Pop goes the clutch.

More car drama this week. I was returning from a Vermont ski trip yesterday and my clutch went. Luckily we had just gotten off the highway. The car would not go into gear, but instead made a grinding sound like something was knocking around in the clutch. Since I have no faith in Queensboro Toyota, I took it to the local Shell service station. They have been quite helpful with inspections and changed my serpentine belt last week for 40 dollars in labor. I bought the part at Toyota, but they wanted to charge $93 to install it. The Shell station replaced the clutch. They said the clutch separated and the bearing jumped, which was causing the sound. They also said the drive shaft ball joint snapped. They said this happened because of the clutch seizing. After all was said and done I had to pay them $1574, which include the clutch, rebuilding of the drive shaft, and new front brake pads. The car feels like everything is ok, but I will have to take it on the highway tomorrow. My question is why did the clutch fail before it wore out? I realize that driving a manual transmission in NYC might not be the greatest idea, but should this happen to a 4.5 year old car with 60,383 miles? PS this is my third car with a manual transmission.

Toyota Survey

So Toyota, corporate, chose to follow up on my recent service experience. I was not going to go out of my way to share my displeasure, but they called me. I told them how I was totally unsatisfied and could not believe that they wanted two hours of labor for the simple repair. The woman on the phone apologized and asked if the dealer could follow up. I said sure. The next day I got messages from Greg the service manger and Gilbert the principal. I returned Gilbert's call. I explained my concerns and he said they would do the repair for 1 hour of labor. I told him that this did me no good since I already had to pay the diagnostic charge, which would have been waived if I paid the $360. By lowering the price at this time by $100, the repair would still have cost $360. This is why I did the repair myself. Why couldn't they have lowered the price when I first asked if this would really take two hours? I would have had them do the repair, which would have been the same price as me doing it. It was not until they got pressure from corporate did they want to help me. Boo Queensboro Toyota.

Trouble in the water

In December of 2009 Toyota Matrix began having difficulty idling, especially in the cold weather. The car would rev between 500rpms and 1300rpms at traffic lights even after the car was warmed up. A few times the rpms dropped so low that the car stalled while the car was stopped. I began to do some research online to diagnose the problem. I found our that there was a service bulletin out for the cars computer. This was written in the NYTimes and on the website matrixowners.com. Corolla and Matrix owners had been experiencing stalling problems with the car. I took the car to Queensboro Toyota in Woodside, NY to have them check the car out. The service advisor, Nestor, called me to let me know the computer was fine. He told me the problem was the Mass Airflow Meter and that it needed to be replaced. He said it would cost $361.00 to replace this part. This price included two hours of labor and the part costing $174.00. I looked at the instructions on how to replace this part and realized that it entailed removing two philips head screws and one socket connector from the sensor and disconnecting the battery. I told Nestor that this was an outrageous labor price for a job that would take 15 mins. He said it would take much longer, and that reseting the computer would take more than an hour. I tried to negotiate, but he was firm with the price. I declined the service, paid the $102.34 diagnostic fee, and went upstairs to the parts department to by the part for $174. The parts department guy said to disconnect the battery for a few mins, install the part, and I would be good to go. I followed his directions and the car ran like new. The repair cost me $276.34 and 15 mins of my own labor. I saved about $85.00.