Monday, Aug 25, 2008 at 23:07
Good to see someone on the same wave length as me.
The comment from your service manager is a bit odd, at the best it may add $80 to $100 to a service every 2 years or 40,000 kilometers so I don't really see that as a reason and Toyota would not do something like that to save the customer such a small amount.
As you said the petrol engine fuel filter replacement is every 80,000 kilometers.
The biggest thing they (Denso) worry about is getting contamination into the fuel system and causing big expensive damage.
They would of done similar trainer as we did with Denso regarding D4D common rail systems and Denso could not enforce the issue about contamination enough.
If it was a cost issue I don't think Toyota or Denso would take the risk of not replacing fuel filter regularly if they were not 110% sure it would not cause damage.
Could just see it now ....Mr. Bean Counter at Toyota "What do we do! save the customer $50.00 a year by not changing the fuel filter or risk $6,000 to $10,000 damage to the CRD system"
This is a typical "Risk versus Cost strategy" that most business consider or should but don't.
With warranty work, if you take your car in for warranty and a part is replaced this is what happens.
1) Dealer gets authorisation form Toyota.
2) Dealer replaces the part and charges labor at a set warranty rate.
3) The warranty part gets sent back to Toyota.
4) Toyota sends the part back to the supplier.
5) Supplier checks part for warranty claim and possible cause of failure.
6) Supplier either accepts the claim from Toyota and pays costs.
7) If part is refused buy the supplier for a number of reasons the part gets returned back to Toyota.
8) Toyota notifies the dealer and the dealer is charged for the part and labor costs are revoked.
9) The dealer either accepts the warranty denial and either wears the cost themselves or charges the customer.
In some instances the supplier, Toyota or the Dealer may wear costs as a good will gesture.
Dealers can not charge diagnostic time to Toyota or the supplier as they are paid a set rate dependent on part.
However a dealer can call someone like me in to diagnose a problem and I can either tell then what is wrong or do the whole job and charge the dealer, the dealer then can put a handling % onto the total price and charge Toyota.
Yes I think there are a lot of people specially 4WDers that can't or don't grasp technology very
well and this really shows up when people say "I don't think this 4x4 is very strong because they have done such and such, I remember when the Pajero went to a monocoque chassis and some people said it would fall apart and crack...how wrong they were and the Pajero is a very capable off and on road vehicle with very few faults.
Yes our Hilux does rattle and I believe it is to do with the ECU programming regarding the cold cycle and primary and secondary injection timing, it does not cause any damage and there is not much what you can do about it. I think it has a lot to due with meeting emission standards when cold.
Have a look at the Hilux
forum as there is a fair bit about that rattle when cold.
Talking about noise we have a Subaru STI and doing U turns or backing out our driveway you think the diffs are going to fall out, they clunk and shudder and bind up something terrable.
People think 4x4ing is expensive we destroyed a tyre on the Subaru (12,000 kilometer old)....we drove it flat for about 4 kilometers...non available in Australia....two to three month wait at $470.00 for one tyre.....
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