[Laney]

I'm sorry - I wish I could make this long story short, but the details matter...

My ’06 Solara convertible is less than a year old. Two weeks ago when I took it in for its 5K service, I asked the Toyota dealer to fix a rattle coming from the right rear window. Later that day, the dealership called to tell me they had to replace the rear window and the car would need to stay overnight. I went over to pick it up the next day, and noticed that the LEFT rear window had been replaced instead of the right. I talked to a Service Advisor about the mistake, but it was after 5, and all the techs were gone for the day. I was told to take the car home and call in the morning. The rattle was still there. When I called the next day, the Service Advisor told me the technician who worked on my car noticed the weatherstripping on the left rear window was deformed – which was true. The weatherstripping looked bad, but didn’t cause a problem – it didn’t leak, it didn’t rattle. The tech thought the deformed weatherstripping on the left side caused the rattle on the right side.(?) He said replacing it fixed the problem. It didn’t. I was told I had to drive the car back so a Master Tech could confirm the noise. I drove back to the dealer, made the Master Tech and another tech ride along while I drove. They both heard the rattle, and confirmed it came from the right rear window. Both techs said they thought there was something loose in the window mechanism, and they’d need to take the rear section apart to look at it. I had to make another appointment to take the car back again when they could schedule the work.

It went back on Tuesday last week, and the same tech who worked on it the first time now said weatherstripping on the right side of the convertible top needed to be replaced. It took two days to get there. When they called to say the car was ready, I went over and took it for a drive, and the rattle hadn’t changed. The tech who worked on it got in the car and rode while I drove, and he confirmed that the rattle was still there. The tech said he didn’t know what else to do, and had to talk to a Toyota regional technical rep before he could do anything else. He called the field rep on Thursday, but didn’t get a call back. The field rep didn’t call back Friday either. The dealership said there’s nothing they can do until they hear from the field rep, since they “can’t just tear the car apart” and they’ve “already replaced all the weatherstripping.” I thought that was strange, since both techs that rode with me the week before said they needed to take the rear of the car apart to look at the window mechanism to find out where the rattle came from.

Yesterday, I finally hear that the field rep called back and wants to see the car, but nobody knows when he’s planning to come and look at it. My husband called to find out specifically when the field rep would be coming to look at the car, and all he got was that the rep would be there this Thursday.

I’m wondering if this whole process with the field rep coming by is just a way to get out of it without spending any more money The dealer can say they’ve done everything possible and have the field rep say the problem’s unrepairable. But- it’s not my fault the original tech decided to replace an entire window without verifying whether or not it had anything to do with the problem. It’s not my fault that the dealership sent two techs to ride along and verify the problem, but didn’t assign either one to work on the car. And it’s not my fault that the original tech got reassigned to the car and decided to replace weatherstripping that didn’t have anything to do with the rattle.

Is this something I’m stuck with – is it time to shop for more powerful speakers to cover up the window rattles??? Or is there anything I can do if the dealer doesn’t want to put any more into it?