Agreed, Ptuning is far from being a shady shop... probably one of the best shops in the country. I have a hard time believing they would turn their heads, there must be somthing missing out of that story. I heard somthing but im no gossiper...

 

sucks OP. can't say i'm surprised though. Many factors at play here:

1) Rule 1 of Tuning: Don't play if you can't afford to pay. It seems that you had budgeted enough for the install of these parts, but didnt' have enough in the bank to cover u in the event of something going wrong. In cases like this, i would strongly advice against having any technical work done (ie. disassembling trans/gears/diff/etc...)

2) It does suck, but both parties are pretty much right. Ptuning can just say that you car was modified prior to them working on it, and by your own admission, it drove 500 miles after they worked on it.

Toyota can just say, it was obviously fine from the factory, since u drove it that long with no problems. also, Ptuning did the work in question, not Toyota, so in no way are they responsible nor do they have to honor the warranty.

3.You let Ptuning and Toyo Dealership communicate with each other. Now toyo/scion knows everything that Ptuning knows, and they can discuss how they can both avoid being responsible for your repairs.

4. The Scion tc is a new car. It hasn't been around long enough for anyone to be an "expert" on it. Lots of shops that work on these cars are doing so for the first time. They think its going to be a piece of cake, then they realize they got in over their head and try to find ways to charge u more for what is seemingly routine work.

Theres not much precendent for TRD LSD installs. so its hard to say who will do it right the first time.

IMO, your best bet is to just put a stop payment (if u can) on your Ptuning bill and let them take u to court. Keep all your receipts and paperwork to show that you basically had to redo everything they did because of mechanicla failure.

If you've already paid them, then just file a case in civil court.

Lemon law is out of the question. idk man, seems like your stuck in a tough spot. hopefully it all works out for you! But if anything, i'm sure it will be a good learning experience.

 

troll

 

First off let me first start by stating some facts:

1) We’ve installed the TRD (aka Quaife) LSD on tCs prior to and after Chris’ install.
One car that comes to mind is a Greddy turbocharged tC that is daily driven and sees the occasional drag strip visits. The car immediately following his was our turbocharged Time Attack tC. The customer with the Greddy tC has been driving around for over a year now with ZERO issues. Our Time Attack car was thoroughly abused at Summit Point raceway and saw many miles after that with ZERO issues.
2) Chris fully acknowledged that his tC has always had a reverse grinding problem even before he brought us the car. He felt that maybe when the new clutch was installed, it would help to resolve this chronic problem .
3) His dad called us after the dealership “FIXED” Chris’ transmission and asked us why reverse gear was grinding. We told him Chris was already aware of this problem.
4) Chris provided ALL of the parts for the install, including the highly-suspect Royal Purple transmission oil, which we felt looked like it had the viscosity of grape juice (poured out almost like water). Btw, we DO NOT sell Royal Purple (we deal mainly with BG and Greddy for engine oils) and therefore did not question Chris on his choice of trans oil. *** More on this later ***
5) Chris had a major vibration problem coming from what he thought were his brakes. As it turns out, when we went to remove the driver’s side driveshaft on his car, the threaded part of the stub axle was bent (YES a BENT stub axle, don’t even ask me how the last shop managed that – probably used a sledge hammer to force the axle out of the hub carrier). He claimed that the last shop that installed his front sway bar must have done it (why they had to remove his front axle to install a front sway bar seemed fishy to us).
Needless to say, Chris was driving around for some time with the driver’s side axle held on by a partially, threaded-on axle nut. Since the last shop was not able to tighten down the nut, his car was shaking badly at speeds. The last shop told him it was probably caused by his larger than factory sway bar (I know it doesn’t make any sense, right?).
The significance of this point is that a wobbly wheel and axle is going to inevitably send shock loads to your transmission (no doubt about that). Oh yeah, Chris did go on to purchase an OEM replacement, since there was NO WAY we were going to let his car leave with the same defective axle (no way to tighten down the axle nut).

