The dealership added oil conditioner and fuel cleaner with the oil change.

This is the way to do it. Everyone makes mistakes or gets something mixed up, give them 1 chance to fix it and then leave a review.

 

Fan of face-to-face disagreement resolution. Easier to determine dishonesty/bad faith vs. reasonable misunderstanding. Rarely any doubt which when eye-contact (or lack thereof), body-language, etc. present.

Very good relationship with selling dealership (have had the opposite with others) and in particular service writer. He's not a yes man, but reasonable to both of us.

 

https://youtu.be/ZGM-aO3KsXA

 

This is true. I have paid for exactly one oil change service (last summer) for as long I can remember.

The shop, which I was interested in applying to, messed it up. Not catastrophically, but overtightened the filter canister that it was leaking… took over 90 ft-lb to remove it. I left a 3-star review with specific details.

Why three stars? Because that’s probably about average quality work nowadays. The shop was trying to occupy the premium virtuous service market. I didn’t apply.

 

you're so correct about just stating facts. There is no need to embellish what occurred. On the flip side, I have written way more 5 star reviews than negative reviews.

 

What i did was place duct tape over the oil filter housing that said.....return to owner. Guess what i didnt get back? The tech just drained the oil and refilled it. Yes, the TRD skid plate is a pain in the ass to drop and put back but guess what? It goes with the job. Never returned to get my second "free" oil change. If you want it done right, do it yourself. Think about it, had i not busted them, whose to say that my filter wouldnt have been changed for all the oil changes. In additon, I am not waiting until 10k miles for an oil change. Ill just do it myself. The other incident i had at the dealership was the TSB about the front diff. Took it in and they confirmed it was bad along with the passenger wheel bearing. I bought it Certified - the GM was driving it and so it comes with a 7 year 100k powertrain warranty. They called me saying it was about $5,500 to repair, I was like um ok, its under warranty and only then did they attempt to file it under warranty. Dont even get me started about when i picked it up the person who test drove it had the seat reclined like he took it for a ride in the ghetto. They heard about that as well. Put my shit back how i had it.

 

Moral of story: Use stealerships at own risk. Same for private garages, though the odds are improved. Or perhaps alternatively, happiness via lowered expectations....I kid.

 

Me too. Rewarding good businesses is just as important.

 

My nephew is in Florida and i am in the Chicagoland area. He called me and was having issues with the trans so i walked him through some steps including checking the trans fluid level. It wasnt reading on the dip stick. He didnt know how to add more fluid. I told him to just take it to a jiffy lube or similar and have them top off the trans fluid. He took it to a Take 5 place (hate them with a passion) and they told him the trans fluid was correct but it was probably shifting bad because he needed an oil change. You read that correctly, they said it was shifting bad because he needed an engine oil change. So he pays for an oil change. Guess what didnt improve? the shifting. Its unreal how incompetent these places are. or they are just scamming people. He then took it to O'reillys and they checked the trans fluid and added some more. Guess what? It fixed the problem

 

Here is the thing, WHY did they tighten it to over 90 ft pound. So annoying. Did you take it back to them or just fix it yourself?

 

To be fair - and not that it’s a valid excuse - if a tech is not used to working on Toyota’s, it would be easy to just crank it on like a spin-on filter. If you tighten it up much beyond the 18-20 ft-lb spec, the plastic threads embed in the aluminum threads or distorts the plastic threads making removal torque significantly higher than installation torque. If I had to guess, it was yeeted on to about 40-50 ft-lb or “gudentight” standards.


The whole point of paying for this oil change was to get customer’s perspective of this particular shop. I didn’t want to drive it back leaking was leaking plus I was curious to see just how bad an oil change could be messed up. I made sure nothing was damaged and replaced the jobber filter with an OEM filter.

I wasn’t going to write a review until the third notification to “tell us how we did!” woke me up sometime after midnight… I told them how they did.

 

F.A.F.O.

 

For some reason reviews and surveys appear to cause them to pucker a small amount.

 

^Because normies (majority) take these as the gospel.

 

More than a small amount! We had something similar happen to us, but it was over a sales issue, the review got immediate attention of the dealership like above, but being a customer for 38 yrs. doesn't mean much to some, past Chevy owner to Toyota owner now! Some dealerships think they can do what they want to and you'll go along with the scam, that's why I say F.A.F.O. I forgot to mention, this sort of stuff seems to happen in locations that have small populations.

 

I don't ask for a lot. I just want to receive what we agreed to.

A business has one chance to show me they have integrity or they don't.

