Bent Passenger seat frame

Just joking sort of.

My 2018 airbag light is flashing and the panel above the sensor says the passenger airbag is turned off. I've looked up the fixes and tried the easier one (battery) I have an extended warranty (wife bought it, but that's another story) so thought it would be easy to just take it to the dealership and have them use techstream to reset and recalibrate the seat.



So I take the car into the service department and drop it off. The service person calls me back and tells me my seat frame is bent and needs to be replaced along with the harness. When I told her that the car has never been in an accident and no one over 200lbs has ever been in the truck passenger side seat she changed her story. I told her it would be better if she texted me the information (paper trail). She sent a text and told me “that the harness for the airbag is bent” and needs replacement and it is attached to the seat frame so both items will be replaced for $2199, and that this would not be covered under the platinum warranty since the damage was done by a after market upgrade......seat covers. According to her the seat covers are after market and the seats were removed in order for them to go on. (The seat covers are aftermarket and I installed them myself three years ago and the elastic comes no where near the wires in question.) She told me I was riding around with the codes for a long time before they showed up. (I've run the diagnostics on a regular and there are no codes, unless there are hidden codes that don't show up on OBD2.). I immediately smelled a scam and I refused the service and picked up the truck, since it was not covered under the platinum warranty my keys were held hostage until I paid a $205 diagnosis fee. I argued with the manager about the fee for 20 minutes then decided to pay the fee and immediately challenge the charges online.



The platinum warranty is worth less then the paper it’s printed on if Toyota allows dealers to arbitrarily determine what is covered and what is not. I didn’t want the warranty but my wife insisted on it and I stupidly let it slide. If an elastic band can shut down a safety sensor the truck is poorly engineered.



I’m currently looking at my options, complain to Toyota Corporate, take it to another dealershit, sue in small claims...

Thanks for reading my gripe, I will do my best to never interact with a dealership again.


She texted these pictures of what my truck looks like, top picture and the bottom picture is what it should look like, which looks like a different make of vehicle. I can't believe how stupid this is.




Dealership is One Toyota of Oakland. Part of the Avondale Toyota family out of Arizona.

 

Take it to a different dealer.

as for the extended warranties, they are useless while you still have factory coverage. They are prorated and you can always cancel them and get money back. Your probably better off keeping yours now as your factory base warranty is probably expired.

 

So "if" the seat frame is actually "bent" with the corresponding “harness for the airbag is bent”... can you "unbend it" and see if that makes a difference? Or was she just blowing smoke regarding that too?

 

I’d try a different dealership, sounds like a steaming pile of BS to me. If that doesn’t work then you should file a claim with Toyota.

 

There can be permanent codes stored, esp MFG specific ones. TechStream can see and clear them.

 

Mmmmmmm.
I’d like to know the codes they pulled.

 

Smoke blowing, I looked under the seat with an inspection mirror and a camera and there is no bend in any of the sheet metal