2018 Rack and Pinion leak

Noticed a leak on my driveway coming from the passenger side inner tie rod boot and started looking into repair steps last week. About 2 months ago, I know I topped off the fluid and when I found the leak, the reservoir was well below the mark. After doing some research online, I went ahead and took it to the local dealership thinking I could get a worst case estimate on repair to help decide whether I wanted to tackle this myself or not.

Didn’t even think about the 3yr/36k warranty until the service guy brought it up so I made an appt thinking how lucky I was. Dropped it off this morning.

Got a call just now where they want me to drive it another 500 miles/1 month to ensure the warranty will cover it. I asked what they are using to measure the defect and the determination of whether decide to cover it or not and he could not explain it.

What am I missing here?

 

Makes no sense to me, I would take it to another dealer is possible. Should be a quick and easy warranty repair.

 

Photo of the leak

 

Arrived at the dealership and pressed for an answer before I picked up the truck. Apparently the previous owner replaced the power steering pump at a non-Toyota shop so they want to make sure it’s not the pump leaking. They wiped all the hoses and boot down and said come back so they can see if the leak is still coming from the rack.

 

Or they could just inject UV leak dye and find out easily where it is leaking.

 

Why would the previous owner not have Toyota replace the original pump under warranty? Something sounds fishy. Also, why would they not just fix it the first time that you had brought it in? With the amount of fluid in your picture, a replacement should be a no brainer.

 

I had the tech print out the record from TIS when I left so I could read over it and apparently he misspoke. It does appear that the pump was replaced at a dealership last July under warranty but the notes on the copy I have are truncated so I can’t see the details.

I can understand the techs wanting to confirm if it was the pump, hoses, or rack that is leaking but seems logical that they can do that while they had the truck in the shop. I’m going to call another dealership here in the Middle TN and see about getting a second opinion before I bring it back to the first dealership as they requested.

I guess it’s possible they did put in UV dye and it would still be visible in 30 days.

Just a strange situation that I’d prefer not to deal with so close to the warranty expiring, especially knowing now that the pump was just replaced in the last year.

 

I have not been into one of these steering racks before but can't they just pull the boot back to see if it is leaking?

 

From all the repair videos I saw online, that’s exactly right about the boot.

I just called another dealership and asked their service department what they think happened. Their opinion is that the tech cleaned down the surfaces and likely did use dye to trace the leak so they can spot the issue easier. Makes sense but I don’t understand why the shop wouldn’t just explain it that way.

Once the rain let’s up in the next day or so, I’m going to go and see if the boot has liquid in it myself. I might go buy a blacklight to test the UV dye theory too.