Could someone help me out? In the image below, is the bolt that is missing in the circled area required to be removed so that bracket can be removed in order to change the transfer case fluid?
The reason I ask is thus: In November I took my vehicle in to the dealer to have the transfer case fluid changed. I posted on here very concerned because, as it turned out they had overfilled the t-case and when it heated up it blew t-case oil ALL over the bottom of the cruiser. I took it back to the dealer and they emptied 4 cans of brake cleaner on it and called it good with a lot of shoulder shrugs and sorry's. I thought about pressing for a full refund, but was already late to a military change of command and just needed to get on the road.
Fast forward to now and my wife is now the primary driver and she was hearing some odd clank/clunk/squeak noises from the bottom of the car. We had since moved a couple hours north and took it to the Toyota dealer near us. They went over the entirety of the bottom of the cruiser and when they found this they alerted me immediately. The service advisor went back and showed that the last service done was the transfer case service. They replaced the bolt, but for the efforts (and torquing down most of the rest of the bolts) it cost an hour of the shop rate. He recommended I talk to the original dealer and get them to refund both the hour and the original t-case service.
As you might imagine, after sending all the documentation to the original dealer they are playing the "not our problem" game. The response was "that is not a bolt that we would have had out for any reason to do the service. The hole the bolt goes in is perfectly shiny and clean which tells me it has not been missing for 9348 miles. It would be filthy by now." Now of course any astute individual would notice ALL the bolts in the picture are of the exact same cleanliness as this supposedly whistle-clean bolt hole, but that's a different discussion. My question is if the original dealer is right and there's no way that skid/support would have been removed, or if, as I suspect based on a couple YouTube videos I've watched for the process, that is a complete fabrication. Bonus points if someone can quote me the part in the field service manual about it.
Thanks.
The reason I ask is thus: In November I took my vehicle in to the dealer to have the transfer case fluid changed. I posted on here very concerned because, as it turned out they had overfilled the t-case and when it heated up it blew t-case oil ALL over the bottom of the cruiser. I took it back to the dealer and they emptied 4 cans of brake cleaner on it and called it good with a lot of shoulder shrugs and sorry's. I thought about pressing for a full refund, but was already late to a military change of command and just needed to get on the road.
Fast forward to now and my wife is now the primary driver and she was hearing some odd clank/clunk/squeak noises from the bottom of the car. We had since moved a couple hours north and took it to the Toyota dealer near us. They went over the entirety of the bottom of the cruiser and when they found this they alerted me immediately. The service advisor went back and showed that the last service done was the transfer case service. They replaced the bolt, but for the efforts (and torquing down most of the rest of the bolts) it cost an hour of the shop rate. He recommended I talk to the original dealer and get them to refund both the hour and the original t-case service.
As you might imagine, after sending all the documentation to the original dealer they are playing the "not our problem" game. The response was "that is not a bolt that we would have had out for any reason to do the service. The hole the bolt goes in is perfectly shiny and clean which tells me it has not been missing for 9348 miles. It would be filthy by now." Now of course any astute individual would notice ALL the bolts in the picture are of the exact same cleanliness as this supposedly whistle-clean bolt hole, but that's a different discussion. My question is if the original dealer is right and there's no way that skid/support would have been removed, or if, as I suspect based on a couple YouTube videos I've watched for the process, that is a complete fabrication. Bonus points if someone can quote me the part in the field service manual about it.
Thanks.
