I currently own a 2001 RAV4 4WD automatic that has about 145,000. For the past 2 months, I have been trying to get the Palm Beach Toyota Dealership to find the problem with my car. At first the car would ?stall? & die any time I stopped at red lights or stop signs. Toyota said the problem was the fuel injectors were clogged & cleaned them at the cost of $648. 3 days later the same problem happened. After risking driving it 45 miles back to the dealership and 6 hours at the dealership, they still couldn’t find the problem and said it could possibly be the ‘computer’ but when they tried it nothing helped.
So upon the recommendation of a family member, I took it to a ?neighborhood? mechanic. However, the alarm went off so he disconnected the battery until I could find and bring the alarm key to him. I hadn?t used the alarm in almost 2 years because I have a tendency to misplace the key and it makes to much noise. When I brought him the alarm key, he put back the car battery but the car couldn?t start again. He tried doing different diagnostics and couldn?t find the problem. He said it might be the immobilizer but I was not confident in his answer and lack of results.
I had my RAV4 the when I had it towed back to Palm Beach Toyota dealership. After almost 2 weeks of ?diagnostics? (checking the immobilizer & sensors), they?re finally decided to remove the alarm and replace the computer. However, the consultant told me that it would $350 for the labor, $300 for removing the alarm, AND $1100 for a new computer (since the alarm shorted the old computer) and that is only to get the car to start. They still haven?t found the cause of the stalling.
So my question is #1: Are these fees/cost reasonable and #2 Should I be charged in the 1st place since I bought the car from PB Toyota with the alarm already installed (in which the consultant explained that the former owner had installed)? I purchased the 2001 Rav4 in Jan. 2001 USED (the previous owner had the car for a couple of months before selling it?I never found out why).
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Frankly, I wouldn’t have too much confidence in the dealer service. They already misdiagnosed the orginal problem and left you with a hefty bill for it. The charges for work to get it running again don’t seem too bad and you can purchase a remanufactured ECU for a lot less than the cost for a new one. I doubt the ECU is bad but it might be. I think they want to replace it just to be sure it is good and haven’t proved that it is bad.
thanks for your input.
The Palm Beach Toyota service department sounds completely incompetent. I recommend you find somewhere else to have these problems verified by a technician that actually takes a few minutes to do some diagnosis. Palm Beach Toyota is going to keep throwing parts and your money at this vehicle hoping that something works. The fact that they stole $648 to clean your injectors is enough to never go back. A simple test would have shown that the injectors were not the problem, they are incompetent.