Mind you, I am differentiating between quality and integrity. Mistakes are understandable, and tolerable, in service quality matters. They are not when it comes to matters of honesty and integrity.

Don't want a shitty review? Don't be shitty to your customers. VERY simple and within their control.

Or to make a long story longer . . . I should have just said "fuck a thief".

Jason

 

Reminds me of a disagreement I had with a dealer a LOOONG time ago about work done on an old Nissan truck of mine. They did the work, I felt it wasn't right, I questioned it. They assured me it was right, and the "side effects" I was seeing were normal. I was not willing to accept that being normal. We spent a good long time discussing it, and the service group refunded my money. I drove it for a while and did some research, and found I was wrong. I went back and told them so, and tried to make amends for my stubbornness. End result: some 20 years later, that same group still helps maintain my vehicles. We established a very good relationship during that disagreement, and it has worked out well ever since.

The dealership has since been bought out by a "yuge" conglomerate, and the organization's management style is way different. That's about all nice I can say about that.

 

Glad you were honest, that was the right thing to do.

 

The Tundra issue is like a 1% failure rate at most. I wouldn't assume what guy is doing is necessarily helping.

 

1% but yet they have recalled a majority of them for a full engine replacement. The Only reason they didn’t have to recall the hybrid version is because the government said it has enough power to get itself to the edge of the road “safely”. And yes even the replacements are blowing.


Seems drastic for a 1% rate. Or that’s not the real number and they know it.

 

Really? I imagine most dealer service dept reviews are like cell phone company or cable TV company reviews i.e. universally bad.

 

Recalls are for safety issues. The 3rd gen Tundra has sold significantly better than 2nd gen. 1% is a few thousand trucks. Toyota's legal dept likely felt a few thousand affected engines in the field is too much safety liability exposure.

 

So legal thought it was best to loose all profits for several model years but the number that would really have a issue is small?????? Or because it’s really worse than 1% . Strange that legal would have a new motor swapped out and yet they go bad too. Darn that 1% sure keeps popping its head up. Maybe “1%” is the internal project name they gave it and not an actual number.

 

It comes from Toyota's 49CFR Part 573 filing with the Dept. of Transport (example from July 2024, this document is updated over time with additional filings): https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCLRPT-24V381-8668.PDF



For safety and product liability risk calculations, profit/loss considerations don't really apply - hasn't since the Ford Pinto. Toyota would eat a couple billion to fix 1%.

By the way, Toyota's powertrain R&D averages around $10k/hr 24/7.

 

Sounds like they should ask what the 10k a hour was spent on. Maybe they spent it on sending their engineers to GM 6.2 school. Also if you really believe it’s 1% I got some beach property to sale you cheap. Dont care what they publish. It’s to easy to fudge any number you want. 1% failure rate would not have any company replace all engines for several model years.

 

^Sounds like you don't understand the scale of things. $10k an hour works out to $8.8 billion in powertrain R&D per year, and that's routine and appropriate for Toyota with $300 billion revenue per year. If you don't care what they publish, then you should throw away your 4Runner's owner's manual and maintenance booklet as well

 

I understand exactly what 10k a hour is. The comment I made was saying how can they spend that much and have something that bad in the end.

As for thinking their being honest about the 1% I bet you believe 72” was a magic number that would keep you safe. It was published and all.

Let’s see how good you are with math on this one.

 

^You get a "zero" for comprehension. $10k an hour is not that much for a company of Toyota's size, neither is money they're spending on the recall.

What are you getting on about 72"? The "social distancing" bullshit back in 2020? Covid advisories should've been treated with the same contempt as speed limits.

For someone who doesn't believe what Toyota publishes, you sure seem convinced oil additives are bad.

 

I had them dump it because I had no idea what the heck they put in it. They showed me the bottle of something I had never seen and couldn’t find much info online about. Most likely some white label product. Never said additives are bad. Just not going to have unknown crap put in my new 4Runner. If you like I will sale you a bottle of miracle oil additive for only $100. Trust me bro it’s the good stuff.


So it seems you can do math for 6’. It was written down and published just like the 1% you seem to worship and can’t fathom the thought it’s not the real number.

Just to let you in on something. I have had to work on teams that produced reports where the official author would say whatever the official failure rate is. All companies hide their real numbers with all sorts of BS formulas and “findings” because the average person has no idea what they are really reading. I am telling you now I will bet what ever you want that they have engines that have blown but they used different reasons for the failure that are not in the 1% you believe.

 

^Oh now you "work on teams" on something tangentially related to numbers. Whoop dee do! Go sell your beachfront property.