Truck stuck in 4 Lo

My first thought- damn rats, chewing gnawing rats!

 

Stay away from them like the plague. They will fuck you over every chance they get... ask me how I know

 

Actually it may well be a dealer issue. They deny warranty. A certain number of customers will accept that and never pick up the phone to corporate or visit another dealer.

So that customer authorizes repairs. In this case (if it actually is the actuator) somewhere around $1k of work gets done, the T case gets cleaned up all purdy on the outside and the customer gets gutted for $7k.

Even worse, the dealer may submit warranty work for the $1k 'real fix' and collect that as well.

It happens. Less common in the world of internet education. OTOH, think how many phone calls you get telling your your MS license has expired and your computer is going to quit unless you call and renew. There are lots of gullibles out there.

Yes, there are many good dealerships. But there is a percentage of shady, just like in any business.

 

Ok.

Cliff's notes version?

 

Kept my truck 3 day for diff warranty issue
Left my oil cap off after oil change and then tried to lie and get me to come back to the dealer so tech could put it back on. I made them bring it to me.
While all this was going on they quoted a guy 2200 to replace struts on a prius.
I told the guy to grab his keys a run from there. Service manager caught wind of it and they threw me and my truck off the lot. Pulled my truck from the service bay in the middle of repair.

 

why is Toyota so shit with warranty work. Its like they get off on arguing with the customer.

 

Troublemaker.

 

Assuming someone checks their service history on toyota.com occasionally, wouldn't that show up as warranty work and open the dealer up to a fraud claim?

 

Double books if they are players.

But even if they don't double dip, they have just jacked $6k profit out of your wallet. That's worth about 3 Corolla sales, right?

 

Just like reported problems, this is just a slice of warranty work that get posted here. Even worse, we sometimes post positive threads about the greatness of the 3rd Gen, but there are never threads about warranty work getting done without an arguement.

Consider this, on average there is about 1.5 reported problems per cars / trucks sold. Toyota is around 1.1 problem per car. If we were to hear about all the work that gets done with no questions asked . . .

 

Yea, that’s why I asked. The OP needs to go talk to another dealer.

 

It's all about $$ revenue for the dealer and bonus money for service advisors.

 

The one in carlsbad has been really good, so far no issues.

 

Cabe Toyota is also a decent one.

 

^^ This.
Cabe Toyota in Long Beach has a Tacoma World member on the service advisor team. He was driving a nice 4Runner with a RTT the last time I was in the dealership.

 

Maybe make the trip down to huntington beach Toyota. They're pretty customer friendly. Haven't been personally but some friends have and say good things about their service dept.

 

They service a lot of SoCal tacomas group and a few other clubs.

 

Can't help you get the dealer to do what they should do.

But if you need it, help is available if you do want some help figuring it out yourself.
Working Techstream would help alot.

I bet it is an electrical connection, probably the wipers in the transfer case actuator. (much more likely if it happened while sitting still, however there have been reports of just failed transfer cases)

(some other options to help figure it out except techstream include:
Pull both actuators off, but still keep them electrically connected. Operate them using the dash switch. See if they operate normally and the truck thinks it is in 2hi, 4hi, 4lo, etc. If it is the transfer case only, then the actuators should operate and truck ECU should think it is happy. However it also could be the actuator and the transfer case both, such as bad case broke the actuator.

If actuators aren't working when free, you know its the actuator or wiring. Pretty easy to check those next.

Or read the current status of the actuator position feedback in techstream will help alot. This data is available in techstream without any codes)

My actuator troubleshooting thread has some helpful schematics.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/4wd-actuator-troubleshooting-transfer-case-and-add.578262/

But hopefully you can just get the dealer to do what they should.

 

Mine strictly gets beach duty in 4H. So just driving 10 - 15 miles a month in 4H isn't enough to keep the transfer case and other workings lubricated? I didn't know I had to also drive in 4L.

Can someone confirm this please?

 

So hold on a minute, something in this story isn't adding up.
You drove it in to your parking spot, it was driving normally, it was in 2wd. Right?
When you were messing around trying to get it "back in gear", did it just spin the motor and not drive the wheels?
If nothing happened in between, then the ONLY possibly cause for the 4L light being on is a failure in wiring, sensor, or 4WD ECU. At this point, it could NOT be a mechanical problem.
You towed it because.... what?
HOW was it towed? All 4 wheels off the ground? Or did dipshit drag it with two wheels on the ground and transfer case in unknown state?
*** IF TOW TRUCK DRIVER DRAGGED IT WITH WHEELS ON THE GROUND, HE COULD HAVE TURNED AN ACTUATOR PROBLEM INTO A $7000 TRANSFER CASE ***