Flywheel Blown

[poshtotty]

Hi

Thank you in advance for reading my post.

I am also new to this forum as I too are in the mire with a flywheel - I have Rav4 '53 plate diesel and have been for the last 12 months reporting odd noises coming from the engine and problems with revs v's gear car was in amongst other symptoms. Anyway cut along story short finally at the weekend after driving car and hearing metal on metal grinding the RAC recovered my car and took it too Listers who have diagonsed the flywheel and a nice quotation having stripped it down of £1600 the clutch kit also needs changing.

Having found this site on Google I took 'Anchormans' advice and rang the dealer and Toyota who are standing by the 5 year warranty rubbish and 60k miles (mine has 88k) I have always had car serviced at dealership and as a goodwill gesture they will pay for the parts £400.00 Whopee do!!!! I asked them about the 100k 5 year warranty and was told the following " yes there is a problem with the flywheel on certain cars that were manufactured during a certain date and they would check the dates of my car and refer back to the dealer" Guess what my car does not fall within the said dates and therefore falls into the 60k miles and 5 years???? How do I know they are telling the truth on whether my car fell into the manufactured date or not I can only take there word on it even though they are admitting there was a fault in the manufacturing of that particular flywheel.

My car is currently stripped down at theToyota garage waiting on parts someone suggested that I get the RA to fight my case for me as I pay for it in my cover dont know if thats right or not.......

HELP PLEASE what should I do

[dave.m]

Hi Posh and welcome to TOC, wish your query was under happier circumstances but the fact is that this issue

is turning into a real disaster. You only need to look back the past couple of weeks to see how many old and

new members have been affected by this. The problem is there is nothing in writing available to us to confirm

or deny their conditions of the flywheel warranty. One of our members, Anchorman, has been championing

this cause for us, but his enquiries are still ongoing. In the past some members have thought of taking the

consumer advice/ watchdog route to challenge Toyota but have not heard if anything has happened. If you

can hold off a couple of days Anchorman may still yet get some clarification from Toyota.

Good luck.

[poshtotty]

Hi Posh and welcome to TOC, wish your query was under happier circumstances but the fact is that this issue

is turning into a real disaster. You only need to look back the past couple of weeks to see how many old and

new members have been affected by this. The problem is there is nothing in writing available to us to confirm

or deny their conditions of the flywheel warranty. One of our members, Anchorman, has been championing

this cause for us, but his enquiries are still ongoing. In the past some members have thought of taking the

consumer advice/ watchdog route to challenge Toyota but have not heard if anything has happened. If you

can hold off a couple of days Anchorman may still yet get some clarification from Toyota.

Good luck.

Thank you for your reply :) I've been reading with interest the postings on here and think it's outrageous the way Toyota clearly know this is an issue but quite simply won't formally accept responsibility we buy these cars based on their reputation of reliablity and then end up severley out of pocket just before xmas but i wont winge I will keep an eye on this forum with great interest, alsowish everyone else with this problem good luck its gonna be a long haul......thanks again posh :D

[chatman]

Posh.....

When doe's the tour start, should you not be with the rest of the girls.... :lol:

Yea this hit me at bad time....May use Bothy's recipe for Christmas dinner, keep the house warmer now it's getting colder :sick: (certainly not having Turkey) sure all the Pheasants round here are sneezing as well :gun_bandana:

We seam to know sooner and have better resources to get the information than any dealer can....

[poshtotty]

Posh.....

When doe's the tour start, should you not be with the rest of the girls.... :lol:

Yea this hit me at bad time....May use Bothy's recipe for Christmas dinner, keep the house warmer now it's getting colder :sick: (certainly not having Turkey) sure all the Pheasants round here are sneezing as well :gun_bandana:

We seam to know sooner and have better resources to get the information than any dealer can....

Hi chatman

Thanks for your rather bizarre reply

O get you out with the girlies......would be cept got no car and no money now :( :( :( the tour has been offically cancelled........

Posh

[T600]

HELP PLEASE what should I do

They surely can't have it both ways.

On the one hand they're saying your flywheel's knackered, and on the other they're saying it's not in the batch with dodgy flywheels.

A knackered flywheel at 88K is ridiculous. Either it's a one off, in which case it'll be peanuts for Toyota to fix your car out of goodwill. Or else it's a big problem in which case they should sort it whatever the financial implications are for them.

But if you want your car back in a hurry, I guess you may have to give in, and pay up.

Tricky one.

[bothwell_buyer]

Setting aside my cheap recipes for Baked Bean Vindaloo; I must say that Toyota have been very remiss over several issues with their car build quality over the past few years. I bought one of the first RAVs in Scotland in 1994 and spent a fortune having to replace brake discs on a regular basis. They also took me for a ride on the steel wheels bending. When I needed a clutch for the RAV at about 60,000 miles, nobody had done the job before and I paid sorely for the replacement.

