Arbitration didn't go well..........

Sorry to hear about your truck issues.

I'll be riding by that dealership Saturday & I'll give them the Stink Eye. My son is playing at Barfield Crescent Park in a baseball tournament.

 

I mentioned in an earlier post that a Toyota dealer (not the selling dealer) offered me $23K, or maybe a bit more in trade. But said the selling dealer should be able to do much better based on invoice, lack of discount at point of sale and what he got our trade for and what it was worth.

Well, the selling dealer finally called me with a trade offer.. $23K .. "cue the crickets" not too surprised.

 

Awesome! Thanks... and good luck to your sons team!

 

Wow. I didn't read all 19 pages, but I've been skimming the latest posts whenever this thread gets bumped up...

Sucks that you have to go through this. I've had dealerships/salesmen change their tone REAL quick after something happens, or after the sale. It frustrates me more than anything, like someone lying to your face. I think the high purchase price put you in a tight spot (but i don't know what the Tacoma market is like in TN), because the $23k trade-in is what I'd expect from a dealer on a PreRunner.

 

i had the same vibration 45-70 mph on 2 different trucks, a 97 3door Z71 4x4 and my 2005 dblcab lwb 4x4. what i could tell from both the problem stemmed from the staggered rear shocks. one forward facing and one rearward facing, the only way to explain it is the truck had a harmonic imbalance. was seeing bed shake and faster speed overcame it. when i replaced my rear shocks and put a topper or cap on the Tacoma it basically went away. i also had a Toytec 3" lift w/aal. my Chevy i got rid of becauseof this shake, between the shocks and weak frame i think were the culprit. the Chevy truck, could not open 3rd door on uneven ground, it had the heavy duty chassis with 14 bolt semi floate and 3.73 gears. GM in 99 strengthed the frame with more cross members. i actually thought of putting an aftermarket rear sway bar on, thinking that may help. had many trucks in the past with them and most new Dodge trucks have them.

 

I had a similar thought on the vibrations I posted here ....

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2n...-perform-tsb-my-truck-help-3.html#post9152547

 

something to think about once you start with a lawsuit, you will have to park it and not drive it to your case comes up. that is what i was told by a lawyer. was contemplating trying to get something done about my 97 Chevy, in the mean time i had a slight bump in a parking lot, truck damaged, claim out the door. i just sold it and cut my losses. Chevy gave the same answer, all trucks vibrate. i say BS. the ones before the 97 and the one after, 2000 F150 i had did not vibrate. the 2005 Tacoma was basically a great truck but after buying it had so many shortcomings. i attributed them to a first year truck but Toyota has never addressed them to this day plus the same basic looking truck for the last 10 years. just go trade your truck and go on with your life, at least the Tacoma retains it's value.

 

Thanks for the info.. We have yet to find a firm to take the Lemon Lawsuit against Toyota, even the online companies don't want to tackle Toyota... I found a ranking of states that have had successful LL proceedings, TN was way down on the list, number 42. Not sure why, but maybe that has something to do with the lack of interest in the case. Several have said we have all the necessary documentation, but they are not entering litigation against Toyota at this time??

I've shot video from several angles and I the only thing that I've seen vibrate are the a couple of the wheels (might be irregularities in the road or ??) and the front skid plate. It was a slow pulsing, going to remove it and drive it again. I am going to shoot some more video covering the rear axle from both sides of the truck as well some inside the cab. Also going to pick up a set of known good or vibration free wheels tomorrow, seems there is TW member close by with a clean set! And the truck is going in to have the original leaf springs re installed as well as the body damage repaired.

 

Body damage? Leaf springs? What did you do? Or are you talking about the guys truck you're snatching wheels off of?

 

I have a steering wheel vibration in my '06 4x4 TRD that has not gone away through several balances and even a new set of tires. However, my experience with this issue isn't limited to the 2nd Gens. Every Toyota pickup I've owned (1980, 1987, 2003, 2006) had a noticeable vibration at some speed.

Having driven small Toyota trucks exclusively for the past 35 years, I came to assume that all trucks bounce and wobble like they do. However, I drove a Silverado the other day and it was like riding in an armchair. It's got me thinking about making a switch to a full-size for my next truck.

 

When did you replace the leaf springs and what did you put on as replacement?

 

Every Tacoma I ever had had no tire vibration until new tires were installed. The only way the vibration was corrected was to have the tire balanced using a adapter on the lug holes to center wheel on balancer. I think they are lug centric. The center of the wheel may not be center of the wheel and if balanced with the cone in the center it may never get balanced.
Toyota should have the adaptor for lug centric balance.

 

I was talking with the service manager a couple weeks ago about obtaining a copy of the "vibration report". He mentioned that another customer received the latest TSB for the low speed vibe "characteristic" and it also cured the vibration occurring at 45mph.

So we had it done about a week ago. It still vibrates at 45-50+ and now it DOES have the low speed vibe. Also while it was there it received a couple small dings on the drivers side rear quarter near the tail light. They offered to swap the springs back and take care of the bodywork.

