Toyota charging me $$$ for frame replacement.

Maybe wait for DOJ to respond to you and then have them respond for you? I would hang tight to see what DOJ says. Also, I would get that truck fully inspected before driving it around cause who knows if they would be total jerks if they don't get the $. Being this shady, I wouldn't trust them.
I'm sorry you're going through this, this must be putting all kinds of stress on you. I hope you're finding stress relief somewhere!

 

Id wait for a reply from the doj, Otherwise why would you have contacted them.

 

Pick one of the things you enjoy doing the most, and spend the entire day "Saturday" doing it. Take your mind off of this fiasco, until you hear back from the DOJ. From everything I've read on this entire post, you've been hoodwinked, and like most of these posters have said, stick to your guns, and don't cave in to their demands. The DOJ should make them pay for their shady business practices.

 

That is silly for an exhaust system (both replacing it and the price), I have personally removed rusty exhausts on toyota's by cutting off the bolts and installing new hardware when they are very rusty... but I have never just thrown away an entire exhaust including the cats because they were rusty. If sections had holes in certain parts they could be repaired for a few hundred at an exhaust shop.
I would think if your exhaust had holes or was like swiss cheese, you would hear it, exhaust leaks are loud. state inspectors can usually hear even the smallest leak without even getting under the car, its pretty obvious.

They should have given you the option of installing the new exhaust at 3 grand knowing the value of the car etc.. or an aftermarket exhaust of your choice at that point if they destroyed the original.
Also hearing that toyota outsourced it to a local body shop it worrysome because Toyota techs should be the one handling it and they would have never junked it without asking.
Now a body shop I could easily picture them just ripping stuff off and putting it back on cause insurance foots the bill and its always faster to just cut it all off, vs just cutting the bolts off and saving it.

 

I can pretty much guarantee you that the shop doing the work expected Toyota to cover all the parts they needed and so just cut the exhaust off and ordered a new one.

Keep going with this. Don’t give up.

Jeff

 

Has anyone on here had a frame replacement or some similar warranty or recall work? Were you able to have Toyota install aftermarket parts for non covered parts?

 

Try a google search for frame replacement and tacomaworld.com and see if you can contact a few owners on TW who have been through this to see if they paid out of pocket for these kind of parts or if it was included in their repair.

 

I've seen quite a few threads where people got free labor while the techs were already in there for the frame replacement

 

Riodelarosa: All you need do is to ask an attorney to send those 2 Oregon laws to that Service Manager (on the attorney's letterhead); he plain F**KED up! As I said in my first post, STICK TO YOUR GUNS! Or, talk to the OWNER of the dealership. Might cost you $200, or, just send them yourself.

The dealership's biggest mistake was when they lost control by farming your truck out without apparently telling their contractor doing the work about the dealership's responsibility to abide by Oregon Law on providing estimates!

You've got em right by the short-hair dude! Toyota has a script for a dealership to follow when this frame replacement takes place on your truck, and this isn't it!

 

some dealers will some wont. we installed a full fox suspension for one guy free of charge. made life easier for the swap and made him happy.

 

Jeff

 

Gonna be an expensive lesson for that stealership service dept to learn

 

Skipping much of this just to note regarding after market parts and welding etc. It's a Toyota dealer. They're not going to hit Rock auto looking to save you a buck, and just won't weld a patch onto the exhaust. Too much liability. I'm surprised they subbed anything to a non factory shop.

 

wanna talk liability? The dealer service dept subbed off a complete frame replacement and you're sweating Rock Auto parts?.....
You can tell you skipped most/all of it with that comment.
It's a known international forum rule that to provide your two cents you have to read the thread before posting, otherwise all forum priveleges may be forfeited.
Edit: just making sure you saw my sarcasm font there, Indy. but I did hear what you're saying

 

Like I said, I'm surprised. Odds are that will get the dealer in trouble more than anything else. If I'm running a multi billion dollar business that is absolutely a honey pot for a civil layer, you do things exactly like you're told. Starts with my parts, always replace, never repair.

