Toyota Responsability

[JacobRAV4]

Hi

I own 2 RAV-4 since I liked this car.

The older one is about 7 years old and I have a gear problem with this one.

Recently I have severe problems with the gear, in order to repair I need to replace the Gear with the computer attached to it, the cost is around 7500 US$ for a used GHear and 14000 us$ for a new gear.

Eventhough that the car has years old, it made quite small munber of kilometers so far, only 80,000 km.

Some experts told me that this problem is quite known wuth this model of RAV-4 and the root is problem witg the computer that within time damage the gear.

The local distributor tend to provide about 30% discount for the parts, the cost I mentioned here is after this discount, and this is for a used gear, so now I have to wait until a used gear will be avaliable. I can hardly use the car,The distributor does not recognized any responsability for this problem.

Anyone heared about any sumiliar problem with Toyota ?

Any advise what to do ?

Thank you.

[IanXT4]

Hello

I assume from your email you are having problems with your Automatic gear box and its ECU/computer.

I believe there was a fault in some cars made from 2001 to 2003. If you have this fault there is a possibility that you can send your ECU to a specialist company in the USA for a quick and cost effective repair. Some people have found that just their ECU is faulty and they repaired it before the gearbox was damaged.

Are you sure your gearbox is damaged, is the transmission oil black and contaminated ?

All the information regarding this particular fault was discussed previously in this RAV UK forum thread

http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105216&st=0&p=958298&fromsearch=1entry958298

Two sites highlighted in this thread were

Further USA thread

http://rav4world.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15515&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=60

The USA specialist repair company is at

http://www.RAV4ECM.net

I would suggest you read the above information and then email the USA repair company with your symptoms and get some advice.

[JacobRAV4]

[Thank you very much.

I will read where you pointed me.

But just to indicate that I am not from U.S, I am from Israel.

I don't know if this is only the computyer or also the gerabox, in the garage they told me that it is both.

I just don't understand Toyota behavior , after all they probably know that this problem is from the production, it is true that the car is beyond warranty period but still they have to be fair with the csutomers, especially when the car did such short mileage.

Do you think that there is any point to contact toyota international and ask them to take responasability ? any chance ?

Thank you,

Jacob

[IanXT4]

I did see you were from Israel

In the UK I suspect most of the RAV4's sold around 2001-2003 were manual gearbox's (Stick shift to an American).

So it is not a common fault in the UK.

However in the USA almost all cars sold are automatic and therefore the problem has been more obvious there.

I beleive one person from Norway sent his ECU to the USA for repair and even with shipping it was a very reasonable repair compared to a new unit.

I do not know if Toyota have extended the warranty on this part, usually they do it first in the USA due to the ease of starting Class Action's on behalf of customers. You might want to post your problem/question on an American forum ?

You could then try to contact the main office for Toyota in Israel quoting any information you have gathered to support your case ?

Otherwise, at seven years the best I suspect you could expect would would be a contribution/discount to the work which its sounds as though they have offered.

[JacobRAV4]

You are right, the Toyota distributor here offered me a discount, still it is very expensive, the garage asked after the discount - 3000 us$ for a used gerabox and 500 us$ for a new computer, so i am waiting for a used gerabox now, who knows when there will be 1 avaliable.

I wonder if it would be enough only to replace the computer (ecm unit), I will ask for the garage opinion tommorow.

I have send an email to the expert in N.Y Brooklyn to have his advice.

In the link attached you can see that Toyota had extended the warranty for these items because of the problem, I wonder id this is only for U.S customers or worldwide.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/toyota-extends-warranty-on-troubled-2001-3-rav4/

Thank you very much.