Advice sought: Toyota extended warranty claim (1 Viewer)

[Katkon]

I am the owner of a lx570. I was a service advisor with toyota dealerships for the past 23 years. I recently moved to the parts department as a parts counter man (huge reduction in stress lol ). Toyota has guidelines for what they consider leakage. As far as the water pump goes toyota extra care (extended warranty) wants the tech to hold a paper towel at the source of leakage and see if it saturates the towel. This rule came into play several years ago no doubt due to unscrupulous dealers putting in claims for water pumps and other parts said to be leaking. I can tell you that I never saw a tech perform this leak test and I think it's a ridiculous rule. I always did what I could for my customers as far as getting a claim approved. Take that as it is that it really comes down to how hard the service advisor wants to go to bat. If you can't get anywhere with the advisor go to the service manager. That's all I can say on the subject.

Very insightful. This suggests that the issue might not be Toyota not standing by legitimate warranty claims, but rather their dealers making illegitimate claims. If that really is the case, then I do understand Toyota playing hardball.

I do also understand honest dealers' apprehension in filing claims - they want to ensure they don't end up in Toyota's bad books and have legitimate claims denied down the road.

My dealer happens to be one of the largest in the country, so I suppose they'd have a lot to lose if their claim was deemed illegitimate. Thankfully this didn't happen and both the dealer and Toyota came through.

 

[bloc]

Per the Service Advisor all I know is that the top part of the dash, air bags etc. did not need to be removed. Instead it was "wedged" in.

I hate to say it but this sounds sketchy to me.

I consider myself a pretty good mechanic and settled on this not being possible even if I cut them reattached a metal brace on the lower dash.

A major problem at least on my 2013 was the presence of two bolts that hold the recirc/blower module to the center distribution assembly. They are on the front of the junction with the heads flat against the firewall, and are the reason Toyota lists evacuating the refrigerant in the FSM. The entire assembly must be pulled from the firewall to get access to loosen and especially start and tighten those two bolts.

With cutting the brace I mentioned I could envision removing the blower module but didn’t see any possible way to reach up in front and get those bolts started, with the center assembly still in place.

So.. maybe remove the panel above the passenger footwell then lie on your back and look up parallel with the firewall. If you don’t see two gold colored 10mm bolts with large washers.. they didn’t install it correctly. And for good measure open the glove box and access hatch and verify the door moves with the recirc button.. you can also look in there and see if they somehow repaired your old door or modified the filter slot to just replace the door.