I had an 01, really hoped for a bad frame. I didn't want it fixed,I wanted the payout. But the damn frame was good...

 

It's not about not installing OEM parts that were not included in Corporate payout, but replacing them without asking or giving options to the decision maker - the owner. Why they don't go after Toyota Corp for paying for the exhaust? Why they are not putting Corporate in the same position as they do to the owner?
If they say they need to cut out the exhaust of the truck in order to replace the frame, and they are not going to put it back as is, the owner should have had a choice of opting to receive the truck with frame replaced (paid all by Toyota) and get it towed to the selected shop without the new exhaust installed.

With my Mercury Sable story with every call I was given an options: they will stop working on the car and I can get it towed as is, or they continue with OEM parts fo given amount. They did not put me in the situation where I asked them to do alignment for 150 dollars and 5 hours later received repaired car with bill for 1100 dollars. This is exactly what Toyota dealer did to OP and that's wrong.

 

They are trying to fuck him, easy answer .he's nuts if he pays .

 

Exactly this... I talked with a few local mechanics that specialize in mufflers and they all balked Toyotas handling of this and retroactive bill with no previous estimate or authorization. I explained that the tailpipe was rusty (infected from the spare tire carrier and frame) but that the truck drove fine, had great gas mileage, great acceleration, no exhaust fume smell or smoke, no loud engine noise, etc, and one mechanic said it was highly unlikely that I would have needed an entire exhaust system replacement. He said he would have torched the bolts off and reused most components and just welded a new stainless steel muffler and tailpipe for $300... or IF I wanted a whole new exhaust system including the cats he could put one in parts and labor start to finish for $1500 (probably less if the previous exhaust was already removed). So even after the shop Toyota subbed the work to cut apart my exhaust (recklessly/negligently), I could have towed it to a different shop to do the exhaust on my own and spent way less. They never gave me that option.

 

Ok, Monday update.
I talked to the DOJ today and the person handling my complaint explained that what they can do is assist in facilitating informal dispute resolution and maintain public record of consumer complaints, but that they can't give legal advice to either the business or customer. So they can't respond to whether Toyota violated specific laws, I'd need a lawyer for that. He did say that he talked to the service manager and asked a bunch of questions regarding the parts list, 2 years it took to finish the job, and whether anything was in writing. He said that conversation and any notes pertaining to correspondence are public record, which I can request and use as documentation should I pursue legal action. So I filled out a public record request today for all documents and notes pertaining to my complaint file.

I spoke with one more lawyer today that was recommended by the Oregon State Bar Lawyer referral service, and he said he was going to have the other lawyer who works in his office call me back. In the meantime, I am researching breach of contract and trying to find anything online about cases or legal advice similar to mine. But been having a hard time with that.

I made a recorded phone call to the mechanic shop who did the work on my truck and specifically asked how decisions were made regarding disassembly such as how to deal with the exhaust system components, and who authorized the parts that were ordered. He told me that he sent a list of parts he wanted to the dealership service manager, and they simply ordered the parts and sent them over. That would have been a very opportune moment (having bypassed informing me they were trashing my exhaust system) to seek my authorization for how to proceed. The mechanic basically said his chain of command was with Mcminnville Toyota, and it was then Mcminnville Toyotas responsibility to seek further authorization from me... It was not the mechanic's responsibility to seek my authorization directly. I basically agree with him there. The dealership subbed the job, its their responsibility to make sure it's done right. Ther dealership service manager has always been my point of contact, he should have ensured proper communication. I'm going to follow up with an email to the mechanic and just restate what we discussed in the phone call and ask a few more questions. I told him already I was going to file a lawsuit against the dealership, so I want to try to get him to throw Toyota under the bus as much as possible in order to make sure none of the blame gets put on him.