Sheared CV while stuck in snow, covered by warranty?

You can remove that data recorder.........

 

How? It is usually embedded in the ECU.

 

I really would think this would be regarding the radio, navigation, or XM radio, not driving conditions and driver reactions. Even for the trucks that may not have any of this with a "dumb" radio (I am not up to date on the standard equipment) the owners manual would probably still include it just for the fact that it is cheaper to mass produce one manual as opposed to one for every trim level. For instance, I do not have a push button start but yet my manual has information regarding my push button start.

For the OP, I would recommend taking the vehicle to a shop if you can't get Toyota to cover it. I have always had good service by AAMCO. They had a $100 diagnostic fee that is credited towards your service, and their labor rates (for the ones I have been to) were $99 an hour versus a dealership will range from $150 to around $400. They will usually install parts that you have purchased. They wont warranty these parts and labor like if they supply it, but usually the parts themselves will come with a warranty when installed by a professional, so if it breaks again you will only be out labor. Dealing with having repairs done, even under warranty, sucks. Thats the main reason that I traded in my Jeep Grand Cherokee for a Tacoma. I really hope that this is a rare issue, and that it does not happen to me.

 

Also, regarding several posts that I have read about modifications voiding warranties, there is a consumer protection law in place. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975 says that if a warranty claim is denied due to a vehicle modification, the modification must be proven without a doubt to have caused the malfunction. For instance, if you put a cold air intake on your car and a wheel bearing goes bad, the warranty would still cover this since there is no relation between a wheel bearing and CAI. However, if you put a CAI on, and the MAF goes bad, this would probably be a easy case to not replace it. Even still, it has to be proven without a doubt. I have not read of any cases where someone has had this taken to court for the denied claim, but I would imagine that the risk could be greater than the reward in many cases.

 

You should have just said, “I was driving down the road going 25 mph and it just snapped”

You can’t be all honest with these large corporations cause they tend to always find a way to screw over the little guy. Why play by the rules when they don’t.

 

Most cars it is separate. Often hidden in the dash or even under your driver seat. It’s just a small black box. Unless of course they did change things up and put it in the ecu. My car has it under the driver seat. It’s just like flight “black boxes”, separate from the other stuff. It’s not required by law, but some manufacturers like Toyota include them.

 

your car meaning your 17 Pro? I've got a 17 Pro, so I'm curious

 

No, my old beater car. I searched TW, and apparently Toyota likes to hide them in wheel wells on 5lug trucks....so they could be anywhere!

If they made it part of the ecu, then they got wise to people who took them out of older trucks.

 

haha GREAT

 

Think you are spot on, except it might also be if it decides to fuel cut without airbags. (Don't know precisely what criteria that might be if it does exist...)

You never know what additional stuff they hide, but it seems like the event data recorder is part of (one of the) ECUs, most likely airbag ecu. There appears no reference to any stand alone event recorder on the CAN system schematics or the airbag system schematics, and it would certainly have to be tied into the CAN network to get data on the various systems.

The repair manual does discuss (briefly) the event data recorder in the failsafe chart, but looks like it is just embedded in airbag ecu (possibly engine ECU or comb meter, but I think those are just data sources). I think the comb meter connection is just for the idiot lights, and the ECM is the other main data source.


Best I can tell, you get the standardish freeze frame data from any code producing events (which are viewable in techstream, etc), and probably a longer recording that correlates to airbag deployment or fuel cut. If your axle failure didn't throw a code, I very much doubt it would store any freeze-frame data about the failure at all, unless airbags deployed or at least the fuel cutoff trigger was met. Its possible it met the criteria of an event, but didn't throw a code, but I doubt it.

For example, when messing with the front ADD, I could get a 4wd mode change error displayed. This stored a freezeframe data set on the ECU, but the idiot light on the dash could be cleared by just power cycling the engine. It would be really hard to know very much from that freezeframe data, if it was related to the event, and if so, before during or after the event.




Nothing on the airbag system schematic that looks like a data recorder.

 

Thanks for the tip. Does anybody else have recommendations for shops/dealers in the North NJ area. I live in Newark, but I can travel a bit if it is really worth it.

 

Ah ha! They did wise up!
Good research!

 

It’s too bad your Taco is not an ‘18. It has me wondering if a TSS camera footage could have helped??

 

I don't think the camera is recording. It's a live feed sensor that the truck uses to make decisions.

 

TSS is not a camera

 

Its funny the way people like you rationalize your lack of integrity by playing victim.

 

Oh so it’s better to be screwed by corporations then,huh..... dude, if you play by the rules and the corporations don’t, guess who wins. Sounds like a dumbass way to play things in life. It’s called being a sucker.

And this isn’t a lie to your wife about cheating on her type thing. It’s not personal, it’s business.

 

Weird. When I worked at Chevrolet... We loved warranty work. The tech got paid the same no matter what. It was the dealership that got shafted. Guess it depends on the dealership and how douchey their business practices are.

 

Nobody has total integrity. Maybe Jesus.

We all pick and choose every day. If everyone had integrity we wouldn't have to worry about it. Unfortunately, the dealership often doesn't do the right thing so lying about how the damage happened, when both versions should be easily covered, isn't wrong.

 

The dealer called me today saying they haven't heard from Toyota so I called the claim manager who said that the service manager won't call her back...Either the dealership has some terrible internal communication or they are still trying to pressure me into initiating non warranty repairs. At this point I think Toyota owes me at least a tow to a closer dealer for subjecting me to this crappy dealer and making me sleep in my truck overnight after failing to initiate the original roadside assistance request.