The CEL, 4LO, VSC lights lit up for me earlier this year and thenin mid Sept. It didn’t drive any different, so I disconnected the battery and reset it. The car went back to normal.
Come early Oct, I started noticing an intermittent shudder when stopped and in drive. It was faint, but there.
By mid Oct, the lights re-appeared. The vehicle started shuddering when maintaining a constant velocity, for example ~40mph.
I took it in to the nearby Toyota service dept. They did an oil change and diagnostic. Turns out, according to them, the coil for cylinder 2 went bad. They said it was likely connected to when new spark plugs were installed by another Toyota dealership. Something about a plastic piece being left in and breaking the coil. That was back in Feb, about 5k miles prior. Strange it took so long to manifest, but no service had been done to the vehicle in the interim.
The service dept which did the spark plugs was confrontational and I just put the service managers in contact w each other to stay neutral. Finally, the service dept who did the spark plugs said they would fix it free of charge, but would not accept responsibility. But, they didn’t have a clear way to reimburse me the diag fee, which I would have to pay for the vehicle to be released.
I was leery of the service dept who did the spark plugs. They had also left my front end unaligned with bolts loose earlier this year. It wasn’t until I went to a proper alignment shop to check their work that the proper alignment tech said, “check this out, all your front end bolts I can move with my fingers.” He then showed me. To their credit, spark plug service dept did refund me for the alignment.
They also released the vehicle to me w the front locker partially engaged. The light wasn’t on, so i drove it a day, returned and they fixed it. They were non-attributable and just said that the front locker was partially engaged and they reset it. The locker seemed to engage/disengage after that. But, it was after those two experiences that I wrote off that service department as dangerously incompetent.
With that track record, and the complication of packing up the coil and driving the vehicle a couple cities away, I didn’t have the warm and fuzzies. So, I cut a deal w the local service dept to reduce the price and I just cut my losses.
With the #2 coil replaced, the lights cleared and the vehicle drives great. To go 5k miles and 7 months down a coil seems to be testament to how well built and rugged these 200s are.
Note: names of Toyota service departments left off the above to not throw mud. If anyone knows a good lc200 service shop in phoenix, please let me know. PM me if you’d like to trade experiences. I’ve gotten to know various local service departments in the Phx valley; hard, but not impossible, to find a good/trustworthy one. And I don’t mind paying a little more for quality service.
Come early Oct, I started noticing an intermittent shudder when stopped and in drive. It was faint, but there.
By mid Oct, the lights re-appeared. The vehicle started shuddering when maintaining a constant velocity, for example ~40mph.
I took it in to the nearby Toyota service dept. They did an oil change and diagnostic. Turns out, according to them, the coil for cylinder 2 went bad. They said it was likely connected to when new spark plugs were installed by another Toyota dealership. Something about a plastic piece being left in and breaking the coil. That was back in Feb, about 5k miles prior. Strange it took so long to manifest, but no service had been done to the vehicle in the interim.
The service dept which did the spark plugs was confrontational and I just put the service managers in contact w each other to stay neutral. Finally, the service dept who did the spark plugs said they would fix it free of charge, but would not accept responsibility. But, they didn’t have a clear way to reimburse me the diag fee, which I would have to pay for the vehicle to be released.
I was leery of the service dept who did the spark plugs. They had also left my front end unaligned with bolts loose earlier this year. It wasn’t until I went to a proper alignment shop to check their work that the proper alignment tech said, “check this out, all your front end bolts I can move with my fingers.” He then showed me. To their credit, spark plug service dept did refund me for the alignment.
They also released the vehicle to me w the front locker partially engaged. The light wasn’t on, so i drove it a day, returned and they fixed it. They were non-attributable and just said that the front locker was partially engaged and they reset it. The locker seemed to engage/disengage after that. But, it was after those two experiences that I wrote off that service department as dangerously incompetent.
With that track record, and the complication of packing up the coil and driving the vehicle a couple cities away, I didn’t have the warm and fuzzies. So, I cut a deal w the local service dept to reduce the price and I just cut my losses.
With the #2 coil replaced, the lights cleared and the vehicle drives great. To go 5k miles and 7 months down a coil seems to be testament to how well built and rugged these 200s are.
Note: names of Toyota service departments left off the above to not throw mud. If anyone knows a good lc200 service shop in phoenix, please let me know. PM me if you’d like to trade experiences. I’ve gotten to know various local service departments in the Phx valley; hard, but not impossible, to find a good/trustworthy one. And I don’t mind paying a little more for quality service.
Last edited:
