Nothing Is That Simple

 

As you may recall, our newest vehicle bought about four weeks ago, was involved in a deer suicide about a week later that messed up all that white plastic that covers the front bumper area. I took it to get it fixed, a four day job I was told, and here I am three weeks later and it still isn't in my possession though you can see from the picture of the damaged area I took this morning, it looks brand new again.

Our local dealership doesn't have an autobody shop and so all repairs have to be shuttled to a larger city miles away or to use one of the other autobody places here in town, including one at another dealership that sells Chevrolet and Jeep products. I chose the latter because I wanted to end up with OEM or parts made by the Original Equipment Manufacturer versus cheaper knockoff parts that seem to flood the market. It was repaired in about five days and just needed to be buffed and an error code cleared. 

Then silence ensued.

I kept stopping in applying pressure and finally after a week they admitted that it was buffed but they couldn't clear the code without taking it across town to the Toyota dealership where I had bought it. I told them to go ahead.

Then silence ensued.

We went on vacation, I was too busy on other things to follow through and another week slips by before I could apply more pressure. I finally was told that the ECU or Electronic Control Unit was shot and needed replaced. But there are none to be found anywhere in the United States, they are back ordered and no idea of when another one might be found. To make matters worse, the dealerships seemed to be avoiding one another and trying to work all this out with me.

I still don't understand how the ECU, located behind the dash, far from the front bumper, got damaged and the car ran fine for a week after hitting the deer. Typically, according to google, when ECU's go bad, modern cars are pretty much undrivable. So after sleeping on it, I went down to the Toyota dealership this morning to apply more pressure. I told them I want a loaner car until the warranteed ECU arrives and get installed. They finally acquiesced and said that the car is indeed drivable and that we could use it until the new ECU module arrives. But first I had to go to the dealership with the autobody shop first to clear my account which meant they have to come pick it up from the Toyota dealership and do a test drive to verify their work is complete and the vehicle safe to drive. I told them I want it done TODAY in no uncertain terms.

As I type this, I await their call.

Meanwhile, school practices are starting up for our daughter's sports and with not one, but two others living with us (one until September) who want active social lives but can't drive, I am not getting much accomplished these days other than being a Uber driver for free. Hopefully with my wife's car back today, that pressure can ease up somewhat.

What worries me is that we were on the waiting list for nearly 9 months due to a computer chip shortage that is still going on in Toyota's world anyway and as one might expect, the ECU has one of those computer chips. 

Aaaaarrrrgh!

Update: Three weeks later, an ECU module has been located and is scheduled to be implanted tomorrow in what I am told is a three hour transplantation. I'm not optimistic that it will solve all the error codes still flashing on the main display. But, the car has been driving just fine otherwise these last three weeks. 

Also, after sleeping on things, I did submit an insurance claim for everything after the fact. I had talked to the insurance agent the day of the accident so filing all this time later wasn't hard at all. They called the body shop to obtain the pictures and list of parts replaced and approved everything. The check is in the mail. Since I just payed my policy premiums for the upcoming year, I'm assuming any raise in premiums will happen 12 months from now. Only then will I get a sense of whether or not filing a claim was the right thing to do. I hate dealing with insurance.