Well I had a recall done on my lower balljoints, I found out through them that 3 bolts were missing, 2 from one side, 1 from the other from the lower balljoints to the spindle, I dont mind paying for bolts and crap 11 bucks? no problem, I got charged 1 hour labor for some morons to try to line up the lower control arm to the spindle, it took the actually 2 hours to do it. he told me 5 guys worked on it? WHAT THE ####, took me 30 minutes my first time to get it done, 2nd time i must have stripped the bolts but the first time it was fine.

Utterly ridiculous

97 dollars for a recall?

I took it up the butt and left, but my father pretty much said I need to go back

Should I, did I get screwed or am i in the wrong?

 

no, thats a ripoff. you should not pay for a recall. I would go back and talk to them and file a dispute on the CC or with the bank immidiately. How can it take an hour to line that up??? i can get mine in like 2 mins........ on jackstands at home in the driveway with nearly the same lift as you........

 

thanks Kyle for the reassurance. hopefully after Class I should be able to discuss this more with them. Just today I had a meeting right after I was pushing it for

 

I hate fing stealerships. Everytime I got to landers they all ways try to charge me 1500 bucks for something or a nother. I eather fix it my self or take it 2 miles down the road and pay about 200 for what they wanted 1500 for. They tryed to charge me for my steering rod recall. I told them hell no, fix it and give me my truck back. So they didn't align it...bastards.

 

i gathered since it was a recall, i mise well go in and get it fixed. but ÅÅÅÅ? seriously I didnt want to pay 100 bucks for a recall, their was even a miscellaneous charge I spotted, he didnt even see it until I pointed it out to him, hes like oh ill take that off for ya, with a gay attitude, hes my usual service manager that knows me by name.

Im just beyond pissed right now

 

its sad that many try to do that kind of stuff, but they are paid off of a percentage of the hrs that the techs run. at least thats the way that the dealer that I work at does it. I see all kinds of questionable stuff go on quite often.

 

im gonna be reasonable, i dont ever outburst in public with anyone anyways, and plus I work retail, when you cuss at a sales person or employee, it just makes the more angry and not want to help you. I just hope I can get this done because this is bs, 97 bucks is a lot of money I could have towards my colorado trip, and shouldnt have been taken out.

Im not going back there ever again though, just have to do oil changes myself from now on, (should have started from the beginning anyways)

 

Pay for recall work? That's insane...

From the NHTSA recall site:

Remedy:
DEALERS WILL REPLACE THE FRONT SUSPENSION LOWER BALL JOINTS FREE OF CHARGE. THE RECALL BEGAN ON JULY 5, 2005. OWNERS MAY CONTACT TOYOTA AT 1-800-331-4331.

 

If you don't know someone that works at the dealership you're guaranteed to get bent over.

 

When I worked as a mechanic we used to go both by the job and by the hour depending on if you were diagnosing or doing a standard job like a timing belt. Then there were always misc or shop charges which often varied depending on how rusted the bolts were, how many times the person had brought their vehicle there or even if the customer was a jerk or not (I wasn't part of that end, I just did the work thank god or my conscience might still bother me to this day). I have some stories that would make your hair curl, but I tried to avoid ever being party to any of it. Even though I saw all kinds of shady stuff go down, when your living paycheck to paycheck it's hard to get too righteous about everything. Now the shoe's on the other foot and I try not to ever let anyone, but myself do any work on any vehicle of mine for just that reason (I will grudgingly bring in a vehicle for a recall, but that's about it.......and it had better be at no charge to me!) If you're going to get future work done at this dealer, then I suggest you don't get in a pissing contest because I guarantee you'll pay for it later. Just my $0.02 anyway.

 

thanks for the advice, I usually dont get mad at anybody, I know Im in retail and if we decide to fix a customers computer and they want it done this way or something, our techs usually do something very shady to it sometimes depending on how rude they were.

I cant get myself to get angry, I just want to be reasonable and get my money back as I think the bolts that they took off was part of the labor for the entire lower ball joint in the first place, which was part of the recall, as was the labor.

However I cant keep my mom from being an outburst, hopefully I can because she will get verbal.

 

and that recall is only for 2001-2002 4runners?

 

that I dont know

 

I have never had a problem with my local dealer.
for Toyota of Des Moines

 

Yeah, I never heard of this recall.

I wonder if they'd do the recall on mine even though my front suspension has been "modified". Last time I went to a dealership with a question just about a brake line (the brake line broke) they told me I had to go somewhere else.

 

It doesn't sound like they charged you for the recall, it sounds like they charged you for replacing the 3 lower bolts that hold the ball joint to the knuckle that were missing and if they truly were stripped it probably did take some time to fix the, especially if they had to clean out the threads or tap new ones. Am I missing something? It sounds like two separate things were done to your truck.

 

and 01-04 tacos.

 

Not all Toyota dealerships are crooked no more than all immigrants are illegal.

Tuscaloosa Toyota is an excellent dealership...and it pays to make friends with them if you can't do the work yourself...which is true with any business that you frequent.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

 

true, but think of it this way, they had to remove the bolts anyways... regardless if 3 were missing or not. they could have been stripped, would they have charged me then as well? thats my point. they had to remove the bolts to do the lower BJs, he didnt say anything about fixing the stripped areas, he told me it took them a while to get it lined up to put the bolts back in. regardless if 3 were missing or not, that would have happened even if i had all 8 bolts. sounds to me like they are using my 3 missing bolts as an excuse to charge me.

 

I agree they had to remove the bolts anyway but if they just stuck 3 new bolts in there and turned it loose and they were stripped and fell out again then you would be banging down their door trying to sue them. It would be nice to think that they were doing a propper fix for you to make sure it didn't happen again. At least they didn't just slap a new knuckle on there and charge you for that too, a lot of shops would have.