88 FJ62 needs major differed maintenance repairs, recommended shops?

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

TheElegantFox said:
Feels bad to be taken on such a ride for minor work.
Click to expand...
It happens. I know because I did the same thing. Several years ago I had the brakes in my 80 replaced by a shop in Cary. They put on cheap aftermarket rotors and charged me about $1300 for all four corners. The rotors warped within a month; I wanted it looked at by another shop. Since we were new to Raleigh at the time, had no garage, and I needed my truck back ASAP, I made the grandiose mistake of taking my truck (a Lexus LX450) to the Lexus dealer. Special note: Don't do this. I'm pretty sure they saw me coming a mile away. I was charged $670 to have them resurface my brake rotors. The truck was back to normal, but not for long.

About a month later the brake pedal started to pulse under braking again. I took the truck back to the shop that did the initial work and told them what had happened. The owner of the shop told me I was an idiot for taking the vehicle to have its brakes resurfaced at the Lexus dealer...he was right. They helped me out a little bit though. The truck needed new tires, so he was willing to mount and balance new rubber on the truck for free. I just had to send him the tires. There is more to the story, but I don't want to hijack this thread. Suffice it to say that I do my own brakes now.

The moral of the story is, everyone makes ill educated decisions every now and then. Nobody is immune to it. Learn form it and keep going.
 
1916439
This is what they tallyed up, the green has been done and the rest “needs doing”.
 
Yeah, I’m going to try to do the rest at home or at an independent shop. What looks doable without a shop? I heard that the shocks were fairly easy.
 
I am absolutely shocked at the prices listed on that sheet although I probably shouldn't be considering this is a Toyota dealership doing the work. $525 for valve cover gaskets?? I think you should definitely have some of the local guys swing by and check to see if most of that other stuff even needs to be tackled because chances are they just put a bunch of that stuff on there even though it may not be necessary. The oil cooler hoses alone (guessing they are referring to all of them) would probably run you about $30-50 at the dealership. I hope you can tackle some of this stuff yourself to familiarize yourself with your 62 and also to save yourself a boatload of money
 
I would call the dealership out on some of those prices. I’ve done it to shops a few times for my wife and Mom when I was out of the area and heard what they paid and got taken advantage of (after the fact). The shop and dealership both made it right. Unfortunately, we live in a World where a lot of places take advantage of unsuspecting customers who don’t know any better. By the charge for the valve cover gasket alone, I would call them out.
 
I wish I had an idea of what it should have cost going into it. I’ve already paid unfortunately, but they won’t be getting any more from me.
 
They still are one of the best local places to get Toyota parts when ordering through their website - fat.parts.

If you wanted to order some of those parts (e.g. valve cover gasket) and have help installing it, shoot me a message. It is really straightforward but can 'appear' intimidating if you've never done this type of stuff.
 
Sad they did that to you, but you are not the first or wont be the last. Scott Clark Honda quoted me $335 to replace the belt on a Honda CRV, that I had brought in for an airbag recall. Chatting up with the service guy, I told him I got a quote from their parts guy for the belt for $28 and decided to try it myself. He was involved in the conversation and said "yeah, its not much, and you can probably put it in 1/2 hour". To that I said "so your shop charges $600 an hour if it takes 1/2 hour and you quoted me $300 in labor?" He looked frazzled and walked away. I did it in my driveway in 1/2 hour.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom