Violent shaking lost power….

Why would I research other threads?

I just replied to what you wrote, not interested in doing a background check. Last one of those I ran the guy died in our parking lot a week later. As in yesterday.

Anyway, please let us know the final of what was needed to get you rolling again.

 

You can't just walk away and leave us hanging here... What happened?

 

All I can tell you on my past Toyota's owned, If I receive a tsb letter for any recalls, and if I ignore them for too long, my dealer will contact me to setup an appointment to do what it is. They never did any work without telling me, and how long it was expected to take.
As far as replacing this fuel pump, it's only if you smell gas fumes in the cabin. I received their letter months ago with my truck being under those vin numbers. So far there's been no issue....at least that I'm able to smell.

 

There may be a difference in my speculation and the eventual coroner's report, so I'll restrict my answer at this time to being a 'medical emergency'. No criminal activity.

 

So here's the deal on what happened - and a BEWARE for those who have not had the fuel pump recall performed.
-The truck's gas gauge was impacted by an improper fuel pump replacement procedure. So that's why my gas gauge light never went on and why I thought I had over a 1/4 tank left. In fact, I was on the way to Sam's Club to top off for the week - normally what I do on Sundays. I only work at the office 2x a week and drove very few miles last week.

I was initially told sometimes there's an O-ring apparently that can "flop over" or not be properly installed - again, I'm no mechanic, I'm just relaying what I was told by the service writer.

My only concern at this point is, if the truck picked up sediment from the gas tank being empty. The tech and service writer claim I have nothing to worry about regarding that.

Call me skeptical.

As far as dealer maintenance vs. small shop - I'll say it again for our friend in Largo. I tried scheduling service with smaller shops - that's what I want to do is use smaller shops and not dealerships because of the cost and occasional crappy service.

If the mom and pop isn't willing to resurface a good set of rotors, and wants to charge me $550, and the dealership will charge me $200, and resurface the rotors, AND I'm getting OEM parts, why would I not use the dealer in this case?

In fact, the mom and pop that gave me a quote gave me a quote for that work, a brake fluid change, diff change and power steering fluid change - it came out to $1300 (including new rotors) - the dealership's quote was $800 (resurfaced rotors) for the same work. Again, easy decision.

 

So it ran out of gas because they botched the floater in the gas tank? Impressive.

 

So you shook and stopped because you were out of gas? While the light did not come on, was the needle still over 1/4 as well?

No bad parts, but human error in the assembly process, correct? Hopefully they fixed you up no fuss? I'd not be worried about the sediment thing either.

Your brake work analysis is reasonable, but I'd suggest you keep looking for other independent shops. I will throw in that resurfaced rotors are pretty rare these days because machine work makes a big dent in the cost of a new rotor.

Hopefully they gave you some brake bedding instructions and you are following those.

Glad you're rolling again.

 

Yes, I had slightly more than 1/4 tank according to the gauge when it quit. The service advisor to his credit, at Dealer B, confirmed that when he tried to start it up this morning.

I just got another update from Dealer B - after they went through the install process again this afternoon, they ran diagnostics to make sure the gauge was working fine - they now have determined the fuel pump that was put in was bad.

So your guess is as good as mine at this point - I'm guessing partially human error, and a defective part. So another night in a rental isn't the end of the world, I'll work that out after the fact. Dealer A didn't put up a fight with me on the phone.

I was told by Dealer B that apparently the way Toyota works, if a recall is done incorrectly, a 2nd dealer can't "fix it" at no cost --- 1 of 2 things has to happen: The truck has to go back to the dealer who did the recall or the dealer who did the recall has to reimburse the 2nd dealer for fixing the issue.

The place where I could see this as a real cluster is if you are far away from the original dealer who repaired it.

Yes I'll continue to try finding a small shop but the other issue with small shops for routine maintenance is wait times, at some points, you can't wait 2 weeks for a brake pad job or something that's more critical to operation. I hate giving money to dealers as much as anyone.

 

As far as cutting brake rotors, I recently had an auto machine shop here in town do a pair for me that came from a chevy van....cost a whole $40. Heck you can buy better aftermarket rotors for what your saying.

 

I guess that surprises to say the least then - the last few times Ive had my Honda and Toyota in 2 dealers did the recalls without even asking or notifying me ahead of time - that smells of incentive to do them - and no I don’t buy the notion that a dealership does anything out of goodwill or concern for safety. It’s mostly profit motive and CYA. Just my opinion. Dealers aren’t built like Taj Mahals with “free snacks and coffee” because they aren’t making money. The biggest turnoff to becoming a Toyota owner has been the arrogance of Toyota dealer employees - all 3 dealers in my area have had that attitude in my experience.

 

This whole ordeal has cost me $300 so far, $200 in car rental charges and $100 in Ubers.

We’ll see how willing the dealer who did the original recall is at settling that.

I work in IT, so I am quite versed in doing updates and how a decent percentage of the time tinkering around when no issue exists can blow up in your face and cause more grief. Sometimes if it’s not broken leave it alone. I updated a password storing app and it broke the app completely. That is sorta what this fuel pump recall reminds me of. Plus we all know
time burned up can’t be recouped. 4.5 hrs on Sunday and another 1.5 today.

 

Well I hope you’re right about the sediment thing. My luck is never good. And the last time a fluid related flush wasn’t done and should have been - on my Honda - they did a steering rack, didn’t flush the system and shavings in the fluid destroyed two steering pumps thankfully covered by Napa, and cost ton of time and Ubers back and forth. So my worry is if there’s anything in the fuel system that could be easily flushed now, would it not make sense to take precautions? I really don’t want any repercussions from this while I still have the dealer on the hook. Being nice and assuming everything will be OK tends to result in getting Fed down the road.