Is that a coupe de car?
This noon I picked up Phryne the Venza from Camelback Toyota. They did indeed change out the struts. Claimed the cost was $386+++, said they were charging it against the “Platinum” extended warranty coverage, and soaked me a $50 “deductible.”
Ohhhkayyyy….
Meanwhile, Pete — soon to become the new owner of Chuck’s (Astonishingly Wonderful) Automotive Repair, was dubious. He said that many Toyota warranties are actually farmed out to second parties, and that they were licensed to do warranty repairs for some of them. When I couldn’t find anything saying who might actually be backing these things and couldn’t get Brian down at Toyota to tell me the secret, I called back and got Chuck Himself on the phone. He said to bring the paperwork down and he would tell me a) what is covered and b) whether they can do the work under the warranty.
So after I retrieved the car from the Toyota joint (having photographed the rental — which is what loaners are, now: rental cars — from all angles before turning it in) (No…no, i surely do NOT trust them), I trotted down to Chuck’s, where both proprietors were holding forth.
Both men went through all the paper I’d been given. They couldn’t find any sign of a so-called “Platinum” extended warranty, nor could any of us find any evidence that the warranty I was sold is backed by anyone other than Toyota. It appears that if I bought one, I wasn’t given a contract. But they think I probably did not buy one. The only items that are covered on the Certified Used extended warranty — good for 7 years or 100,000 miles — are parts of the drive train.
Needless to say, hatchback gate struts are not part of the drive train. 😀
We contemplated this. I remarked that what must have happened was I uttered the magic words: “And it fell on my head.”
By then the Camelback Toyota crew must have figured out that I’d called the AG’s office on Bell Road Toyota. Brian probably figured the next words to come out of my mouth would be “…and I’m gonna sue your asses.”
HeeeeHEEEEEE!
Well, that’s our speculation.
Whatever happened, apparently Camelback Toyota gave me a break on the repair job.
Not as incandescent a break as they’d like to make it appear: you can buy those struts at an auto parts store for about $37, and the repair takes about 10 minutes per strut. If that long.
But I suppose $50 is about what their cost was, and it was one helluva lot better than $386.
We now know that Chuck’s can work on anything that’s not part of the drive train. Drive train repairs: to Camelback Toyota.
Postscript: Check out this exceptionally clever solution for failed hatchback and hood struts!
And my last word (i hope) (for awhile) on cars:
The rental/loaner/WTF they gifted me with was a late-model RAV-4 — only 9,000 miles on it, so presumably a 2015 or 2016. Dunno if you’ve been watching the reviews of Toyota vehicles (how many people, really, spend their spare time reading Edmunds?), but when the present version came out, car reviewers expressed their disappointment. I’m not going to try to track down those reviews…but can say that for some years La Maya drove an earlier version of the RAV-4. It was a very nice vehicle, classy on the inside and roomy enough for us to carry furniture from estate sales to her house and to M’hijito’s place.
That’s not altogether so today. The car is nice enough, but its interior trim has been plasticized and cheapied down. It really does NOT hold a candle to the Venza, which unfortunately Toyota took out of production last year.
The Venza’s interior, with its fake walnut trim (possibly real, under layers of shiny plastic??) and its mega-electronic approach to driving, is much classier and much easier and more intuitive to operate. Well. To the extent that the electronic stuff can be said to be “intuitive.”
The RAV-4 has mechanical dials for the heating/air-conditioning (for example), but the thing takes three controls to operate, at least one of which requires you to pull over, park, and search for it if you’re to figure out how to use the system.
The RAV-4 is cramped in front: with my friend Lee in the passenger seat last night, we had a time finding room on the floor on his side for my choir binder and hymnal. Believe me…these are not massive items!
