I'VE EVER SEEN! TOO DEADLY TO DRIVE OFF LOT!! WE FIX NOW! GIVE US $50,000 AND YOU WONT GET RUN OVER BY TRAIN!"

99% of people get so scared, they can't hand over $$ fast enough.

1% of people get smart and catch on.
The 1% say something like "can I see my car?" or "nah I'll just do it myself" or something along those lines.

THEN

they say "well, we already took it apart, you need to pay us to put it back together, that will be $500"

$608 later, you drive your truck off the lot and they didn't even so much as move it from where you parked it.


It's a landslide win-win for them, really. Either you pay the $1500 to fix the clutch, and they get $1500, or you pay them $608 and they did absolutely zero.
And both ways, it's very easy to make it look like they're truthful.
If you pay the $1500, then your clutch works.
If you only pay the $608, then your clutch doesn't work as they promised!

 

I never said that their intentions were noble, or that they only cared about making a buck. I guess I'm just surprised that a large dealership, especially in the day and age of social media, would chance getting caught doing that sort of thing. That has potential to make Toyota look very unsightly in the public eye, which I assume would result in the parent spanking the child, so to speak.

Seriously, what do they say if I show up tomorrow morning, unannounced, and my truck is parked outside the service department, fully intact?
"we needed to make some room for an emergency brake pad replacement"?

 

So then why did he see/smell smoke and then the clutch stopped working?

If the clutch is fine, what do you think would cause his symptoms?

 

I hear what you're saying, but it don't work that way. Not one bit I've recently, painfully found out.

I complained to Toyota Corporate when my dealer did me dirty. My "concerns were noted" by a customer service rep. Then, the customer service rep just put me on a 3-way call with the dealer rep (who already told me 'get bent, kid') and kindly left the phone conversation after saying "Toyota Corporate will not be intervening in this matter." Now, I understand some people reading this might call me a whiny, un-deserving brat, and that's fine, but Toyota Corporate did zero in terms of an investigation. And, like I said, this particular dealer has 87 Yelp Reviews with 1.5star avg. If Toyota Corporate was interested in "customer relations improvement behavior" my dealer would have gone extinct by now.
Corporate ain't got no teeth!
Toyota is riding their coattails from 15 years ago. Toyota has gone from "we're an honorable Jap company painstakingly building our empire and winning over the American people" to "lol, we're #1. Fuck off, kid."

If your dealer is playing tricks with your clutch, how are you ever gonna prove it? Literally how?
Even if you figure it out for yourself, and you KNOW you're 100% right, how would you ever prove it to anyone else?
You call corporate? then what? It's your word vs. dealer's.
The most you can do is write a bad Yelp review just like me.

Yeah, I could certainly be wrong, but I know one thing - a dealership doesn't drop a trans for $100.

 

You got me there.

Smoke could come from a lot of places, oil, tires, leaves in the heater box, wires burning up, solenoids going bad, something else electronic.

I don't know.

But what I do know (and I repeat) a dealer doesn't drop a trans for $100, especially "just for looksies".
If you find a dealer that does drop a trans for $100, please let me know. I'll have them inspect my rear main seal twice a year at that rate.

 

More unlikely than a back alley shop, but in short;

Yes.

I've seen it done before.

 

I agree that the truck should still be on a lift with the trans out, but $100+ tax is pretty typical in the industry now for diagnosis, even pulling a trans, it's not hard really.

 

That's... Not untrue... Unfortunately.

 

Yes, you do repeat.. they called him and got authorization to pull the transmission. If he chooses not to replace the clutch then he will be charged for their time. That's the way the world works.

HE HAD NO CLUTCH, so something happened..

 

Not that hard? I don't know...even with a lift, it should still be at least 3 hours to pull the trans and 3 hours to re-install. I'm spitballing figures there, but I spent the whole day changing the clutch in my 1st gen and I had it on a lift. I figure an experienced tech could maybe do it in 1/2 my time. At the time, it was my 2nd or 3rd clutch job, and 2nd clutch on a large 4x4 transmission.

If they can drop the trans for $100, then why is the clutch job quoted at $1400? Are you implying it's $1400 in parts and $100 labor?
If it was just $100 labor, you could just buy your own parts for like $350 (honestly don't know how much a flywheel would be, but yours could be turned) and have them put them in.
Of course, a dealer wouldn't install customer parts, but I'm just saying.

Either way, if the hourly rate at a dealer is like ~$150, then $100 says they can pull the trans in 40 mins. That's just not possible.

 

If they do something like that, and you only authorized diagnostics...

DO NOT PAY FOR UNAUTHORIZED REPAIRS!!!

That I have seen a lot of, hey we fix the issue that's going to be $2000 to get your car back.

But you said you just were going to find the problem.

Well we did and we fixed it. 2k please.

Walk away call corporate and they'll change their tune instantly.

Well uh uh etc. They still might even try to get you to pay a couple hundred, if you didn't sign papers saying do it, they CAN NOT bill you for it. Stand your ground on that one.