Toyota charging me $$$ for frame replacement.

You said the rest of the truck was in great shape. Is there a break point where you feel if they reduced the bill to that amount you could sell the truck and at least break even? Just to avoid the hassles of legal action, you may want to try to come up with some number you could live with and try to get them to that point.

Should you have to do this...absolutely not. Sounds like you are being taken advantage of by this dealer. I agree with someone above who said the dealer probably thought this was an "all you can eat" buffet deal with Corp Toyota. They later found out only the breadsticks were unlimited, and now they are trying to pass that mistake on to you.

 

sub'd for outcomes, OP I feel bad for you having to go through this

I'm past 6 months outside my 15 year window now

 

Thanks for all the commentary. It helps put things in perspective.

Tomorrow, I am going to try to go down to the shop who did the work. Its in the next town over. It wasnt done at a Toyota service center. The frame replacement contract was outsourced by Toyota to a local mechanic shop. Maybe I can get a copy of the work order or parts list from them.

The photo in my profile, is of the truck that's been in the shop. It wasnt in terrible condition. I had to fight with them for 6 months to get them to even admit it was rusted bad enough to qualify for the replacement. Most of the rust on the frame was surface rust, but chipping and scaling in layers. At first glance, it didnt seem so bad when I bought it. Problem was a lot of the bolts and components were rust welded together. I had to change a tire out in back country early on and took three guys kicking and a sledge hammer to knock the rim loose from the lugs. I knew most of the bolts and such were not gonna be salvageable, but seemed to me most of that kinda shit should be included.

Truck is supposedly done and sitting back at the Toyota lot. I think the manager is just wringing his hands trying to figure out how to make sure pass the bill on to me.

 

Ah, I see they subleted the thing out. Not too many shops do that. Good chance this falls on the their shops head. But could be the dealer didn’t tell them to save stuff. Sounds like a shitty deal altogether. As long as you didn’t sign off for them to replace anything they needed your not obligated to pay for stuff you were not informed of.

 

I was just reading back over my original thread i posted here about the frame replacement denial and my fight to get them to cover it. In retrospective, I feel like they are punishing me for being such a pain in their ass about this.

I stopped updating that thread end of December 2017. Like i mentioned above, they finally took my truck and gave me a rental car around July 2018. After several months of sitting in their lot, the dealer started talking about potential that some repair costs might be pushed off onto me for excess parts, but couldn't ever give me a parts list or even a straight conversation. Always wishywashy and uncertain that he needed to talk to this person or that person and would call me back, which he never did. I just started telling him I wanted my truck back without the repair because the whole thing was going on far too long. My rental was from Enterprise and maybe if I backed out of the replacement at that point he would have been stuck with the months long rental car bill.

If you care to grab some popcorn and read the back story here is the link.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2003-frame-replacement-denial.520173/

 

Did you have the rental from enterprise the whole time?
That may be some of the money they are trying to get back in a round about way. Toyota may have a set limit in mind for the rental car fees.
Ford recently bought back my 2019 F250. It took 4 months to complete the process. The bill from Enterprise for the rental truck was $9,200, which Ford payed.

 

They put me in a Prius dealership loaner car first, which was great on gas, but its quite the downgrade in utility from truck. I went back and forth with the dealership for a month or so about how i thought they should put me in a comparable vehicle to what I had. He said the dealership had nothing else they could give me but they could get me in an Enterprise which supposedly could give me a truck. But they've only given me a minivan and suv.

Ive argued with the dealership many times about how they were wasting money on this rental car... trying to urge them to see how it was in their favor to deal with it all quickly. I told him that Toyota would be out less money if they just bought the truck back then instead of going through all their bureaucracy to fix the truck and pay the rental. At one point a Toyota field rep even went to the shop to supposedly assess the truck and decide how they were going to proceed. The dealer told me they decided to continue with the install... that was a year ago.

They have been in control of this thing the whole time but I dont know how disorganized they may have been behind the scenes or what has taken them so long at each stage.

 

So you have had the rental for over a year?

 

Do you have any paperwork, that may have some fine print that stated the owner is responsible for any parts that cannot be reused during a frame replacement? If you do not, and you do not have a work order where you agreed to a list of replace items in advance of the repair, then I would get that list of parts and labor and post it here for us to see.

Other Questions

How many miles have you driven the rental vehicle? I take it the rental has been provided by the dealer.

If you are getting a new frame along with long list of other parts and you been driving a free rental for over a year, it may not be such a bad deal.

 

I would get a list of the parts they say you owe for and start there .

 

Outsourced? That sounds fishy. Our dealership does them on the spot.

 

I agree that "out-sourcing" the repair is not in practice (at least I haven't heard of one to date) and sounds like this dealer wasn't equipped enough to handle the repair. At that point they should have reached out to another dealer for assistance. Although I think they looked at the $$$ Toyota would provide them for it and decided to take on the responsibility.

That being said @Riodelarosa , Toyota Motor Corp pays for the rental (and all covered repair), not the dealer. BUT, it has to be a reasonable amount of time. Being well over a year is not reasonable and it sounds as if the dealer is trying to recoup the exorbitant cost of the extended rental onto you because of their screw up.

 

All Toyota dealerships are privately owned,

You need to keep corporate on your redial and have them do the footwork if your having issues with the dealership


Some dealership are great and some are horrible

 

i never had a window whatever of much
they would've crushed mine had i neglected hosing off what i could regularly
but i probably would've forked over the cash then in 2o11 to swap my frame if they thought it was bad
ain't no way i was getting one of those 2nd gens at the time

 

If you never agreed I don't see how they can charge you for unknown costs. Take a spare key and pick the fucker up at night

 

Not sure how it makes sense for anyone to replace the frame on a 16 year old vehicle.

 

Some dealers outsource the labour for frame replacements. At my old dealer we did it both ways depending on situation.

Either way, if parts need to be replaced they’d come from us. If parts are needed that aren’t covered they should be itemized and approved first. Seems odd they can’t just give you that list. Doesn’t matter where the repair was done.

There are definitely some parts needed on an older truck that won’t be covered, but your situation sounds frustrating to say the least.

It does sound like you knew there may be additional costs but that there is sticker shock now. Keep Toyota corporate on your side. I agree with much of what has been said so far.

Good luck.

Jeff

 

I drove around back of my dealer this summer and they had a stack of 6 or so frames sitting there.

 

They dont have your signature on the work order, right? Bug them about the car, and when they bug you back about the bill tell them to produce the documentation where you agreed to it.

Almost every region has at least one local news station that loves to get consumer calls about bob the shady-ass fence builder and other scammy stories. I'm sure they would love to hear this story as well. And dealers that get a microphone shoved in their face generally want that problem to go away as quickly as possible.

I'd say that six months ago would have been the time to get really loud, using every media tool at your disposal. Today is a good day to do that too.

 

You need a signature on a work order if they want to charge you.

2nd they must provide you with an itemized list of what was replaced or you can charge back and your CC company will win on your behalf.