^ Service advisors that send customers back to their first shop go home with empty pockets. Service advisors will generally try to sell the repair and let the customer sort things out.
I also feel the first shop should have been allowed to inspect the failure and decide if they want to offer a free repair. The cost of the control arms isn’t as significant as the labor. In this case the first shop is faced with a $1200 labor charge that they cannot judge if they were at fault.
Sometimes the smart decision is to NOT do a repair or to decline a job
I realize many will disagree with me, but it has often served me well
I have mixed feelings on this. I can certainly understand why a shop would send a customer back to the shop that created the problem, but that sort of leaves the customer hanging with a broken car and stuck returning to the guys who broke it. I sort of feel that the situation should be shown and explained to the customer and he/she should make the call. Whatever the results, everything should be fully documented on the shop order.
First, thank you all! Posting another update, inevitably with corrections of how the story was told, as I’m just a layman owner of a 9 year old car trying to learn a new complicated topic. Many of you may have already figured out what happened to the car, but I was hopelessly (may still am) confused. Possibly one more update tomorrow morning after I meet with the dealer mechanic again.
After more conversations I think I now better understand the difference in opinion here (trying to be open minded still). The dealer service manager holds that, because the sway bar mounting hole on the wrong strut is one inch lower (disregarding the confusing description in terms of the length of the strut), it had the effect of pushing down (or holding down) the control arms. There should be normally a resting position for the suspension and the control arms when the car comes to a stop, but no longer with the way the struts and the sway bar were installed. The result is the control arm bushings never getting a rest.
A corporate rep from the non-dealer shop disagrees: the control arm is designed to move around and merely pushing it down and driving for 5000 miles would not have caused any damage, let alone enough damage to call for replacement. Seems possible that the 9 year old car with 65000 miles would have already had some cracks in the bushings. And as some of you pointed out, new control arms may not be the most economically sensible solution. However, putting these two opinions together, can any reasonable and objective person reach a conclusion that it’s at least a possibility that the control arm being consistently pushed down hastened the arrival of the end of its life? Some of you already suggested that in some cars that’s possible. But what about this particular year and model (2006 Sienna)? Even if there isn’t any black & white answer, can the non-dealer shop absolutely deny any possible link between the struts and the control arm bushing giving up? I think these are relevant considerations in a reasonable settlement.
A quick recap for those who don’t want to go back to the beginning of the thread. I went to a non-dealer shop for noises which were attributed to rack & pinion. In addition, the shop recommended replacing the front struts. After the shop ordered and installed the struts, there was increasing vibration at highway speed. (Other possible relevant facts not in my original post: windshield was broken during the work on the struts; metal to metal noise from the suspension on the way home right after the installation was fixed a day later.) Some other unrelated events later, I had the car sitting on a lift at a Toyota dealership. Then came the diagnosis of control arms. A day later the diagnosis that new control arms can’t be installed because wrong struts were in place. (The struts were installed with the original springs.) Dealer invoice said: “THE CURRENT STRUTS ARE AFTERMARKET AND 1” LONGER THAN THE FACTORY TOYOTA STRUTS ON THE BODY, CAUSING EXCESSIVE STRESS ON TIE RODS AND LOWER CONTROL ARMS. THEY ARE BINDING AS WELL.” All the corrections were then completed by the dealer, costing me an additional 2,700 in addition to what I paid the first shop for the wrong struts. The first shop is now offering to foot the dealer bill for the struts (about 1,200 parts and labor), but not the rest for the control arms.
Very flattered that my question received this much attention. I initially wanted to keep the story short, without the drama, and focus on the technical question. Yes, I did offer the first shop the opportunity to correct the problem. However, their reaction was that they were absolutely certain they ordered the only possible aftermarket parts. “It’s not easy, almost impossible to order the wrong parts (for this car and issue).” Note that the car was on the lift at the dealership at that time. Do I then take a risk, pay the dealer for the time they spent (which the first shop would never agree to reimburse based on their reaction), and take the car back to the first shop only to be told that they confirmed it’s the right parts, with me holding the bag still uncertain who was telling the truth? There were some other trust issues at that point. . . Well, it turned out they did use the wrong parts, as the rep admitted. The parts they installed were for the front wheel drive model, and mine is all wheel drive. They checked with only one aftermarket supplier who doesn’t have the strut for the AWD model. They only needed to check with another supplier but didn’t. . . They should have noticed something wrong with the stabilizer link position as the dealer did, but didn’t say anything.