Now onto the LSD install:
There is only ONE way to install the fifth gear/syncro assembly; you CANNOT put the c-clip (retains fifth gear syncro assembly) back onto the transmission shaft without having fifth gear properly clocked on the transmission shaft, much less put the housing together. In other words, there is NO WAY that the car would have been able to shift into fifth gear, since there is NO WAY the transmission would have even gone back together.

The transmission does not use cotter pins or safety wire to retain any of the components. The final fifth gear/ trans-shaft assembly is held down in the same fashion as the axle nut; with a dimpled notch to prevent the nut from vibrating loose, nothing more nothing less. The so called “SAFETY WIRE” that the dealership found was a 360 degree, almost full-circle, retaining wire that holds the fifth gear syncro assembly together. If your fifth gear syncro goes bye, bye, so does this retaining wire, so this is no surprise. I really don’t know why the dealership told Chris a “Magyver style” retaining wire was used in the assembly of the transmission. As for the missing cotter pins, I would hope that they were missing, since the transmission DOES NOT use any.
As for the sloppy seal on the transmission. How many people here can RTV an oil pan without having any RTV ooze out from the edges? Exactly! If you look at an untouched, factory transmission or oil pan, there will always be RTV oozing out from the side. If this becomes such an issue, I will have to send all my techs to Betty Crocker cake decorating school to ensure that they are able to lay down a perfect bead of RTV.

As for the questioning of why we did not know about the potentially faulty syncro:
Chris came in for an LSD install, NOT a transmission rebuild! We ALWAYS do our best to let customers know when we see something obvious, like a chipped syncro tooth, etc. But unfortunately, we are not Metallurgists here. We cannot determine whether your fifth gear syncro was on its way out or not. Let me give you an example: If a customer goes to a shop to get a set of cams installed on his/her EVO, the install tech will perform the install of the cams and may inspect the timing belt, or cam bearing caps, or such, during the install. He/she is not going to remove all 16 rocker arms and lifters, and send them off for magnafluxing to determine whether failure is imminent. In a nut shell, we do our best to look after the customer’s best interest, but can only go so far. We cannot predict the future here.

As for our conversations with the said dealership, when we first spoke to the tech there he told us the install was fine and that there was nothing wrong with the install. Just so happens that the third gear syncro went out that’s all (yes third gear). Upon calling back the dealership to talk to them again per Chris’s request, they told us that the fifth gear syncro was bad (everybody still on track here).

Our next few conversations with the dealership went from that the fifth gear being bad to the third gear, and finally with the dealership settling on the fifth gear being bad. We really don’t want to bad mouth the said dealership in any way, but there is a reason why probably 9 out of 10 Scion/Toyota dealerships do not even offer install on the TRD LSD. Somebody has to know what the heck they are doing. How many people here go to the dealership to get their turbo kit installed? Our point exactly. They refer these customers to us or other reputable specialty shops to take care of things outside their scope of expertise.

It came as no surprise to us that in the end, the dealership went from saying there was nothing wrong with our install to blaming everything on us. Here you have an irate customer with a large bill on his hand and his father ultimately has to pay for the labor.

There are a few of you here that obviously feel that Chris (Drax) is getting screwed over by us. Let me tell you this; whether the bill is $5 or $5000 is not the point here. It is a matter of principle. If we were in the wrong here we would have definitely been footing the bill. But as it stands, the install was done properly. Had we dropped a box of graham crackers into the transmission during the install, then yes, we would definitely be pointing the finger at ourselves, but remember, unless, you’ve taken apart a transmission before, you do not know what’s involved. You CANNOT put back the fifth gear assembly incorrectly and be able to put the mate the transmission housing together, since you would not be able to install the shift forks. Remember guys, Chris’ LSD was not our first and will certainly not be our last install. And in case anyone wanted to know, yes ALL the tC TRD LSD installs were performed by the same tech. The fact that all the other customers’ LSD tCs are still on the road should be of NO SURPRISE. We do feel very bad that Chris and his father had to go through all this, but we can only make amends for “at fault” problems.

