Had a 92 pickup come in today with an intermittent starting problem. Would crank but not run. Guy took it to another local shop first. They told him the CO relay was bad. Told him they replaced it and charged him like $100 for it. Winds up doing it again. Charges him $75 for a service call and then $410 for a fuel pump. Didn't fix the problem. Refunded him $250 for labor but that was it. They then told him it was because the connector for the CO relay was burned up and then gave up on it.

When I got it I drove the truck into the shop. Found the CO relay was not new and the connector was completely gone. Just bare terminals. Noticed only two of the five wires were connected to the relay. The other three were just taped together with duct tape. The two wires connected were battery feed and fuel pump feed. The truck shouldn't run with only those two wires connected. So i pulled the relay to test it. It was a factory Toyota relay and was likely original to the truck. There wasn't a pin diagram on the relay and no numbering for the pins so I was having a hard time figuring out what I needed to test for. I figured there was no easier way to check what pin is what than to pop the cover off.

Upon popping the cover this is what I found.




Their "fix" was jamming a piece of Hot Pocket microwave sleeve into it to hold the contact closed. That explains why it came back. It in fact was bad and badly rusted. We replaced it with a new one and it was good to go. Couldn't find a replacement connector anywhere. Ended up putting some heat shrink on the individual terminals and reconnected them. I then taped them up tightly. Not too happy with it but didn't have many options.

Moral of the story is shop around wisely for shops. There's many of these places around and even good shops might have a tech that does bad work. Try to stick with shops where the techs don't get paid flat rate. That helps keep them from rushing cars out the door. And dealers aren't always the best either. Techs still payed flat rate and the hourly rate is usually some of the worst.

 

WOW!

That is way beyond garbage work!

Great technicians / mechanics really hate people who do this.

This is one of a few reasons I started working on my own truck.

Good job on getting the customer back on the road!

 

Finding a Good Shop is hard one that knows Toyota vehicles is even harder

If you need to pay to get every thing done these older vehicles don`t make sense at least the way I look at things now

 

Yeah I don't know about paying labor rates on older cars. We see some that come in that are total junk. Worth maybe 500 and rack up a 3.5k bill. Customer comes in pays it and is happy. Car still leaves as a junk car that runs and drives. I don't understand why they don't just invest that money in something worth the money. Once a car gets old enough and falling apart enough it needs to be either sold to somebody who can work on it or they need to learn to work on it them selves.

 

WOW!!! That's total BS, I'd contact the BBB to report that shop if I were the customer. Im glad I've got a very knowledgeable Toyota guy who runs his own shop here in town, for the things I need done when I don't have the time/skills. He has enough passion for these rigs to not do shoddy work.

 

I'm not surprised to see this at all.

I once paid $900 for a new clutch because a shop warned me it was about to go. It seemed fine to me, but I didn't know any better. A few years and 30k miles later, I'm rebuilding the engine and see a very worn clutch with deep grooves in the pressure plate springs. It had a snapped pressure plate bolt, too. That shop did some other awful work so I'm guessing they just left the old one in and took my money.

Like everyone else said, I do all my own work now and will likely sell my '85 if it's still around by the time I get too old or injured to wrench. I think 80's trucks are now old enough to be considered just hobby cars.

 

I guess my 1987 Toyota Truck is now both a daily driver and hobby vehicle!

I know what you mean though. Being able to work on these old trucks or personally knowing someone who is knowledgeable in these trucks is pretty much a must at this point in these vehicle's life.

My truck is mostly original. In about 6 months I plan on daily driving another car for awhile so I can solve some problems and just plain go over all the systems on my truck.

 

I think we're "those people" now. Y'know, the kind that drive their hobby vehicles everywhere, everyday. I take mine all over the place even cross-country, but it just about always needs something.

 

In the DD/Hobby vehicle club! I DD my '87 4Runner.