The ride is OK but…tinny. The RAV-4’s four-banger, which performs well on city streets (didn’t take it on the freeway) sounds a little whiny in action. The Venza’s six-banger performs…well…as Pegasus to Old Stewball…
So I feel a little better about the choice of new cars…though I do still miss the Dog Chariot. Phryne reminds me of my beloved, classy Camry, the one I traded in the Mercedes for and that made me feel it actually was better than the Mercedes. That Camry. {sigh}
They don’t make Camry’s like that anymore, either.
Not your father’s Camry. That’s for damn sure. 😉
When I was looking for a new vehicle a couple of years ago, I wanted one of the mini SUV type vehicles – I tried the Honda and Toyota offerings – and NOPE.
I love my Mazda CX-5 – it’s not all leather and wood panelling by any means, but it feels solidly built, has a reasonable mix of technology (backup camera, touch screen) and analog – one dial for temperature, one dial for fan speed, one dial to control which vents the air blows out of
Also, it’s wicked fun to drive 🙂
Is the CX-5 the sporty one? Years ago a friend of mine had one of those. He loved it!
I actually looked at those briefly, too. The problem is, in Arizona you really need a LOT of steel between you and your fellow homicidal drivers. Apparently it’s objectively true that we have some of America’s worst driving going on here…a recent news article claimed the state is renowned for the eighth-worst driving in the country. Hilarious, but not surprising…
Silliness aside, though, I do feel unsafe driving around here: surface-street speeds are very high, speeds on heavily traveled in-town freeways commonly exceed 80 mph (no cameras, no cops), drivers are aggressive and “entitled,” and insurance rates are high for a reason. My own choice of a crossover, SUV, or pick-up comes from a sense that I need a vehicle to be high enough off the pavement for me to see around traffic ahead, heavy enough to withstand a 40- to 50-mph collision without catastrophic damage, and powerful enough to get me out of a dicey situation at high speed.
That narrows your choice of models significantly…
The CX-5 is a “mini” SUV – or “cute-ute” – it fits the niche where the hatchback/station wagon used to be. I wanted to be *taller* than my old sedan, but I didn’t want to be driving a full size SUV.
I drove all the cars in this category – and the Mazda was by far the most fun to drive – most responsive handling wise, and had enough pep for a 4-banger that, as someone who has ALWAYS driver a 6 cylinder vehicle, I felt ok in going down to just 4 cylinders.
I’m getting about 27-28 mpg – which is better than to 20-22 I was getting in my Pontiac Grand Am – and since I’m a leadfoot, I’m feeling reasonably pleased 😀
It’s getting very hard to find a six-banger, outside of truckdom. That’s pretty good mileage for a crossover/SUV type vehicle! The things are not all that lightweight.
My son’s Ford Escape has a 4-cylinder engine, too. He says the turbo-charged 4-banger is as zippy as a 6-cylinder behemoth. I dunno… When I first got into the Venza idea — because my pal KJG & her hubby have one, and they REALLY love it — I test-drove the car first in a 4-cylinder and then in a 6-cylinder vehicle, one right after the other.
And yeah: the 4-cylinder is plenty peppy and seems powerful enough, at least for city driving and where you’re not towing anything. But yeah…you CAN tell the difference between the 4 and the 6.
I expect the 6-cylinder gets muy worse mileage than the 4. But…if it takes me out of a tight situation someday, it’ll be worth it.
Admittedly, in my old age I’m marginally wiser than I was even 10 years ago…but still…not above the occasional…uhm…assertive maneuver.
Monday we may go up Yarnell Hill in the thing. In that case, we’ll see how it does on a long, steep uphill haul.
Well Funny…It would appear the “bandits” at the dealership did you a “solid”…. Car dealerships are complicated and believe it or not the REAL money is in the “service and parts departments”. The sale of new cars is a low margin business and the high volume of used cars available has depressed pricing and margins. That leaves S & P and Finance to carry the load…Glad it worked out. And Mazda’s are top of the line…very well designed. I bought a Mazda “diesel” pick up in 1984 for under $7K new… on the street….Drove that truck almost 20 years. What’s crazy to me is that in ’84 that truck got 42@MPG and I actually got almost 50MPG on a long trip to the ocean. Yet today’s offerings don’t offer MPG’s even close despite being 7 times the cost….32 years later…..
