LiquidSky

I need to replace a bushing in the steering rack, so I head over to the dealership to see what I can find out. After talking to the parts guy, he said they only carry the U bushing and they don't carry that O bushing and if I want to replace it I will have to buy a new rack and pinion for $927. I said "wow that is one expensive bushing" and he said, "yup", I then say "why can't I just buy the bushing" and he said "I don't know". Great! So I head to the local off road store and ask them and the guy told me the exact same thing even before I told him about what the dealership said. To make a long story short, he decided to look bushings up in one of his catalogs and found a bushing set for a 95 Tacoma V6 for $13 .

My question is why doesn't the dealership carry this bushing, or is that why people call it the Stealership, hmmm ?

Here is the bushing I am talking about:

BajaRunner

Yeah you can buy the bushing kit from energy suspension for super cheap. You get the whole kit, with 3-4 bushings I cant remember.

Good thing you didnt buy the new rack :/

CyMoN

you should contact the parts guy and tell you found a kit and you can start supplying them with this kit for 200$ and re package them

Gerdo

How about $16.95 for a poly set. http://www.wheelersoffroad.com/4runnerrackbushkit.htm I used the Daystar but pretty much the same. The poly rack bushings are great.

MTL_4runner

What a joke, it's even cheaper from these guys!
http://www.suspension.com/toyotapickups.htm

P/N is 8.10101 (you may need to drill a bushing) and will set you back a grand total of $11.25
P/N is 8.10103 supposedly comes with an extra bushing that fits perfectly for $13.00

I installed 8.10101, but either should work just fine.

Click on my sig and you'll find the writeup on how to install these yourself (it is a major PITA though).

LiquidSky

Sir I'm sorry we don't sell milk separately, if you want milk, you going to have to buy the whole utter!

For something that seams so easy to fix and has such a big impact on the ride of your vehicle it just makes no sense why they wouldn't supply this part.

I asked the parts guy what others have done and he said he didn't know, "once they leave here, they never come back and tell me what they found out", well after I found out I could replace it for $13 I decided to go back and tell him and maybe help out some other poor sap and he just said "oh". Ahh well

Jdizzydub

That's the way I feel about the dealership, I don't even bother anymore. Heck $13 bucks much better than $900......darn stealerships!

shiftless89

Its not a toyota supplied item. and just because its available aftermarket does not mean a dealership can or will stock it. We can not offer a factory part warranty on aftermarket items. Some dealerships do, thats their choice. Lexus have the same issue with that same bushng. There are several parts not offered by toyota, so we just don't cary them. If you want after market go to an aftermarket store. I'm not defending your dealer, I'm just tired of hearing all this "stealership this, stealership that crap" because they are not run the way YOU think they should be. There are many of us on this forum who contribute, help many members for free (how many of you have I helped on yotatech?) and Support their familys by working for a dealership. Myself included. If you contact a dealership, expect dealership prices. There are some fantastic Toyota dealerships that do dabble in the aftermarket by their own choice and are succesfull at it. So before you chastize a dealership or anyone for that matter, do your home work first.

Now, that being said there are some dealerships with questionable practices, including all makes and models. But I promise you there are 100x more issues with joe blow garage installing sub-quality parts on a daily basis than all dealerships combined. These you hardly ever hear about. why is that ? Is it easier to blame the "Big Bad Dealership"?

Ian Rogers

I would add that i love my Dealership, They just got me a Carb Kit for a 1963 FJ40 at a bopping cost of $34. 2 things come to mind, 1 thats cheep, 2 they have had this part for 44 years WOW. If you want better prices start buying from one parts guy at a dealer, build a relationship with him and you will see the prices drop. I for the most part drop the extra 10% to go and buy the OEM part, My thinking is if it lasted 40 years why change it.

xcmountain80

This is an excellent idea! Though the demand might not be very high you get a 1550% markup! @ $200

Aaron

LiquidSky

Shiftless89, sorry if you took offense to this. All I was wondering is why they don't stock this bushing. I never asked why they don't stock an after market bushing to replace this bushing. To repair a roughly $5 part, I was told all I could do was buy a new rack and pinion for $900+. To me this doesn't sound right. I wonder how many people purchased a new rack and pinion just to replace that bushing. Shiftless89 I heard your rant and raving and again I am sorry you took it that way but you never gave an explaination as to why the dealership does not carry this bushing(stock not aftermarket). I will search and see what I can find out. I asked the parts guy and like I said before, he doesn't know.
For the record I do buy parts at the dealership and actually I prefer to go to the dealership first, this is how I found out about the bushing before looking for an aftermarket replacement.