Had Chris brought his car back to us, we would have probably re-opened the transmission, fixed the fifth gear syncro (with customer supplying part) and re-installed the transmission back into his car as a gesture of good faith (nothing more, nothing less). Instead Chris took the car to his local dealership and tells us that we have a $2000 bill. Now let me use a very rough example here – You go and buy a $200 radio at your local reputable car audio shop and get it installed for $50 bucks, a week later the radio dies on you. So you then decide to stop by Unique Whips and have Will hook you up with a new radio that costs $1000 installed. You proceed to fax a copy of the bill to the original shop for the $1000 and expect them to pay. Unfortunately, things don’t work like that in this world. First, you need to let the shop figure out the problem first at their cost and only if they cannot resolve the issue do you go and take it somewhere else. Now, I know that our shop was out of Chris’ way, but with a potentially large bill coming his way from the dealership, he really should have made every effort to come see us first.

As for us trying to help him with our connections at Scion Corporation (namely Mike Medella), It was just that, we were trying our best to help Chris and his father out. We were by no means trying to shift the responsibility to anyone else.

At this point we can only speculate on one of three things: One, the customer supplied trans oil was too thin and did not provide proper lubrication to the gears and syncros. Two, the wobbly, vibrating wheel (caused by the bent stub axle) may have induced excessive wear on the transmission internals. Or, three, the problem was a fifth gear syncro that was going south to begin with. We are not going to speculate on Chris’ driving style, etc (no need to do that). But we will say that the car it not exactly a virgin to the autocross scene.

The reason Chris will probably have a difficult time convincing most Scion owners in our area that we are the “bad guys” is because most of them, at one time or another, either visited our shop, or have had work done by us. It will come as no surprise that they have nothing bad to say. Why? Because we have always gone out of our way to make sure that all of our customers, regardless, of what car they drive, are always taken care of. Those that hopped on the bashing bandwagon so early, just remember, there are always two sides to every story. We have always fully supported the Scion community and will continue to do so through our Time Attack efforts and local events. We believe the tC is a very competitive platform in all respects and will do our best to prove that this year.

 

omg..... did i bang your sister or girlfriend or something?? :D haha. i feel so sorry for you loser. u need a life. i know you're jealous of me, but your stupid little comments are childish and ___. get over it. I pwnd you. I'm sure it wasn't the 1st time thats happened.

 

why is he a troll?

 

Now from what I've heard, enough documentation has be done on PTuning's behalf that this wouldnt happen. Meaning there is no point the case is closed already, drax is just venting because of that. Now this is just hear-say, but it is what I heard.

 

OMG so much reading but humorous at parts hahaha

 

my tc has been to autocross ONCE! and i did 5 runs, actually, my first run was like a sunday drive. as for royal purple pouring out like water, kanundrum has been using the same oil in his tc for 60 thousand miles, and he autocrosses as often as possibly. it meets the lubricational requirements, it was 75w-90 like the owners manual reccommends.

now, my tc runs 45 thousand miles just fine, get worked on in your shop, has a problem 500 miles later...gets fixed, and i am now at 53 thousand miles, 7 thousand miles, without a problem.

as for getting the car to your shop, which is over 50 miles away, if a broken piece of the 5th gear synchronizer got into a moving gear, transmission would go BYE BYE!, grenade and require a whole new 3 thousand dollar transmission, which p-tuning clearly would not of provided me since they say i would have had to supply replacemet parts for my transmission that they messed up right? so why no complimentary towing? you could have fixed it yourself, but being so far out of the way, there would be no way for me to get the my tc down to you unless you let me sleep on the couch in your waiting room because it took just over two weeks for my tc to be put back together again.

now, drive shaft was "bent" or whatever, i could not really tell from looking at it, but it had been 11 thousand miles since the tc had had anything installed on it. so 11 thousand miles and nothing wrong. if that was the probelm, why would it have gotten worst after replacing the bent axle? as for the vibrations, i had figured that i hadn't bedded in my brake pads and rotors properly, so i figgured that the vibrating durring high speed braking was due to uneven brake deposits.

when i talked to mike medallia, all he would say is that it appears that p-tuning messed up on your installation, and there is nothing scion can do to cover this. the central atlantic scion field tech even said that the problem was not the parts, only the labor. i am assuming that you made him aware of the axle you replaced and whatnot, but that didn't get mentioned at all not in his report, or your response to my complaint.

