Blower Motor Group Buy Price Survey

Just to be very clear, there IS NO GROUP BUY IN PLACE. This is just a survey that I hope will persuade Camelback Toyota to offer a group buy.

Jorge, the parts person at Camelback, has offered the blower motor at $105.43. To be fair that is actually the lowest price I have seen anywhere. I am hoping that if this survey demonstrates enough group buy demand at a somewhat lower price, that we could get a lower price. I've asked Jorge about that, but I haven't heard back yet. (I am sure that Jorge will have to get Mr. Camelback's permission to do a group buy, so please don't bust on Jorge if Mr. Camelback doesn't like the idea.)

If you read this before filling out the survey, please indicate the highest price for which you would definitely buy a blower motor. Realistically, they aren't going to sell it for $50 or $60. But maybe they would come down to $79, $89, or $99. I just figure that it doesn't hurt to ask, and if they could see demand for 20 or 30, maybe they would do it.

In case you are wondering why I am trying to get a lower price when Cameback is already offering the lowest price, I'll offer an explanation. Toyota buys 100,000 to 150,000 of these fans per year. I used to work for a couple of different manufacturers, one being Onan Corp, which makes engines and generators. So I have a decent idea of manufacturing costs. I would bet that Toyota pays between $10 and $15 for each blower motor/fan. If the part had a "normal" failure rate, I wouldn't bother with this. But the fan seems to have an abnormally high failure rate. When a has a high failure rate, I think that Toyota, to provide good service to it's customers, should provide a lower price and take a less than normal profit margin. They could do this and still make plenty of money on the part.


(If you are new to this issue, the '05-'11 Tacoma's used a fan motor with bushings that are prone to making noise. The newer fan used in '12 and up uses bearings, which should be much better. I don't believe any of the aftermarket fans use bearings, so I don't see the point in putting one of those in only to have the problem again.)

 

I wouldn't pay a penny. The chirp issue is not with the motor itself, you need to take 5 minutes and adjust the set screws so the fan is 'balanced' in the housing. After that, the noise goes away and the fan still operates as it should.

 

Pugga, I respectfully disagree. The balancing trick works for some, but not all. For many, the issue is that the bushings are not up to the task. Toyota has in fact replaced the old motor with a newer one that uses bearings, which indicates that their engineers believe the bushings were the problem.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-FRONT-B...yota|Model:Tacoma&hash=item3f24f72402&vxp=mtr

How about $47.89 with free shipping?

 

You can get these on Ebay for about $50....never heard of the balancing thing, my fan vibrates at the highest setting, gonna have to check into the 'set screw' thing...

 

Hello dillagaff82, I looked at the one you linked to, but they don't say if the motor uses bearings or bushings. There are a bunch on Amazon at similar prices, but they don't get very good reviews. I only want to fix the thing once, so I'm holding out for either the OEM part, or an aftermarket part that uses bearings.

 

I read the title quick and thought blower, as in supercharger and I was all . Now I understand that it was the actual fan motor and now I'm all

 

Here is a shocker. How about Toyota fix their POS fans they had for however many years and replace them for free.

Forgot, that gets into their bottom line profit and would have bad PR attached to it for an identified problem.

 

Yeah, that would be nice, but I don't think they will. Sad thing is the manufacturing cost difference between the old fan and the new one is probably no more than a buck or two. So to save a couple bucks, they caused a problem for a lot of people. Same thing with the front diff needle bearing, same thing with the rear driveshaft, on and on.