rxcrider

A quick note on how parts make it (or don't make it) into the service system at the company I work for that may be applicable here:

When we assemble something in one of our our factories, we have a bill of material calling out the component part numbers and an assembly drawing showing how it goes together. These component parts are able to make it into the service system at our choosing. First year out with a new assembly, we may choose to service it as a whole unit only, so that we can have the failed assemblies back for analysis. If we feel that an assembly is priced low enough to make it pointless to sell the component or that the customer will likely have damaged the rest of the assembly by the time he needs the component, we will likely sell the assembly only. In many cases, and this sounds like the one at hand, We purchase an assembly from a vendor and have no part numbers or drawings for the component parts. In this case, we will service the entire assembly only rather than creating a service only part that doesn't show in any production bill of material. The exception to this is when we start getting a lot of dealer feedback that they need / want the component and force us to chase it down. I'm guessing that it would take a substantial amount of dealer complaints to get Toyota of Japan to add a service only part to their system.

LiquidSky

rxcrider-

Thank you for the response and the great explanation. That was just what I was looking for. It makes sense somewhat but bushings don't last forever so you would think that that would be a giving part to have on stock.

All in all, thanks for the detailed explanation it helped a lot.

MudHippy

Man, this one irked me good. I'll let it go, for now. I geuss I shouldn't say much except, the fricken bastards won't be "stealing" my money. Because I ain't dumb enough to even bother asking them to.

icerunner

I read shiftless89's post and empathize as he sounds like great guy who is very honest.....
AND I feel most service technitions (at dealers or otherwise) are good honest hardworking people.

BUT, I couldn’t disagree more about "car dealers".

Why?
"The black eye" given to auto service industry has been perpetrated mainly by "Car dealers" who service cars. Like I said, Shiftless89 sounds like an honest guy and HE JUST WORKS THERE but car dealership industry as a whole has earned their really bad reputation many times over.

1)In my opinion, many Car dealers "Steal" from people EVERYDAY.
Not all, but I would guess the number is WELL over 50% of them do.

Q.Why do I say this?
A. IT'S THE CORRUPT CAR SELLING CULTURE HAS ALWAYS PROJECTED THEIR INFULENCE across the hall to the DEALER SERVICE DEPARTMENT(via the service writer/manager), THEY ARE NOT SEPERATE and they have similar approaches to "selling" no matter if its "cars" or "service work". I believe that "the Culture" slowly but surely corrupts the people that work there.

I worked at a car dealer as a "porter" and saw 1st hand what went on.
The LYING about leaking water pumps and other problems, lying about required repair times. Oh yea, your car is sitting in the shop for eight hours, but they spend about 90 minutes working on it and then Charge you for a full 8 hours labor time. That is corrupt.

I WAS AN EMPLOYEE AT A DEALER AND THEY EVEN TRIED TO RIP ME OFF ON MY OWN CAR!!!!
You see, back in college (NIU 99') I had a door panel painted on my car at the dealer I worked at. To learn about the painting process, I watched it done from start to finish. I took about 30 minutes total time: prep and paint, a real quick easy job)

They charged me for 5.5 hours labor!!!! For total a bill of $1100.00
When I saw the bill, I grabbed the ˟˟˟˟˟ing tech by the arm and literally dragged him into the fat Grease ball owner's office and said " NOW YOU TELL HIM HOW LONG IT TOOK TO PAINT THAT PANEL!!

THE TECH (who is a nice guy) SAID SHEEPISHLY "oh, about a 1/2 hour".
So "as an employee of that dealership" I was able to then TRY to negotiate the total cost down to about $650.00!!
Then the tech said pulled me aside and explained things to me, that the "SERVICE WRITER doctored the time" "......as he does WITH EVERY JOB"

fyi.....I quit that "STEALERSHIP" the next day and went to Cancun that week with the money I saved.
I had the time of my life on spring break....I’ll never forget that smokin girl I Scre.........

oh yea, back to the dealership debate

yes there honest ones but I feel most are dishonest.

WHY DO I SAY THAT????
OH, BECAUSE THEY SELL CARS.

AND, IF THEY TRY THEIR BEST TO RIP PEOPLE OFF SELLING CARS (which we all know they do, every day)
WHY WOULD THEY NOT TRY TO RIP PEOPLE OFF FIXING CARS?
Think about it, ITS THE SAME OWNER, SAME LOCATION, and SAME UPPER MANAGEMENT!

LISTEN UP EVERYONE, AS THIS IS A FACT....
MOST DEALERSHIPS MAKE MORE MONEY SERVICING CARS, THAN THEY DO ACTUALLY SELLING CARS! People did you hear what I just said?