I had bought a Previa at the same time in 94. Great car, except when it had a problem cos no-one knew how to fix it and we had small electrical problems all the time. I sold it after my friendly mechanic said the rear axle/diff was whining and would need replaced costing a few grand.

As some of you know, I have spent a fair bit in modifying my '94 RAV. (Partly thru sentimental reasons). (Partly thru re-living my youth). The series 1 RAV appears to have been fairly sturdy, apart from the older 3SFE engine; the discs; and other sundry parts.

In this day and age, technical stuff improves, and so the charade with the dual mass flywheel (which isn't just with the RAV) is a mistake which Toyota must admit responsibility. I know that several of you, including anchorman, are working hard to gain a defined resolution. Has anyone gone to trading standards with this problem, or some of the specialist media?? You can't get away with selling a vehicle which is not fit for purpose after only 50,000 miles. Its fraud. Maybe Watchdog or similar could be informed by everyone who is affected on this forum?? Links could also be made as I believe another Toyota vehicle is affected by the same as is some Vauxhall Corsas.

In the meantime, any poor soul is welcome to contact me in regard to cheap menus; and if necessary advice regarding mental health issues.

My fathers Punto which is 3 years old and has done 19,500 miles has had to have its clutch replaced - the smallest clutch in the world I reckon!!

Campaign for reduced tax on whisky and premium grade petrol.

Ma birthdays oan St Andra's day as it happens, an am hoping tae get ma RAV back temporarily afore the roll cage is fitted.... all baked bean contributions tae yer local homeless unit please cos I micht be there one day.

[Fujisan]

You only need to look back the past couple of weeks to see how many old and

new members have been affected by this.

Reading all the post's by people who have been left stranded at the side of the road by DMF failure, really fill's me with a heavy heart and makes me very sad indeed.

And then to add insult to injury, to be slapped with a massive bill after you have suffered the inconvenience and disruption of a parts failure, that should reasonably last a good proportion of the vehicles lifetime, is frankly shocking.

I think of all the people who have never heard of the TOC, know nothing of extended warranties on the DMF, trust their Toyota dealer to supply them with the correct information and (maybe not cheerfully) accept the situation has an isolated occurance and they were just unlucky, because Toyota has a reputation for reliability and trustworthness.

The whole saga just makes me very sad and I feel desperately sorry for anybody who has previously or is suffering currently with the effects of DMF failure.

[anchorman]

After getting the first message from Toyota I thought that some of the details were too vague and would cause more confusion than do good so I held back on posting it and went back with some more questions. I must admit it went quiet for a bit and I thought we were going to have to make some assumptions but to be fair I have had a further response today while I have been at work.

What this will all mean in terms of getting warranties paid when we do get more information remains to be seen. At the end of the day (yeh, I know - its night) we are fully in the hands of Toyota in coming to a suitable conclusion so I feel we must give them a little more time.

I am currently talking to posh about her problem and will try to help her progress her current issue with her dealer so sit tight on that one and she or I will let you know what happens.

Cheers

[wack]

I told the guys at work about being told by Toyota customer service that the DMF was covered for 5 years 100K, he rang up to complain about being charged over £1500 to do a job that should have been covered under warranty.

The reply was quite frankly staggering, his(my) 05 car wasn't covered under this warranty as it had the updated parts fitted from new, the warranty only applied to older RAV4s their total contribution would be the new clutch which they had already paid for.

It seems odd that a 5 year warranty doesn't cover a car 2 1/2 years old but does cover one 4 years old, are they actually paying the whole cost of replacement or just a contribution, if it's just a contribution you may as well not bother as the labour cost of this job was over £600+vat

[chatman]

I told the guys at work about being told by Toyota customer service that the DMF was covered for 5 years 100K, he rang up to complain about being charged over £1500 to do a job that should have been covered under warranty.

The reply was quite frankly staggering, his(my) 05 car wasn't covered under this warranty as it had the updated parts fitted from new, the warranty only applied to older RAV4s their total contribution would be the new clutch which they had already paid for.

It seems odd that a 5 year warranty doesn't cover a car 2 1/2 years old but does cover one 4 years old, are they actually paying the whole cost of replacement or just a contribution, if it's just a contribution you may as well not bother as the labour cost of this job was over £600+vat

There does seem to be some mist in the replies Anchorman has had back from Toyota. But the main point relates to RAV4 models prior and upto 2002 on the 4.2 model. Yours I believe is the newest RAV to have had this happen on...being and 05 year model. It is a pain and an extreme cost because the said part is buried so deep in the engine everything needs to be removed from the bottom just to get to it....

