Fixing 2 weird issues on my Toyota Fortuner during its 3rd service

Looks like the issue is resolved and will be observing it for a few days closely.

BHPian scorpio_fan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

3rd-year service was due by end of January 2023. Odometer stands at 25k approximately. I dropped the vehicle off on 24th January. Only 2 issues were reported that needed immediate attention.

1. Alarm getting triggered randomly.
2. Steering vibration while breaking (If speed above 80-100)

I told the service advisor that the alarm issue is the most important one I am concerned about. As this is tricky to re-produce, I shared a video that I recorded a week back. I was prepared to leave the vehicle if needed for 1 - 2 days at a service centre. I told him that this can only be reproduced if the vehicle is locked and the key is away from the car. In general, they keep the key inside the car and this issue will never happen during the service.

I was following up with the service advisor on an hourly basis to check if they have tried to re-produce / identified the issue. As the vehicle will be in a waiting state for almost 70% of the time, I wanted them to observe during that time. By 4 PM, the vehicle had completed all the service-related works and went to fix the break vibration issue. Till 6 PM, the vehicle was in the bay for fixing brake vibration and they did not look into the alarm issue. I wanted them to utilize the day in observing the vehicle and they did not pay attention to it. Even after calling the service advisor multiple times and expressing concern over reproducing this tricky issue, I did not get any convincing reply. I had no option but to escalate. I directly escalated to level 2 and expressed my concerns, immediately the team leader was pulled in and he tried to pacify me and explain the "process" they follow.

He told me he will put the vehicle in front of the CCTV camera and will instruct security to monitor it during the night. The next day I got the update that the car triggered an alarm at 10:18 PM and they are starting to look at the probable issue. As the case was escalated, I was getting frequent updates. He told me that there are rats' footprints in the engine bay but no cut/damage they could identify. By afternoon say 3 pm the team leader called me and said they found one issue. One of the wiring harnesses had oxidations in the connector and this could lead to the alarm. He said they fixed it by cleaning the connector and they will observe the car for another 2-3 hours. I got a call around 6 pm again and he told me I can pick up the car around 7 PM and till then the alarm was not triggered. The next day is a holiday, but I decided to keep the car there and collect it after the holiday. The next day morning he updated that the alarm did not trigger for the whole night. The evening he again told me the alarm did not trigger till evening. Finally, I was relieved, it was a difficult issue to resolve and finally, there is a fix. I took the car the next day and I am observing it for a few days now. The alarm did not trigger yet. So looks like the issue is resolved and will be observing it for a few days closely.

The service experience was really good finally, I had to escalate it to get that attention but then it all went smoothly.

The brake vibration issue was also rectified completely by skimming it. Below are the details of the jobs and costs.

The final bill was Rs 15,806 for this service.

Even though no starting/battery issues were reported, the service team suggested replacing the battery and the health of the battery is low. They handed over a report to me. The vehicle came with a Panasonic battery and looks like in general this gets a life of 3 years. Will be changing the battery to Exide next week.

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