Did the shop that fixed my truck cheap out on certain things?

So I'm bringing this up now even though the crash happened years ago (not my fault) and was fixed in 2013. FYI i still have a limited warranty with them and I plan on bringing it in soon to them for other problems including ones stated below.
Just had the truck in to my friend for major service at 99k, whole power steering system besides rack and pinion replaced, tranny flush, and valve cover gasket replacement. One major problem he found was someone had been playing with the tranny pan, 2 bolts were missing and about half were loose. Ordered the bolts from Toyota and had him install them tuesday. When I got the truck back Wednesday, I saw that a wire was hanging in front of the brake pedal. Don't know if that little black box thing to the right of my tpms reset button is an alarm, but if it is, the wire has fallen out in the past, i've got big shoes so i always catch on it. While looking down there out of the corner of my eye I see a plug hanging on the side behind the plastic panel near the parking brake. Decided to pull the rocker panel off then the side panel to see what was going on. at least 3 plugs, just hanging out of whatever sockets they should be in and a mess of electrical tape and wires everywhere. It looks like they spliced into a lot of things to make everything work again instead of replacing certain things. Is this normal?

 

Bump anyone?

 

It looks like an aftermarket alarm installation. Not the best looking work, but I doubt the body shop had anything to do with it unless you had some major electrical damage in the accident.

 

I dont even know if the little black box is an alarm, that's the thing, plus that's a whole different issue. that mess of wires i'm asking about is something else, the truck was hit on drivers side, the van that hit me drove up and into the engine bay, shifted the engine over a little and destroyed some firewall and entire front left quarter panel. Insurance didn't total because it wasn't 85% damaged, but the bill was 14k for everything. If you see they spliced a lot which makes me think they didn't want to pay for a replacement cable and cheaped out.

 

They very possibly could have cheaped out if there is splicing. An engine bay harness is $1200 plus several hours labor to install. I would have thrown a fit if I got my truck back with major electrical harnesses spliced!!!

 

OP did you go through insurance to get your truck fixed?

 

I would have then but had no clue until now, everything works for the most part but that is unacceptable.

Yes, other guy didn't have insurance, but my insurance paid in full and fought the other guy for the cash. Destroyed the drivers wheel too, but miraculously it drove, jacked it up, swapped to spare tire and drove slow maybe 2 miles to the shop. Unfortunately no official police report because LVMPD decided for about a year that they weren't going to respond to crashes without injury.... Im hoping to take it in sometime next week and see what's going on exactly because it all seems fishy, anyone willing to pull off there panel on a similar year so I can compare between the two?

 

That sucks. If they did do that work, then I doubt they'll own up to it. Hard to prove they did it, especially four years later.

If they don't admit wrong doing and fix it, I'd try to find a good shop to go through there and clean it all up. That's the last place I'd want to have problems.

Have any pics from the wreck? Curious to see what kind of damage a van would do driving onto our trucks.

 

I have the original paperwork, maybe you guys can find a replacement harness somewhere in the numbers because I can't. And yey we'll see if they own up. I'll try finding pics of the crash, it's been a while dont know exactly where they are.

 

As others have said, it looks like a fairly normal (and hacked) alarm installation. You'd be surprised how many "professional" installations look just like that. The trick is, 99.9% of people never look at the work and even fewer would know a good installation from a bad one.

If indeed it is the collision repair work, the same thing happens there. The vast majority of people have absolutely no clue as to what good (or bad) collision repair work looks like. So anything that's hidden is fair game to cut corners. Believe it or not, most insurance companies actually use this to help them cut their losses. The trick for you will be proving that this is indeed work done by the collision shop. I'd get an independent pro to look at the issue first.

 

Ain't that some shit?? We went to Olive Garden on Flamingo and my sisters car got broken into and ransacked. Broke her rear window on her 1 day old car to steal her kids toys and luggage. Police didn't have time to take a report.

 

I thought most car insurers wont honor an auto claim without a police report?

 

You only have 2 years too go after someone for a claim.I am in Vegas also and Metro Police SUCK,they are lazy and way overpaid.

 

Here in Vegas the Insurance will do it without a police report since the lazy cops no longer do them with no injuries.

 

that will just encourage more Insurance fraud by the scammers

 

That's a alarm...mine looks the same...would like to remove it but too much work

 

Yeap,Now you almost have too prove the other person at fault yourself,and too think the liberals in this state still want too give the cops more money too do less work.

 

The answer to your question is yes they cut corners, which is why in repairs you have to be on them 100% of the time and ask EXACTLY what they are doing. If you just trust someone to take care of it you'll get your ass burned every time.

You have to be paying close attention to whos to blame. Sometimes shops takemoney for new parts but fix the old ones or buy salvage parts. So they pocket a profit. On the other side sometimes the insurance company will say they won't pay for a new harness so make it work, especially if no one is paying them (which people who don't have insurance don't have money, so chances are your insurance ate the cost of this).

So at this point you might not be able to tell who was "at fault". There might be a reason why the insurance company goes with them lol.


TRUST NO ONE.

 

that's what good about DIYing as much of your own work on your truck as possible, you can use the best parts that you want to pay for and know that the repair or maintainence is done to your standards.

 

First off sorry to hear about your sisters ransacked car, and that makes no sense, it may take a while for Metro to respond but that's a required report at least. If you haven't made one yourself, you should.

Yep, but I have a small warranty with the shop, thats why im planning on bringing her in. Let's make something else clear, not all of Metro is out to BS the public, my family is Metro, been so for 20+ years, please don't assume every cop you meet on these streets is out to get you, that will only get you A: arrested, and or, B: Killed...

They switched back at least a year ago, now motors aka motorcycle officers are mainly the ones responding to non injury crashes. Again, it may take them a long time, mainly because we have, what, maybe 2k officers for just short of 600k residents, not even including the tourists which may top 43 million total this expected year. If you want to make a difference, and change your view on exactly how intense a LEO job is, (and maybe help weed out the bad ones, because there always are some bad cops) we're hiring, literally right now. http://lvmpd.com/Sections/ProtectTheCity/tabid/482/Default.aspx