To GeorgeSanJose – the original shop said they would not have recommended to replace the control arms if they merely observed cracks in the bushings. They don’t have any notes in that regard, obviously.
To Nevada_545 – Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures for the damaged control arms. The dealer mgr is trying to find one. The incorrect position of the stabilizer link mount did possibly cause noise, but the original shop was able to fix that quickly the next day.
The part of this that is murky to me is the bushing in the control arm situation. A 10 year old car can be reasonably expected to have some degrade rubber in the bushings; and especially so depending upon environmental conditions.
It’s possible that at some point the rubber in the bushing would give up anyway. However, if stress was added to the bushings because they’re being tweaked excessively I could see longer struts causing a bushing rubber failure.
The debate could be over what point the bushings would have given up; assuming that’s even the problem here.
I’m afraid I don’t have a hard, set answer for you due to the fuzziness over the bushings.
If the rubber was aged and dry rot setting it then it could be “just one of those things”.
If the rubber was free of dry rot and fairly supple then I’d say the added stress of the wrong struts caused them to fail.
Sorry, that’s the best I can do under the circumstances. Best of luck.
Well, it turned out they did use the wrong parts, as the rep admitted. The parts they installed were for the front wheel drive model, and mine is all wheel drive. They checked with only one aftermarket supplier who doesn’t have the strut for the AWD model.
Well I do not know how you feel about the mechanic at this point, would you go to them for work again? If so get a credit for future auto repairs to the extent of the costs, otherwise you need to press for reimbursement or go to small claims court.
The technician was correct in insisting that the correct struts be installed when the lower control arms are replaced to avoid any future problems but that doesn’t meen that the control arm bushings didn’t fail due to age and wear.
I think the service advisors theory is questionable. It is his job to sell the repairs but service advisors don’t usually have hands on experience or know what they are talking about. They are tossed a parts list and told to sell the repair.
If the stabilizer link mounts are in the same location on left and right struts then there should be no pressure on the suspension from the stabilizer bar. You did state that the vehicle ride height was normal. If both stabilizer links are disconnected, the bar can be raised or lowered 6" to 8" without effort. The stabilizer bar has no vertical resistance, its purpose it to attempt to keep the right and left sides at equal height so the vehicle doesn’t lean when cornering. The location of the links on the struts being off by 1" places the stabilizer bar out of the center position of its normal arc but will not lift or pull on the suspension unless under extreme travel like off-road racing.
You may be able to get a free repair because of the first shops mistake but you should have more details to convince a judge other than “damaged control arms”. You should also have the old parts.
I did meet with the dealer mechanic this morning. The service manager did leave out a key detail in his explanation. Yes, it is related to the sway bar mounting hole position on the aftermarket strut. But the way it affected the movement of the control arms must be quite unique in this case. I’m attaching a diagram and the key element is that the sway bar mounted one inch lower is actually touching the control arm and pushing it down every time the strut goes up & down. This resulted in the splitting of bushings to the right in the diagram, from the top side (as opposed to from underneath in normal wear and tear). While the mechanic is searching his phone for photos, he was quite certain that’s what happened and is willing to go to the court with me. The sway bar is still in my car and there should be clear evidence how it was rubbing against the control arms. This also explains the metal to metal noise right out of the first shop after the repair.
I started the small claims court steps in December by sending the first shop a demand letter. That resulted in a meeting with their corporate training director yesterday. I will present this evidence again and hope we can avoid the court. I can tell I’m dealing with a true professional, and he did his homework well in forming his argument. It’s just that in the end the key component of the explanation is very unique to this car, but his mechanic who worked on the car should have known better.
Many thanks to all!
I took the liberty of attaching the exploded view drawing for the '06 Sienna front strut & associated. If I understand your drawing correctly, the mount for the sway bar link is too low… That could cause clearance problems… and it sounds like it did. I hope the attached helps.
Thank you! Indeed it’s a clearance problem and I’ll use that term. Thanks.
You’re welcome. I’ve attached a link to a site that can provide a lot of other exploded view drawings for your Sienna as well, including the attachment to the steering knuckle. I hope it helps.
http://www.toyotapartsoverstock.com/
Just to report back we had a good settlement where the cost of replacing the struts was reimbursed and the cost of the control arms was partially compensated with a store credit.
Thanks for the update
Sounds like you reached a somewhat decent arrangement, all things considered
Sincere thanks for the update. I’m glad you came to an agreement that works for you.
Happy motoring.