Defective car part resulting in significant engine damage

[li5000]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York

Last June our car (Toyota) started making funny noises. We brought it to our mechanic and it turns out most of the oil had leaked out of engine. Turns out a hose to the engine leaked. Mechanic spent considerable time on engine and still could not get car to work. Doing some research we found out this has happened to many other cars and was due to a defective hose. Toyota had identified this problem and issued a limited service campaign to replace hose and eliminate the possibility of the hose leaking and causing engine damage. Problem is either through willful neglect or bad record keeping, they didn't notify all of the owners of the car who could potentially have this problem including us . Diagnosing and fixing engine problems is incredibly expensive so we stopped didn't have our mechanic do any more work. We contacted Toyota USA and our local dealer and they refused to do the right thing and diagnose and fix our car on their dime. At this point in time in spite of significant effort to get help from state agencies and politicians we have not gotten relief. We now have to sue in small claims court and are in the process of preparing our case before we file.

Our local dealer who we bought the car from never notified us and worse yet, they had been servicing our car after this problem was known and never told us about the problem or replaced the defective part. When the Toyota breaking scandal hit and we brought car in for that, we asked them if there were any other recalls that impacted our car and they said no, in spite of this known oil leak problem.

The question is how much do we sue for? The court is saying we need two estimates. Getting an estimate is difficult without knowing the exact problem. To determine the exact problem the mechanic would have to tear down the whole engine which could cost us thousands of dollars just to get the estimate. We don't want to pay this money for the sheer sake of an estimate. If we go to court and lose, not only will we have a car that doesn't run any more but we will have lost the money it cost to get estimates. Also, limit in New York is $5000, so even if we won, we could have eaten up a lot of our victory in the estimate.

Any help on strategy here is greatly appreciated.

 

[justalayman]

to start with, is your car actually within the listed affected vehicles in any TSB or recall?

was there actually a recall for the issue or was it simply a TSB?


what is the year, make, model, and engine of your vehicle (so the issue can be researched knowledgeably).


If you sue, you are required to prove your damages. If the mechanic cannot provide the costs of repair without tearing down the engine, then you cannot prove your damages.

What do you plan on doing if you do not prevail in court?

 

[li5000]

to start with, is your car actually within the listed affected vehicles in any TSB or recall?

was there actually a recall for the issue or was it simply a TSB?


what is the year, make, model, and engine of your vehicle (so the issue can be researched knowledgeably).


If you sue, you are required to prove your damages. If the mechanic cannot provide the costs of repair without tearing down the engine, then you cannot prove your damages.

What do you plan on doing if you do not prevail in court?

There was a limited service campaign, but either due to faulty record keeping or willful neglect, we were never notified of the service campaign. Worse yet, our dealer had serviced our car after the limited service campaign was announced and never told us or replaced the part.

Car is a 2007 Toyota Camry. Many other people have been screwed by Toyota on this issue. Go here : https://sites.google.com/site/toyotav6oillinescandal/ . Lots of info on this scandal.

Makes no sense to us that we would have to possibly pay thousands of dollars to get an estimate just to go to court. Limit is 5k in small claims in New York, between the estimate costs and the actual work we would surely go way over 5k.

 

[justalayman]

li5000;3239308]There was a limited service campaign, but either due to faulty record keeping or willful neglect, we were never notified of the service campaign. Worse yet, our dealer had serviced our car after the limited service campaign was announced and never told us or replaced the part.

regardless of why it was not replaced, unless there was a required warranty repair involved, there was no requirement to replace it. They are not required to take any action on a vehicle unless there has been an official recall (which there was not for this issue) issued by the FTSA or it was in need of replacement under a warranty issue.

Car is a 2007 Toyota Camry. Many other people have been screwed by Toyota on this issue. Go here : https://sites.google.com/site/toyotav6oillinescandal/ . Lots of info on this scandal.

Makes no sense to us that we would have to possibly pay thousands of dollars to get an estimate just to go to court.

you don't but if you cannot prove your damages, the court cannot award you anything.

Limit is 5k in small claims in New York, between the estimate costs and the actual work we would surely go way over 5k

is there some reason the actual cost of repairs would not be reduced by the reduced amount of work since the engine would already be removed and disassembled? It only makes sense to me it would be.

so, the only real question is:

was the car under warranty when this happened? If not, it is not likely you could prevail in court as they had no obligation to do anything. The part fulfilled the requirements expected for the life of the warranty and that is all they are required to do.

and just who are you considering suing? Toyota or the dealership? Whomever you sue, you must show they had a duty to replace the hose for them to be liable for anything, including the hose itself.


I would suggest attempting anything and everything you can with Toyota before filing suit. I think you are not likely to win in court but even if you had a real good shot at winning, getting a repair without having to file suit would be a much preferred means to an end.

 

[li5000]

The car was not under warranty, but our car should have been part of the limited service campaign that Toyota issued. If Toyota would have notified us like they should have, we would have gotten the part replaced and this never would have happened. To make matters worse, after the limited service campaign has been issued, a month later Toyota had our car to deal with the accelerator recall. We asked if there were any other recalls that impacted our car and they said no.

We plan on suing our dealer because they never notified us of the limited service campaign and they serviced our car and never informed us of the defective hose and didn't replace it. Their negligence in the defective part and never notifying us has caused this engine damage.