That’s exactly what it looks like, isn’t it? I did remark to the guy that I was unhappy with Bell Road Toyota and in fact would probably never buy another Toyota again. He probably figured if he could keep me happy I’d come back to Camelback for service. I surely will for anything that’s covered on the warranty. For anything that I have to pay for out of pocket, though, it’s straight to Chuck’s, where I know I won’t be ripped off.
It’s telling, I think, that a small operation like Chuck’s NEVER HAS TO ADVERTISE. All their business is by word-of-mouth. Apparently mechanics who are competent AND honest are so rare and so much in demand that people fall all over themselves when they find one. Chuck has three guys in his business — four, but one is out of commission with a shoulder injury — and is maxed out with work all the time.
42 MPG! Wow! The Venza is supposedly getting around 20 mpg — though I haven’t calculated that manually. I thought the RAV4, with its 4-banger, must be doing better — its computerized figures are shown in real time rather than as an average over a trip — but then realized the thing consumed a quarter of a tank of gas(!!!) in one round-trip to Scottsdale plus a short detour from 16th St to the grocery stores at 20th St (that would be maybe…three or four miles round trip — you could walk from 16th & Camelback to 20th & Camelback easily) and a round trip down to the church (about 6 miles RT). So…a quarter of a tank of gas to drive to Scottsdale in a 4-banger? Holy mackerel!
That would suggest, I think, that possibly the RAV-4 with a 4-banger (they don’t make it with a 6-cylinder engine) is really no more fuel-efficient than a slightly bigger car with a more powerful engine. Hmmmm… Can that be right????
The RAV-4, if it’s a newer model, has a couple of modes – my friend bought one, and was getting terrible mileage until he figured out he needed to get out of “sport” mode – and then his gas consumption dropped down considerably!
Toyota really messed up the RAV-4, which used to be one if their niftiest models (if you like or need that type of vehicle). “Sport mode.”{snort!} WHAT PART OF “IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT” DO THEY FAIL TO GRASP??????
I had a friend who worked on a tech support line at GM where they took calls from people that were asking for help with out of coverage claims. You’d be surprised at how much they actually do cover based on the individual circumstance. Having a lift fall on your head is probably going to make that decision pretty easy.
Ha ha! I should’ve said it knocked me out…maybe they would’ve given me four new tires in the deal!!! 😀
While I love my 2009 Toyota Prius (which I purchased as a 4 year old used car at a Toyota dealer), the service plan I purchased with it was worthless. It would only cover service at exactly the recommended mileage, so when I tried to get an oil change after less than 5k miles, I was told by one Toyota dealer that it wasn’t covered even though it had been about 6 months since my last oil change.
I had to get a new battery (not the hybrid battery, just the normal one) after less than a year of ownership, but that wasn’t covered under the “Toyota Certified” one-year warranty OR the maintenance plan because it’s considered “standard wear and tear.” !@#%! At least the warranty paid for a couple jump starts and the towing from my garage to the dealer for the battery replacement. I finally had enough of the crappy plan I had bought and cancelled it. I was glad to get at least a partial refund, too.
For the most part, my car has been problem free, though. I found a great local mechanic and am taking it there for service.
Wait… They’ll give you a refund if you cancel the “Certified” warranty? Or was this one you’d purchased?
The guys at Chuck’s said some of their customers had “warranties” they’d bought at places other than the dealer — Costco used to offer one (but apparently dumped it…possibly for the reason you describe? And apparently some credit unions sell them. They said repairs on a couple customers’ cars — in the thousand-dollar range — were covered by these things. Unclear to me, though, was that the warranty itself cost $1200 or $1500, so it had that “rob-Peter-to-Pay-Pay-Paul” ring to it.