Internal Gearbox Fault - Garage Taking Their Time

[rmacnair]

Hello all, I'm new to the forum after owning my 55 plate Rav4 2.0L XT-R D-4D since January.

The other night something in my gearbox went kaput and I lost all drive. So, I had the RAC recover and take it to a garage nearby.

The garage has said that to remove the gearbox takes 2 days; it's now midway through day 3 and they still haven't got it out. I understand that they are difficult to remove (even more so when its a 4WD car), but is this not a bit excessive? Are they dragging their feet to get more money out of me?

The gearbox is covered under my warranty, which includes wear and tear, so I shouldn't have to pay for the labour anyway, but until its diagnosed and approved I can't get a courtesy car on the warranty.

Anyone had experience with removing their gearbox? how long should it take?

Worst case scenario is that the Warranty refuse to cover it and I'm left with a bill greater than the cars worth, primarily as a result of the labour costs.

[Tech01]

Box out (and say a change of clutch etc) is one full day's work. Any Toyota dealer-workshop will confirm the "book" time - just ask.

Kingo (Parts King) here may also be able to quote the T. figure.

Chris

PS If you've "lost all drive", it could be a total clutch-plate failure, or a DMF failure, or both - rather than the gearbox, which tends to be pretty well bombproof.

[rmacnair]

I do love these type of forums, you guys are always spot on the money.

The garage just phoned up and said that it isn't an internal fault in the gearbox but a DMF failure, requiring a replacement of the DMF and clucth; something to do with the centre of the DMF not being solid anymore, which is a common occurance on the Rav4; I'm pretty impressed that the original flywheel and clutch has lasted over 140k miles since new.

Estimated cost is at £1,145.01 including parts, labour and VAT.

So now comes the interesting part, and maybe I should change the title; will the warranty (Warranty Direct) cover the clutch if it needs replacing as a result of a damaged DMF. They claim to cover wear and tear and a few articles from around the web show that flywheels are covered. Their policy only mentiones flywheels once and says:

What is not Insured?

Breakdown or damage caused by ... worn friction materials (inlcuding a worn clutch frictions plate damaging a flywheel)

If I can get it all on the warranty I will only have to pay out £322 so fingers crossed.

[Tech01]

Good to know the box is AOK. DMFs of this vintage can and do fail, and usually take the clutch-plate with them. A wearing DMF (which gets rotationally sloppy) will accelerate wear on the clutch plate, and eventually destroy it.

Annoyingly, Dual Mass Flywheels are now regarded as "consumable items" by more than one vehicle manufacturer, which may require "periodic replacement" as and when necessary. It is standard advice by everyone to replace both DMF and clutch-plate together.

You can either go DMF (from Toyota, or others) - yours has lasted fairly well, I suppose*, or replace it at much lower cost with a Single Mass Flywheel (SMF) kit, available from ADL-Blueprint, or Borg+Beck - avoid unknown makes. Many of us have done the SMF conversion (kit consists of standard solid flywheel, plus full 3-part conventional clutch), with generally no reported problems. Google ADL-Blueprint, or Borg & Beck for details, and see other posts on this forum.

Good luck with the Warranty Direct claim, and do let us know how you get on.

Chris

* Mine failed at 60k miles, and second Toyota DMF (updated) failed just 24k miles later. Now Blueprint SMF and AOK at 110k mi.

[bothwell_buyer]

The guys at my preferred garage have a clutch change down to about 3 hours !"!!!!! But then they are not a Toyota dealer.