Ask The Best And Brightest: Welcome To The (Toyota Parts) Jungle
I got the call yesterday from a friend of mine. His long-serving 1999 Land Cruiser V8, purchased new and driven well past the 150K-mile mark, had a bad alternator. Could I pick him up at the dealer? Sure could.
The fellow I picked up was a lot more annoyed than the relatively calm fellow who had pulled his Cruiser into the Toyota service bay. The prospect of losing an alternator after twelve years didn’t bother him in the slightest. Instead, it was what had happened when the service writer called his name…
“It’s a bad alternator,” the man from Toyota had explained. “The part is expensive, kinda… $937. Because it’s a Land Cruiser. They’re all expensive and stuff, you know.” Little did he know that my friend had used his Blackberry to check the price of a “Genuine Toyota” alternator while waiting in the service lounge. Would you believe that it was available from multiple sources for $241? A rather heated exchange followed the disclosure of this knowledge.
Put yourself in my friend’s shoes. Would you have your Cruiser towed somewhere else for the repair, after verifying pricing at the aforementioned somewhere else? Would you try to supply your own alternator to this dealer? Would you just trade it in on a new Land Cruiser, which given the relative excellence of the ’99 and ’11 models would be a lot like trading a vinyl copy of Rubber Soul for a Pipes Of Peace CD? Would you call the Toyota regional rep? The franchise owner?
My suggestion: have it fixed, sell it to one of the people out there who are willing to pay five figures for twelve-year-old Cruisers, and buy a Ford Raptor Crew Cab. What’s yours?
More by Jack Baruth
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If that was a service adviser then he was being quoted with labor. To that, Chrysler, GM, Toyota, Honda and just about all other manufacturers no longer allow aftermarket parts to be installed in their shops. That means you can't get a remaned alternator installed at the Toyota dealership, but you could get a Chinese or Mexican remaned installed at a local mechanic for a few hundred bucks, which has been stated already. Factory parts are typically 2 to 6 times the cost of aftermarket, so his quote was about the norm.
Some clown sales guy at Mazda in Etobicoke on Dundas St. on my question what's up with Mazdas rusting in the XXI century tried to tell me that you have to buy a special coating for $1K. And tried to tell me that Mazda2 and Fiesta are not based on the same platform. I laughed in his face. A day later a friend of mine who was with me during last visit went to said stealership with his wife. That clown fell on his knees and asked my friend not to bring me with him for a visit anymore!
Jack: heated argument, and then what? Did he get it replaced there? If so how much did he pay for it? If not, what did he do?
OK, so how do you go about finding a reputable independent mechanic? How will you know just by looking at an ad, or making a few calls that some shop isn't going to do something similar or, tell you that in addition to your alternator, the tech also noticed that your ball joints are worn, the u joints are ready to fail and water pump is making noise? How can the average Joe find that good honest mechanic without trial and error, or waste his time and money towing his vehicle around getting a dozen estimates? Not being sarcastic here, I'm really looking for ideas.