 

[li5000]

We have contacted everyone we could think of including the "protect the consumer" people at TV stations and newspapers. We have contacted our New York senators, governor, attorney general not to mention many calls with our local dealer and Toyota USA. We wrote letters to many execs at Toyota and spoke to someone at Presidents office. They came back to us and said car is out of warranty and they refuse to help us. Although there were "nice" enough to offer us $750 off the purchase of a new Toyota. Toyota has stonewalled us throughout the whole process although they are clearly at fault.

We have pretty much exhausted all possibilities. All we asked them to do was diagnose the problem and fix it. They refused. Just like previous Toyota scandals, they stonewall until they have no choice to act. That is what they are doing here. This is not a company doing what is right and fair, this is corporate America at its worst.

 

[justalayman]

You will definitely lose suing the dealer. They had no obligation to give a damn about the oil line. It is not their obligation to notify you or query you regarding you having received a notice from Toyota. You said you asked if there were any recalls. There weren't. They did what you asked and what Toyota asked of them.

Please note that only owners of the affected vehicles will be notified. If a dealer is contacted by an
owner, who has not yet received a notification, please instruct them to verify eligibility by
confirming through Dealer Daily/TIS prior to performing repairs. Dealers should perform the
repair as outlined in the Technical Instructions found on TIS.

that is an excerpt from the bulletin from Toyota to the dealers. Have you verified with Toyota that your car would have fallen under the bulletin?

http://static.reuters.com/resources/media/editorial/20100324/toyota_oilhose.pdf

Have you even contacted Toyota at all regarding this?

 

[swalsh411]

They are not "stonewalling" you. They are just refusing to fix something for free that they don't have to fix for free. Your 7 year old car is no longer covered under warranty. What is hard for you to understand about that?

 

[li5000]

They are not "stonewalling" you. They are just refusing to fix something for free that they don't have to fix for free. Your 7 year old car is no longer covered under warranty. What is hard for you to understand about that?

They had a defective part that caused major engine damage. They were negligent in not notifying me and other car owners to replace the part. They notified some, not all. Failing to notify me because they chose not to or their record keeping was incredibly faulty caused this damage. What is so hard for YOU to understand how they could be considered at fault here not to mention a horrible way to do business with their customers.

Thanks for the antagonistic and worthless response.

 

[TheGeekess]

They had a defective part that caused major engine damage. They were negligent in not notifying me and other car owners to replace the part. They notified some, not all. Failing to notify me because they chose not to or their record keeping was incredibly faulty caused this damage. What is so hard for YOU to understand how they could be considered at fault here not to mention a horrible way to do business with their customers.

Thanks for the antagonistic and worthless response.

Alrighty then.

 

[justalayman]

They had a defective part that caused major engine damage. They were negligent in not notifying me and other car owners to replace the part. They notified some, not all. Failing to notify me because they chose not to or their record keeping was incredibly faulty caused this damage. What is so hard for YOU to understand how they could be considered at fault here not to mention a horrible way to do business with their customers.

Thanks for the antagonistic and worthless response.

it is a poor way to do business with their customers but from a little bit of reading, you will realize that Toyota has a public relations issue so treating a customer poorly is not unknown to them. Poor treatment does not equal unlawful treatment though.


Your part exceeded the period it was warranted for yet you want them to claim liability for consequential damages. Sorry but that is just not something the courts are going to demand of them. They had no obligation to notify you. They had no obligation to fix any car beyond the warranty period and then, only if the part actually failed.


and the dealer did not have a defective part. They did not make the car. They sold it and under a contractual obligation, offer to repair the vehicles under warranty.

have you asked Toyota why you were not notified of the service bulletin? Is it possible your vehicle was not actually within the parameters of the units affected by their determination?

 

[TheGeekess]

it is a poor way to do business with their customers but from a little bit of reading, you will realize that Toyota has a public relations issue so treating a customer poorly is not unknown to them. Poor treatment does not equal unlawful treatment though.


Your part exceeded the period it was warranted for yet you want them to claim liability for consequential damages. Sorry but that is just not something the courts are going to demand of them. They had no obligation to notify you. They had no obligation to fix any car beyond the warranty period and then, only if the part actually failed.


and the dealer did not have a defective part. They did not make the car. They sold it and under a contractual obligation, offer to repair the vehicles under warranty.

have you asked Toyota why you were not notified of the service bulletin? Is it possible your vehicle was not actually within the parameters of the units affected by their determination?

I'm thinking it wasn't covered because of a particular batch of hoses used. OP's car would not be included, because the hose on her car that failed was not one of those batches.

 

[justalayman]

I'm thinking it wasn't covered because of a particular batch of hoses used. OP's car would not be included, because the hose on her car that failed was not one of those batches.

that is one reason I asked if OP verified their vehicle was under the included vehicles. No response to that question so far.

 

[li5000]

I'm thinking it wasn't covered because of a particular batch of hoses used. OP's car would not be included, because the hose on her car that failed was not one of those batches.

Our car had the same exact problem of the cars that were covered. Our car should have been covered, but Toyota's record keeping system was faulty and they did not have all of the VINS that should have been on the list. Cars were covered regardless of whether they were under warranty or not.

 

[TheGeekess]

Our car had the same exact problem of the cars that were covered. Our car should have been covered, but Toyota's record keeping system was faulty and they did not have all of the VINS that should have been on the list. Cars were covered regardless of whether they were under warranty or not.

Alrighty then.