What would you do?

I've purchased two vehicles at Concord Toyota. Service is nice enough, but I haven't had any major work done by them. I'll keep your experience in mind if I have any warranty work come up... When you say no local mechanics wanted to touch it... Did you try ToyotaPro just down Concord Avenue from the dealership?

 

I agree with this. You get yourself 4-5 TW members you can get it all done in a days work. Most work for pizza and beer. I can probably help depending on the day.

 

I just got back from them, if I was to go back to get any work done I would only ask for Eric, he's a young guy who was a tech and he is the only guy who helped me out. I just finished talking with him and he explained it all out to me in person. He's a champ and I would trust bringing my truck back to him but him alone.

As for the local shops I tried a few over the hill, I'm over in El Cerrito and all the local shops had no idea what I was talking about when I said I put a new master on and my pedal still went to the floor. No one was mean but they just didn't wanna mess with brakes.

 

Overall this was unfortunate, the last service advisor I talked to just spelled it out to me and it boils down to all the rubber under the front of the rig (That I have not touched already) is just wearing out. Next step is to do lower/upper control arms with the upper balljoint included. (Any recommendations on aftermarket?). And I will totally do the work myself, ultimately the service advisor that I trust there walked me through what was going on and why my alignment won't stay correct for very long. He even BSd with me about what long travel kit to go with for it while we waited for my truck to pull up.

My game plan now is to shelf the new truck and keep my 400k mile old rig on the road (Mostly everything else on the rig is new anyway).

Thanks for all the support guys, I turn 21 on Saturday so hopefully I will actually be able to get a meet going at some breweries around my side of the bay for all us East Bay guys(as well as anyone else who wants to make the drive to the Bay)!

 

I’m running tubular icon uppers. I’d recommend whitelline bushing for your Lower control arms. OEM lower ball joints. Energy suspension rack bushings. What else do you need?

 

400k? I love our trucks!

I would fix all the worn parts myself with help paid for by pizza and beer, then reassess. If you do sell it, it would be best to do so with the issue resolved. Good luck youngster and happy upcoming 21.

 

I will eventually need to do new bushings for my front diff.. I am looking into some complete new lift kits, (I put a rough country lift on it back in high school).. Looking at SRQ Fab and Icon... Ill have to price everything out and see what I can afford in terms of a new lift or just individual parts..

 

Thanks Shawn! I'll keep this thread posted on what I finally decide to do with it (Mid/long travel or just replacing the bushings and running with the stock gear)

 

Sorry to hear Owen.
I’m down to help swing wrenches.
Keep us posted.

 

Keep us posted I’d be willing to help if I can make it.

 

I am still looking into what is going to be the most cost effective. I'd like to get rid of the current lift I have, I am afraid that there will be just too much stress on my upper ball joints so I would like to swap over to a nicer lift up front. I cant find anything with lower control arms other than SRQ but their LT kit is close to 5k... Anyone know wether I can just keep running the stock lowers and swap out the old bushings for brand new ones then go with new coilovers/upper control arms that match? I am thinking that might be my best bet..

 

Get a group of guys from TW to help you out, or ask around for a good shop to work on it. Never bring an older vehicle to a dealership to get worked on. Dealerships primary objective is to send you out in a new vehicle. Only reason they have service dept is do the minimum amount of work to fix warranty claims, and to charge you with the maximum amount of work that they can justify your vehicle needs, weather it needs it or not. They know if they rape you enough, you’ll eventually through in the towel and leave with something new.

 

Most guys that have the runners keep there OEM LCAs with aftermarket lifts. Just change to poly bushings and ball joint replacement. Make a big improvement on steering and breaking control.

Bushings was where I had serious wheel shakes at high speed braking before I changed the bushings.

 

I think I’m gonna stick to stock LCA’s but I wanna swap out my lift. I don’t like the angle my upper ball joints are at so I wanna get a new kit that has all the correct geometries. It’ll be a little more money now but in the long run I think it’ll save me.

 

The way the lowers are designed, they have enough articulation. It's the uppers, like you see that are hard on them with 3" lift. Beside aftermarket arms help get back some of the alignment numbers you cant get with stock.
I have 4.5" and the arms dayum near hit the studs on uniballs.

 

Hey Owen. Best wishes man! Hopefully see you back in the trails soon

 

Nates green garage on San pablo in Berkeley. Tell him don the 3a driver sent you.

 

Ill keep that in mind, I got new bushings for my UCAs/LCAs and will try and get them in this weekend and reassess.

 

Personally, I would skip doing the uppers with bushings and go aftermarket arms.
I personally DONT like the SPCs, waisted a set of BJ on them in 20k.

 

Update time: I finally ordered up all of the parts and am doing a rebuild this weekend. I ended up going with new UCA/LCA bushings ($70 for all vs at least $500 for new UCA). While I have the front torn apart anyway I am going to install the new ToyTec front 3" lift coilovers seeing that I had the original coilovers still on the truck and replace the worn out front diff bushings as well. Oh and an oil change while I'm at it. I think I am going to go with a little heavier oil than the synthetic stuff I have been running (440k miles on the rig). With the money I'm saving by reusing my stock UCA (I also replaced the UBJ's about 5k miles ago), I am going to buy material for some sliders and fab some up.