Toyota on Thursday announced the recall of 1.5 million vehicles

[renovation]

I'm starting to feel bad for Toyota .OK there American mechanics. these guys work on commission and i know there limited on the amount they make fixing recalls. times are Tuff right now and I'm sure owners are getting tired of having to sit at the dealerships to have the cars inspected and fixed if needed . i know of one person who got a recall letter on his Toyota truck and is told he be given a loaner for a month. while its frames being replaced .thats fine but the problem he is facing. it will be a car not a truck and he works out of this truck. its his only work vehicle so he cant hauls his tools around in a car.also you have to unload all your stuff from in it before you drop it off.

[EvilHorace]

Although it looks bad, the reason why Toyota's stepping up to the plate and making these repairs recalls instead of campaigns is because of public scrutiny after all the gas pedal BS last year. They're being overly proactive and catching potential problems before things make bad press.

In my 32+ yrs working on cars, I can assure you that no car is perfect, all manufacturers use parts that sooner or later create problems. Most of these parts related problems are never recalls as they fail after the warranty is up and don't directly cause accidents, usually because someone notices the problem and fixes it.

There is no perfect, flawless car. Matter of fact, all cars are designed to only go so long (planned obsolescence) so that you buy another car in a few years (like 4) and preferably the same make you bought last time.

[b-man1]

Although it looks bad, the reason why Toyota's stepping up to the plate and making these repairs recalls instead of campaigns is because of public scrutiny after all the gas pedal BS last year. They're being overly proactive and catching potential problems before things make bad press.

In my 32+ yrs working on cars, I can assure you that no car is perfect, all manufacturers use parts that sooner or later create problems. Most of these parts related problems are never recalls as they fail after the warranty is up and don't directly cause accidents, usually because someone notices the problem and fixes it.

There is no perfect, flawless car. Matter of fact, all cars are designed to only go so long (planned obsolescence) so that you buy another car in a few years (like 4) and preferably the same make you bought last time.

well said. i think my IS350 escapes this one, as it is one model year newer than the effected list (hopefully...we shall see). another thing to note about all the recalls is very few of the cars actually have a problem...it's all preventative. it's not like every 1.5 million cars requested back in for repair are about to explode.

[Justlookin]

I'm starting to feel bad for Toyota .OK there American mechanics. these guys work on commission and i know there limited on the amount they make fixing recalls. times are Tuff right now and I'm sure owners are getting tired of having to sit at the dealerships to have the cars inspected and fixed if needed . i know of one person who got a recall letter on his Toyota truck and is told he be given a loaner for a month. while its frames being replaced .thats fine but the problem he is facing. it will be a car not a truck and he works out of this truck. its his only work vehicle so he cant hauls his tools around in a car.also you have to unload all your stuff from in it before you drop it off.

Actually Reno, I was a mech for 30 years and I actually could make money on recalls. The first few of course you had to beat the learning curve, but then you could actually beat flat rate once you did it repeatedly. Recalls were always nice to fall back on when other customer work was slow. mile

[EvilHorace]

another thing to note about all the recalls is very few of the cars actually have a problem...it's all preventative

Very true with Toyota. Of all the past recalls, the ONLY actual real problems we've seen was with rear brake caliper slides seizing which would effect uneven pad wear eventually but here in the "salt belt", brake caliper slides seizing is hardly a rare problem with any car when they've been through a few winters here.
The newest one where brake fluid leaks from the master cyls rear seal, we've seen a few of those on older, high mileage RX 330s and it's a slow leak where when the fluid gets low, the brake light comes on so it's not like you'll have no brakes unless you ignore the RED brake light on the dash. Those who previously paid for those repairs will be reimbursed and wasn't cheap, required new master cyl and booster. Toyota says the problem occured from people putting in the wrong brake fluid but they use Dot3 fluid (extremely common, used by most) so who knows?

The current valve spring recall is huge but apparently only one car somewhere in the world actually had one break. Shops are having teams of 3 or so people doing nothing but those recalls so the rest of us are having to work late to pick up the workload they once had before. That'll last months yet and it's been good for the rest of us.

In general, yes recalls are good for dealer techs as you can usually beat the times once you know what to do.

As for the Toyota truck frame replacement recall, those pay 60 flat rate hours and take about 40 hours to do from what I've heard. Sure, frames rotting away like that today isn't good but when I first started working on Japanese cars in the early 80's, those cars had serious rust problems in 5-7 years in northern states where they use salt in winters. The cars simply didn't last here, American cars weren't much better then either but cars also cost alot less than they do now. We pretty much expect a new car to last at least 10 yrs. My 8-10 yr old used cars (when I get them) last me another 10-15 yrs on the average.

[FlyingPenguin]

Mechanics work on commissions? That's new to me. I thought mechanics get a straight hourly wage. What about it Evil?

I know the dealer gets paid for the labor by the manufacturer, and it's not as much for warranty/recall work as they would get for regular work.

[CaterpillarAssassin]

Fp,

Most dealer mechanics get paid a set flay rate that varies per job. The flat rate is in hours, and each tech has an hourly rate. So your brake job might have a flat rate of 2 hours. If they spend 1hr good for the tech, but if they spend 3 hr on it oh well they get paid for 2. It helps normalize Costa for the customer if the tech has problems or is just slow.

I was recently at a Toyota dealer and notices all the frames outside. I didn't realize there was a recall on them. I never thought it would be practical to replace a frame. Guess it is.

[EvilHorace]

Yes FP, we're paid flat rate which is commission. An experienced tech usually beats the times but there are some jobs that you lose on too. When we're slow and just standing around not working on cars, we're not being paid at all.

As for the truck frames, if the truck is really bad they just buy it from the customer and total it. They're very generous too, they give the owner far more $$ than it's worth and people are happy to get that. Now, you know that if it were another brand, they'd probably not give you much of anything.