Potentially snapped Timing Belt

It's another possible reason to look into your nearest Toyota dealership as an option. A great number of Toyota dealerships use the Toyota Parts Services site (it's a canned web service) and arbitrarily set their discount amounts on the back-end from what it appears. You'll always get a better price ordering online for pickup at a participating dealership than you will as a counter walk-up at that exact same dealership.

For example, I could pay $200 for a part on a counter walk-up at my local dealership. If I go online and order it for in-store pickup through that exact same dealership's Toyota Parts page, they've set the discount for online purchase at 9% to be competitive with other dealerships, so I'll pay $182 instead. I go into the dealership either way, so it makes more sense to pre-order online.

That said, and the reason everyone recommends McGeorge, they set their savings at like 11% off MSRP so their prices end up being lower than most other dealerships out there. I can (and have) technically get 10% off MSRP if I use Serra Toyota in Alabama and potentially avoid taxes as an out-of-state buyer, so I usually do that on non-urgent parts any time Serra has free or reduced shipping days.

But yeah, regardless, gotta pay core. If the $60 is worth recouping, consider buying online from your local dealership and don't get hung up on saving that 1%-2% buying through McGeorge, unless the extra $$ of buying local exceeds the cost of the core. I've heard stories about how returning cores actually keeps prices lower in the long run but not sure how valid that is.

VW dealerships do the same thing. It's where I learned all of this stuff. ETKA is the back-end system for VW, IIRC? There's a storefront front-end to ETKA which delaerships can lease and set the % of discount they want to offer arbitrarily.

 

Thank you for the thorough help here! If I choose the local store route (online), looks like it's as simple as ordering from here, yeah?
https://parts.toyota.com/

 

Nah, that's Toyota's home "core" site and I think they charge full MSRP there. Let me see if I can explain how to find out whether your local store is leasing their own private Toyota Parts storefront.

Like, the nearest dealership to me is Toyota of South Atlanta. If I go to www.google.com and type in Toyota of South Atlanta Parts the top result is https://onlineparts.toyotasouthatlanta.com/

If I click the link to that from Google I can clearly see this is an official Toyota Parts page, but specifically for my local dealership, which is allowed to set its own parts pricing discounts.

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You may want to do the same for yourself. If you don't know where your closest dealership is, go to a map site (Bing, Google, Whatever) and search for Toyota Dealership. Find the one closest to you, then Google for [their dealership name] + parts to see if they have a parts site.

Or I suppose you could just call their parts dept and ask if they have a Toyota Parts storefront to order online thru. I just find dealing with Google search is easier than sitting on hold for a human.

 

Negative on this. It's the parts program we've talked about a lot.

 

Say I'm searching for a complete 3rd brake light assembly, p/n 81570-0C010

$ 163.17 at Toyota USA (parts.toyota.com)
$ 112.82 at Serra Toyota of Decatur AL (parts.toyotaofdecatur.com)
$ 114.78 at my nearest dealership (onlineparts.toyotasouthatlanta.com)

Clearly, my best bet is Serra Toyota charging 31% less.
However, if I want it NOW, my local dealership has it 30% less.

But clearly, Toyota USA's main portal is listing full MSRP. They will give me links to a couple of dealerships within an hour, but not to my main dealership.

Ah wait - they removed the ability to add to cart through parts.toyota.com? This must be a recent change. First time I ordered parts for my truck through the main portal, it let me buy at full price. Last time I would've tried it was 12-18mos ago though.

 

I've never tried this way specifically. I always pull up the website and then select the participating dealer I want to use.

 

Got it. I think therein is my confusion. They shouldn't even give you a price quote at the main site - they should force you to pick a dealer. They don't. They never have. Well, now they do once you want to add-to-cart, but it wasn't like that previously if you went to parts.toyota.com

From a UI/UX perspective, they probably should fix that.

 

Update - I've heard several times now that the starter is 100%+ bad. Maybe the battery too.

After checking out the invoice again from the engine replacement, it turns out they did indeed replace the starter as well. Good news because there's a warranty in place. So now just gotta get it into a shop for that.

Thanks for all the help! We'll see if the story ends on a good note here or has some more to it.

 

That sucks, but at least it won't cost you. I'd try to find our what starter they used and make them use the denso replacement. Even if you have to pay for the starter out of pocket, I would just to avoid having this again.

I've had really bad luck lately with parts from any of the local auto parts stores and I'll go with a better aftermarket brand online (or OEM for certain things).

 

See,he was such a nice guy. Miss ya phm

 

Even better prices when you have a friend/relative that works for an independent shop or dealership. They can order it and you can go in and pick it up at wholesale price. I had that deal going for the first 10 years of ownership on my Tundra.

 

Update:

New starter and everything runs great. $1k job for free!! That was sweet. Thank you, warranty.

Two issues left:

1) the guy who fixed my truck this time asked me "hey, so who worked on your truck?". Never a good sign. He told me that a lot of parts were not all that tightened and he wasn't too impressed with the previous shop's work. Told me everything looks good, but with a new engine, it's hard to tell without time just doing its thing. Said it should be good to go but he didn't like the shop's work from beforehand. Thoughts?

2) The A/C. This was happening before this whole mess. I turn the A/C on and it goes on for a bit (~ 1 minute) and then the light starts blinking and it stops blowing out cold air. Any ideas here? Just need a charge?

 

On my 96 Camry this would happen every time the refrigerant would run low (only hold about 2 weeks) and would eventually get to the point where it wouldn't run at all. If the prior shop discharged your system during all your mess and then recharged it and it's full then it could be another problem like what is discussed here.
https://www.toyotanation.com/threads/if-your-ac-light-is-blinking-check-this-first.401925/
Be best to see if the system is full first then check grounds for the compressor and make sure everything is clean. Hopfully the compressor is still good.

 

The AC system is either building up too much pressure, blockage or over heating, or not building up enough pressure.

Look online for some local deals to fill and check the system. My local shop was $39.95 to check, refill and leak detect, Freon was extra.

They found a pin hole leak in the condenser. I took the 07 sequoia in after the AC clutch went out. Figured there was a reason it went out, and sure enough low refrigerant, and over pressurizing due to plugged and leaking condenser.

 

Bringing this thread back to life as I've been going through a lot of regular maintenance lately.

Update nearly 5 years later:

• Truck runs and has been running great ever since!
• My only concerns now is that I still don't know what the low mileage engine I received was like "under the hood" but if it's been going strong for five years now, do I really have any reason to be all that concerned?

Thanks for all the help you all have provided - super nice of you!

 

I wouldn't be concerned. As long as you have a baseline for maintenance and keep up with it from there, that's all there is too it IMHO.