I'M SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING THE "POOR DEALERSHIP" FEEL GOOD STUFF ON THE RADIO about how nice dealerships are and how they serve the community. blah blah blah, I don't buy it for one second!

Many people who work at car dealers maybe good people, and a partiular dealership MAYBE a good honest business, but it is very difficult to determine how honest (or dishonest) a dealer is because of what goes at dealerships throughout the USA on a daily basis [/u](ripping off women, old ladies, disabled veterans, employees ect)

In my opinion, AS LONG AS THE PEOPLE WHO SELL CARS happen to ALSO SERVICE CARS,
than NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE

With that said, for the most part, I believe that people who actually work on the cars(techs, porters) are HONEST. And if not, at least a lot of them started out honest. That is, until the "Dealer Culture" and the "service writer/manager" takes over. AND in my opinion, most car dealerships are "GUILTY UNTILL PROVEN INNOCENT"....

all of this is just my opinion.
p.s if you ever HAVE TO go to a dealership for car service, its smart to bring a tub of vasoline with you,
because you my friend may just find your pants down suddenly (down below your ankles)

shiftless89

Sorry, i thought I had. That bushing is simply not available from toyota seperate. We (the dealerships) have no choice or voice in the matter. Corporate Toyota has deemed that part not to be available except with the rack assembly.

MTL_4runner

I totally agree and I have seen this type of thing happen many times when I worked as a mechanic. Most of the mechanics are honest, but remember where their paycheck comes from. It's this fact that forces them to turn the other cheek and just do the work (the service managers/writers are the ones that get to actually screw the customers with upper management's full encouragement of course). That's just the way it works when you have stuff getting done by the job instead of cost plus margin. The dealership always wins because if a job takes longer than the book allows, the mechanic "donates" free labor until that job is done. Same with any comebacks. It sucks, but if you're willing to disregard any sort of morals, you can make alot of money at other people's misfortune by owning a dealership. If you can find dealership management willing to care about customer service over money, then you have found a good place to get work done on your vehicle.

shiftless89

Yes this is your opinion and your right to voice it. Yes there are some slimeball dealerships (I worked for one and left them shortly thereafter because of the shady business practices)

it all boils down to Caveat emptor or "buyer beware" It is your choice and right to walk into a dealership and be educated before or after you walk in,
I choose before. we are in the business to make money, we are not a charitable business. If you don't want to pay dealership prices, dont go to a dealership and don't cry about it.



as far as all dealerships being shady that is incorrect. some yes, all no. Especially with the new standard of CSI (customer service index) and RQI scores. These are used to Rank dealerships and can financially affect them as well. Most managers salaries are directly tied to these scores. Low score = low pay. These are sent and scored by an un-biased outside source

Now my dealership is an exception to your rule, everyone is proud to work here and take pride in our customer service. We've been ranked Number 1 several times.

icerunner

Shiftless,
You make some good points, and I know everyone appreciates your contributions to the forumn.
Hear this: In my opinion car dealerships have well earned their industry "black eye"well before you started working for one. Now you are caught trying to defendshady busness practices and corruption (some perceived, some real) which is somthing you had nothing to do with.
DUDE, I GET YOUR POINT!

and I never said all dealers are corrupt (but I highly suspect many are.)

Yet no offense, but who pays for the managers salary at the dealership?
The owner of the dealership does. Not the manufacturer.And if dealer's manager is not performing well in car sales or "service" sales....? well I think evryone gets the picture.

Car manufactures have been trying for years to get some reasonable controll over dealerships and the service departments.
Why?
Toyota will engineer a great car such as the 07' camry, by using a timing chain, long life coolant, long life trans fluid and long life sparkplugs that will now go for 120,000 miles before ANY significant maintenance needs to be done (besides oil changes), and then some where out there you may have some corrupt dealer giving toyota a real bad name by ripping off customers every single chance they get by overselling them on labour, un-needed parts, and service work.

Maybe the new "CSI" system will help but ultimatly you are right, the "buyer must beware".....
With that said, you know as well as I do grandma can be sold a $3000.00 job if you tell her her car will blowup with her grandkids in it.... and then she'll write a nice little customer service letter to the company on how "the nice Service Writer saved her families life" (while draining her bank account)

We'll i'll guess they get a great "CSI" score from her!
I agree with the earlier poster,
MUDHIPPY
"I'm not dumb enough to ask someone to rip me off."
tom foolery

SteveO

I agree, I think that is why they are often nicknamed the Stealership. Gotta make a buck.