What would you do?

What’s up TW.

I’ve had some bad luck in the last month... My ‘96 4R pretty much lost all brakes back in Feb. I checked everything out and eventually determined it was a bad master cylinder. That’s where the fun started...

I came to Toyota of Concord and bought a new master. Put it in without a hitch. My foot still went to the floor. After hours of bleeding and activating abs I threw in the towel and took it to Concord Toyota (none of my local mechanics wanted to touch it).

Toyota did their standard brake bleed process and that didn’t work. So they pulled the master and checked it. Sure enough it was bad. So they honored a parts warranty and put a new one in and charged me $200 for the labor of installing the new one. It is worth mentioning that the rig was here for a week and I am too young to get a rental car. I had to pull teeth and call numerous times just to get my advisor to answer the phone.

Finally I got in touch with a different advisor who said the truck was done. Great, I’m stoaked that I get my baby back.

So I get on and see a bunch of trash and screwdrivers in the passenger seat (not mine). But so what I’ve finally got it back and I’m generally a nice guy. So I throw it out and go home. I drive the truck for about a week still feeling like my pedal was just too spongy and my foot still traveled to the floor. So I call the advisor back and he basically tells me “We don’t know what you did before we got it to mess it up. We did everything by the book so you’re outta luck.”

Now it’s important to mention that I described the ongoing problem, my foot is still going to the floor and I need to pump the pedal for them to work properly. This is the answer I get.. “yeah my technician said that you need to pump it a few times to get it them to really work properly.”

...... so what I’m understanding is you gave me the truck back when the brakes don’t work properly and didn’t say anything about it when I got it??

So I call the service manager, tell him what happened and he is nice, understanding and says we’ll get you in right away. So I take it back in and they put two more masters in it and can’t figure it out. Finally two more days and they find out it’s the steering rack. (Something about there is too much play at the wheels and that’s causing my foot to go to the floor). So they put a new one in and sure enough it firms up my pedal (still not perfect but it works). So I come back in and pick up the truck and think the nightmare is over.

So I come to pick the truck back up and there is trash in there again (The paper floor mats that they put in). So I throw it out, leave the dealership, am about to get on the highway and realize my hood is open.. needless to say I pull over and close it. Then get back on the road and see that my steering wheel isn’t lined up at all, (they did a steering rack and just didn’t line it up right when they aligned it) so I let go of the wheel and the truck pulls into the next lane. Bad alignment.

So I turn around and take it right back. Then a different advisor asks why I’m back and I tell him, super nice he took the truck back and got it re aligned for me.

Now I’m currently sitting in the service waiting room because there is yet another issue with the steering.. basically the steering wheel is tilted to the drivers side (imagine you have a bad alignment where your steering wheel just wasn’t lined up correctly with dead straight). But that’s only sometimes.. driving home from work it seemed to fix itself, alignment was perfect, steering wheel was dead straight.. getting back into the rig this morning and the wheel was turned back to the drivers side again. I’ve never heard of this happening and neither has the advisor.

Now I’m gonna say, I have never claimed to be a professional mechanic by any means, but something is not right there. I also know how dealerships work (I worked in a service department for a dealership for a year). I know my rig came in as a a parts warranty and not an expensive RO. I also know that it’s an old, modified truck. None the less no one should have to call numerous times to get an update on a repair, no one should be given a truck back with bad brakes and not be told they are faulty, and no one should have to go through this.

Props to the one advisor that’s helping me out (I won’t name names).

TW it’s not just the fact that they didn’t answer calls or the brakes. I check my oil the day after I picked it up, almost my completely out. (There is a slow leak and I made them aware of it). The tire pressures were all messed up (backs were almost at 55 psi and the fronts were at 40 and 32.

But so what, I’m not on here to ruin the dealership and I apologize if this offends anyone. But as a warning to all NorCal TW memebers with older rigs. This was not cool guys and I really hope no one else has to go through this.

Thanks for reading - hope to see you on the trails.

 

Note to self...stay behind owen when on the trail.
Sorry to hear that man.

 

That’s the first time I’ve laughed about this situation. Appreciate it man.

 

Sounds like they gave you the run around hard. I hope you didn’t pay much for that BS. Your steering rack does not effect your brakes at all. Those are separate issues. Typically you just need new rack bushing.

 

Out $1500 bucks now. (A lot for a college student). The new rack did help the brakes believe it or not.

Something about my old one was so jacked up that the wheels didn’t stay straight when I touched the brakes and that moving around is what did it. (I looked at em myself and the rack was toast).

All the guys who’ve been wheeling with me know I do not baby that poor rig

 

(other than the failed masters...)Originally that sounds like warped rotors - as the rotor goes through the pads it pushes back the piston, first pump of the brakes brings it back against the rotor. Seen a similar thing on moto's.

 

I really hope not I put brand new rotors on it about 6 months ago. Totally worth a check though.

 

If I was in your place [What would I do]...

Post up here for a tech day, get it up on stands and have a few TW eyeballs hunt for the problem. Fix it.

The dealer side, might just have to cut your losses. You could try to make noise with Toyota directly to get some money back. They shouldn't have allowed you to drive off the lot knowing it had improperly working brakes.

 

Thanks man I appreciate it. They should take care of my steering right now and get that sorted out all under warranty. Unfortunately the service manager doesn’t give a crap. I already talked to him and nothing came of it. I’m tempted to call the real corporate Toyota and see what they say.

 

I understand that if your rack was bad. But it wont effect the brake pedal. Im in Concord too, if you need a hand trying to get the brakes right. But Id maybe consider getting it power bled. Does the runner have a LSPV in the rear? Its often missed, by even toyota techs, and cause a huge air bubble.

 

Perhaps filing a complaint with the Bureau of Automotive Repair would get his attention.

 

I had a similar thing going on with our old Subaru Forester. Bled it, it was good for a while, then came back. Replaced the master cylinder and it was much better but then at altitude it came back. So we bled the brakes and traded it in.

 

Well I just got news back from the dealership after waiting all day. They say all the bushings on the front end and new upper ball joints, new upper/lower control arms, new diff mount bushings. All with a grand total of over $3k... Not sure if I wanna put that much more money into the rig or just bit the bullet and get myself a newer Taco... Thoughts??

 

all that is the reason your brakes are having issues? seems a little bit sketchy to me.

 

Brakes are much better, now the problem is with the steering... its becoming a pain in the butt.

 

Take it to another dealer, ripping you off.

 

Put the money towards tools and do the work yourself.

 

None of those jobs are hard, some are more time consuming than others. If you know how to wrench do that work yourself. You can get upgrade parts and spend less money overall.

 

3k seems extreme to me but we are talking about the dealership. Honestly, I would do the work on it yourself if you can. No reason to pay someone to wrench on your rig. I'm sure you could get a tacoma at a decent price. I think the deciding factor would be how much do you want to spend.

 

Hit RockAuto and get yourself out of that for about $400 in parts and round up a TW crew to help you.
$3k more dealer dollars into a 23 year old truck? Might be time to cut your losses.