Anchorman has been beavering away in the background with Toyota trying to decipher there comments and clearing some unclear ones up, I think it was easier cracking the Enigma code than the responses Anchorman has had back from Toyota....

Without his help and knowledge on this, I think this DMF issue so many RAV owners have had (and me just off late) we would have been left with the Toyota customer care help line operatives and the Toyota word for it. Toyota PR do watch this site so I'm sure they are aware of our disgust and pain in getting a resolution to this issue.

As said on here before, he is just awaiting some clarification issues and will then inform us all of what the exact Toyota brief is...

[anchorman]

It is taking some time to pull this together as what I want to create is one post that answers everybody's questions in one go. That way we can hopefully get it pinned so that owners can go straight to it to find the information they need. At first there were some points that simply made "not enough" sense to to post here without causing more confusion and that is the sole reason I held back.

I have spent a fair amount of time this morning talking to TGB and I have to say that they were;

a/ as anxious as we are to clarify the situation but also needed to time to pull information together

b/ very helpful and open about their stance in this subject

c/ committed to ensuring that claims are dealt with as fairly as possible but concerned that reports from different owners about different experiences are being pieced together and coming to the wrong conclusions when in fact the failures do not share common circumstances

To some extent it is down to me to create this statement and there is a limit to how much time I can spend but I will try to finish it tomorrow (Tuesday). The information will hopefully cover everything (warts and all) but I will then pass it back to TGB for proof reading. This is not so that they can edit anything out but to make sure the facts are correct so that I do not mislead anybody.

I can say that wack and Chatman are both correct in their conclusion for the following reasons. The flywheel was prone to coming loose and consequently failing up until a modification of the bolts and tightening process was introduced in August of 2002. Vehicles produced from 2002 until the run out of the 4.2 in early 2006 do not therefore qualify for the 5 year/100k warranty as they are in effect already modified. The warranty only applied to vehicles made prior to the modification and as 5 years from August 2002 passed in August 2007, that warranty is effectively obsolete. No further claims for that kind of failure will be accepted on that basis.

There are several posts on this subject and there are bits of information that in isolation can be misleading. You can hopefully see that things need a full explanation and I urge you to just sit tight and the statement will be posted ASAP.

[tomlc]

Well as far as Llandudno Toyota are concerned their customer service is incredibly bad, in fact i would say none existant.

Dealing with them has ensured i will never buy Toyota again in fact.

Sorry for a negative first post and slightly off topic but over three years we have had nothing but incompetance/negligence from them so be warned.

[chatman]

Well as far as Llandudno Toyota are concerned their customer service is incredibly bad, in fact i would say none existant.

Dealing with them has ensured i will never buy Toyota again in fact.

Sorry for a negative first post and slightly off topic but over three years we have had nothing but incompetance/negligence from them so be warned.

Went on Holiday there in 2006 luckily the RAV behaved its self.... ;)

Always bad hearing news like this. Some Dealers (not all :unsure: ) don't have good Customer Facing Skills and its a knock on effect for the whole business. :(

Is this the only dealer near you or in the county. Shame you've joined up on a sour note with the RAV and Toyota.

[Hoovie]

Tomic, on the plus side, I think both the Lindop Dealers are within reasonable distance from Llandudno (Wrexham and Queensferry) and if you check the Dealer reviews on this site, you will see they are highly regarded.

My own local dealers are very good as well (not that helps you in North Wales) but hopefully it does help show there are plenty of good Dealers out there

[s m smith]

Topic, on the plus side, I think both the Lindop Dealers are within reasonable distance from Llandudno (Wrexham and Queensferry) and if you check the Dealer reviews on this site, you will see they are highly regarded.

My own local dealers are very good as well (not that helps you in North Wales) but hopefully it does help show there are plenty of good Dealers out there :thumbs up:

i have always found Lindops ok and have bought cars from them for more than 20 years. I have also been to Llandudno Toyota a couple of times for parts, there service is slow making me wait 20 minutes for a oil filter, but one thing that caught my eye last time i was there, when you have a courtesy car of them they charge you £1 a mile were most garages it is free of charge, i have never been chaged for a courtesy car at Lindops

[bothwell_buyer]

Well as far as Llandudno Toyota are concerned their customer service is incredibly bad, in fact i would say none existant.

Dealing with them has ensured i will never buy Toyota again in fact.

Sorry for a negative first post and slightly off topic but over three years we have had nothing but incompetance/negligence from them so be warned.

I have a couple of 'pals' in that area that i could have word with if you like? Petrol burns I believe.....