Way to beat Extra Care rip-off?

Those extended warranties are so much bullshit.

How do you know that you need a new transfer case? It is possible that the necessary parts are minor or very easy to replace, in which case a transfer case replacement is an unnecessary expense. As far as the re-assembly falling apart, the dealer repair has a service parts warranty, probably 12 months, 12,000 miles or so.

Unless repair guidelines have changed, I am not aware of any Toyota repair guidelines that indicate that any transfer case problem automatically warranty a unit replacement instead of a repair.

Transfer cases are pretty simple units. They've been repaired before in my shop. I'm sure that if the repair fell under the normal factory warranty, a new unit would be installed. Ray knows more about that, but I figure the reason being that the factory would want the unit back for inspection or rebuild. Other than that, repairing the unit seems like a normal solution.

It the dealer does the work, you will have a fresh one-year, 12,000 mile warranty on the repair work. Of course, beyond that, you are on your own.

Generally, however, if the problem originally occurs and you seek repairs during the valid period of your Extra Care warranty (I assume you are talking about the Toyota company warranty, not some third-party warranty), the dealer should fix it even after the warranty expires. So if the initial repair is unsatisfactory, it shouldn't matter that the warranty expired, you are still owed a repair.

Merritt

Toyota switched to automatic transmission assembly replacement for warranty repairs because the number of repeat repairs was too high. Ironically, the low number of automatic transmission repairs meant that many Toyota techs had little or no experience with automatic transmission repairs so Toyota could control repair quality more closely with a factory authorized transmission repair center. To be honest, I don't know if the same policy applies towards transfer cases, which are much simpler devices.

Although Toyota Extra Care is part of the Toyota family, it is run independently and is a separate profit and expense center and is an insurance policy, not actually a warranty.

Bottom line for the OP, any repairs done by the dealer are covered by the balance of the factory warranty, Extra Care policy, or the 12 month, 12,000 miles service parts warranty, whichever is longer.

Yikes. Maybe I told you guys the wrong thing. Maybe she didn't say it was the transfer case. I'll be checking on that tomorrow. And by no means did dealer service lady say anything about repair work having its own warranty. You guys are talking about the parts themselves, aren't you? You're not claiming the whole reassembled unit would now have a new 12/12,000 guardian watching over it, are you? She was pretty emphatic that I'd be on my own if the assembly wore out for a reason other than one of the new parts. I'll dig deeper and let you know. You still didn't address Vengeance, Putting Pressure on Toyota, Consumer Outcry, and Invading Japan. ... Thanks, copperfield

The back of your copy of the repair order will have the service repair warranty. What will be warranted is the defects in the replaced parts and labor associated with replacing those parts. For example, if the dealer replaces the input shaft bearing and it fails 6 months later, then it would be covered by the service parts warranty but if the output shaft bearing failed, then it would not be covered by the service parts warranty.

Maybe they're simple on Toyotas but they sure as hell aren't on Dodge Dakotas...I had some trouble with one which cost me 1200 bucks, then six months later it blew up again which cost 7 or 800 bucks. The damned things are full of large gears and huge husky steel chain-belts. Lubed by about one litre of some special oil...a nightmare...

Come to think of it, how may posts about transfer case problems on Toyotas do you see here? The OP's post is the first I can remember, and I never saw one when I was in the business.

"Ray O" wrote: snip

I see 8 Ray, 4 by others and 4 by you...none mention you 'being in the business' (that I see)...does that help?

I guess I didn't state my point very clearly. I probably should have said that the OP's post is the only transfer case problem that I can recall, either in this group or when I was visiting dealerships.

Ahh!...I see, I thought that you were looking for a 'missing post' or something!...sorry, I see your meaning now...