now, you did try to help out by getting scion corporate involved, but what i bothers me is that i am having to pay for the same job twice, first time it was done wrong, second time fixed the problems with the first one.

as for reverse grinding. you know, and all tc owners know, reverse gear is unsynchronized, square cut gear. it will not engage smoothly unless the vehicle is completely stopped. if you engage it while i is rolling even slowly in one direction or the other, it will grind. can some fellow tc owners chime in on this one?

now then, if you claim you are not trying to shift blame to anybody, then why the heck doesn't it sound like that in your letter from your lawyer that seems to frequently insinuate that i am an abusive driver? that really made me angry, because you make the case out that i wanted this to happen to me.

this is now where i wanted to be when i brought you my tc several months ago, at this point, i had hoped that i would be discussing with dezod the final details of my turbokit, and scheduling an installation and dyno-tuning with your guys over spring brake. but now here we are arguing over who did what.

so clearly i am at fault here seeing as how i am the one who takes the time to buy quality reputible parts and take them to get installed by arguably the most reputible garages in the area.

originally i had just asked for a refund of the installation charges so that i could instead put that to the repair, but since nobody at toyota could find fault with anybody but p-tuning, it seems that they are the ones who caused these damages.

 

also, when i came back to you guys two days later because i couldn't get into reverse, you said that all you needed to do was bleed my clutch line because there wasn't enough pressure in the clutch line to get into reverse. from my understanding, that is a pretty quick job, so why was i waiting about 3 hours for that to get done at your shop?

could it have been because there was something wrong with my tc that you were aware of that you were trying to fix? i'm just curious what your explanation is there.

 

both sides of the story sound convincing...

the reverse grind issue is an issue with ALL tCs, so that's not a valid point of argument.

i just don't know. i can understand why drax brought the car to toyota. when my performance shop couldn't get my turbotoyotas kit to start and refused to do anything but keep it in their garage and let me try to figure it out, i also went to toyota. luckily, my toyota dealership looked over some things and i ended up finding the problem, but i was charged $0 so it didn't turn into a big deal.

i'd be very upset if i was looking at a $2000 just to clean up something suspect. ptuning, i'm not saying that i was 100% your fault, but somewhere along the road to getting his car to a dealership, drax lost faith in your ability to help make the situation right.

 

Yeah it is pretty hard to judge, my dad's nissan is in the shop and they wont work on it for a week b/c they are vietnamese and the week was tet week haha. Irrelevant but yeah...

 

what does this have to do with drax or ptuning??? btw, i got $0.00 this year for tet

 

"my tc has been to autocross ONCE!"

YOU JUST ADMITTED TO DRIVING YOUR CAR IN A WAY NOT RECOMMENDED BY TOYOTA!!!

Hmmm, i wonder why you wanted an LSD??? Maybe for better traction while racing your car!

You abuse your car! Nuff said! I think PTUNING has this one in the bag!!!

DON'T EVER...EVER bash a good company that does honest work

One more thing...NOBODY should EVER compare ZPI to PTUNING!!!

PTUNING - Please print a copy of this thread that shows he admits racing his car Auto-X

 

That was probably the dumbest, pointless, irrelevant post for this thread!

 

i wanted the lsd installed because i was hoping to turbocharge my car, and i wanted to make sure that the car be able to make the most of its traction by making sure that the turbo wouldn't constantly overpower the front wheels. all this was preparation for turbocharging down the road.

personally, the way the car handles so much better with the lsd on a day to day basis, and in inclement weather, i think LSD's should be standard on every car sold in the world. tration is just so much better.

 

Not to take a side. But draxcaliber, before saying you dont drive it hard, consider previous posts you have made.

(Just a real quick search) There were plenty more like this:

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...ight=autocross


That being said. It sounds like regular wear and tear. Just happens that the removal of the syncho helped it along its way. Ptunning stated it cant be installed incorrectly. And that is what the dealer blames. So you need to find out the truth about installing 5th gear. If Ptunning is correct in saying it cant be installed incorrectly, then that DESTROYS Scions claims of it was caused by ptunning.

 

irrelevant too lol

 

Then you haven't read this thread!

 

BUSTED!!!