 

We've had a couple compact trucks and a couple full sized trucks over the past 30+ years too. Some were a little buzzy at certain speeds, some bounced a bit more over irregularities in the road.. but none had the pulsing vibration like this one does. Well, one did, but it was after I took a turn fast trying to get through a yellow light on a rainy day. Kicked the ass end out a bit, passenger rear wheel kissed the curb and bent the rim.

My work vehicle is a Chevy express 1500, 2008 I think.. it's got over 175K on the clock and it vibrates less than the taco.

Throughout this ordeal I've been talking to a friend about the all BS with Toyota. Him and his wife have been car shopping, higher end luxury stuff. Well, she wanted a Lexus, he said "F'that, not after what Ken has been though with that company". They bought a loaded E550.

 

My 2014 Ram 2500 shakes, rattles, and rolls itself down the hiway. I agree though that from what you've described your issue is not the slight rattles and creaks that are native to a truck in my experience. I hope you didn't sign anything that says they fixed the vibes on that report, like the shop invoice, otherwise Toyota is going to throw that in your face when and if you find a place to take your case. Sounds like you may be close to exhausting that option though given no one wants to go to court with Toyota.

I've owned several Chevy's. They do ride well but prepare your anus for the transfer case, differential, and computer failures that will become a constant part of your life. My company prefers not to buy Chevy because of the high rate of major failures we experienced over the course of 10 trucks a few years back and the lack of dealership support for our issues.

The straw that broke the camels back with us and Chev's is similar to your story. Except our issues made the truck unusable. My dad (who used to manage my location) bought a 2007ish Chevy 1500HD. For the first 15,000 Km's it was the boss. A lot of people we knew bought one too because you were literally getting a 3/4 ton chassis with some light duty modifications for 1/2 ton money. Anyways long story short it blew the transfer case at 20,000 Km's and the transmission needed to be replaced at 62,000 Km's. It never drove right or shifted right after the new transfer case. On top of that the dealer made us pay for the transfer case and did the labour for free because his tech claimed the only way a chain transfer case could break was abuse . They never could figure out what was wrong until just after the warranty was apparently up. At 62,000 Km's, after promising any other repairs would be covered by GM during the transfer case debacle, he tried to charge my dad for the full price for the install of a new transmission. They claimed the new tranny would solve everything but apologized because the truck was apparently just off warranty! (WTF the power train warranty said 100K and the tranny was clearly the issue for a long time...) The dealer then promised to roll in the price of the transmission plus a degraded trade in for my dad's old truck for a new 1500 HD and acted like he was giving us a christmas gift. My dad literally called up his billionaire buddy, who owns 50 percent of a local Ford dealership, and walked away that afternoon with a new F250 and we've as a business never looked back at GM.

Needless to say we drive mostly Ford and some Dodge now. Our Ford dealership stands behind it's trucks. Even the one we had that blew a motor. Ford offered us a new motor or straight up fair and even trade on a new F150, which really solidified our business relationship. The funny thing is that it's not even because my dad knows one of the owners. We have plenty of friends that have the same positive comments about this Ford dealership always standing up when they can for there customers. I solidly believe that if you don't have a good dealer from off the bat the manufacturer isn't going to do piss all for you. I think you're finding that out now sadly.

On a side note GM closed that dealership during there bail out and the owner/manager was found guilty of diddling a 15 y/o kid on webcam over the internet a few years later while he was on the community police advisory commission .

Like others have said, all manufacturers are bitches when it comes to returning vehicles. Unless the dealer institutes a policy on it I've heard of very few cases that work out well for the buyer. I guess on your next go around my advice would be to try to find more info on your dealer from friends that have had any sort of warranty work before buying from there.

 

A lot of customer satisfaction does depend on the dealership. I've found that most Toyota dealerships are OK. I've also found a couple where the owners were not much more than crooks. When I was in Oregon, however, I found a really good one.

When my '87 had about a quarter million miles and nearly twenty years on it and was not running its best I finally took it to a dealership in Oregon. The service techs there spent an entire morning going over it with a fine-tooth comb and then gave me a long list of what it needed. The total was approaching the down payment on a new truck so I said that I needed to think about it and asked what the cost of the inspection was. "Not a thing, it's what we are here for" was the reply. At the time I didn't have the money for most of the repairs but, needless to say, when I did that dealership got my business and all my future Toyota-related business for the ten years I was in Oregon.

 

Hey Ken, did those wheels help ya out?

 

Hey Ray, we had the truck back into the dealer for the body repair and leaf spring swap, picked it up this morning. I'm hoping to get home early enough to mount them and take a test drive after work tonight.. Should have an update later this evening!

And thanks again for the smokin' deal! I took a good look at the wheels in the daylight, they are actually in better nick than my 2014 wheels!

 

Had to work late.. couldn't leave those files undone, people need their wheelchairs and feel guilty if I leave for the weekend without being caught up.

Tomorrow morning I'll get'r done.

 

In as little as five years (i.e. when the warranty expires) he may very well come to regret his decision.