Much like home ownership, vehicle ownership comes with its share of routine maintenance and periodic not-so-routine maintenance. Unlike home ownership, vehicle ownership also comes with occasional recalls. Recall issues can range from wow-we-need-to-fix-this-yesterday to meh-why-bother. (We never did take our Toyota Highlander in to have the carpet clips replaced.) Ruby, our 2018 Toyota Tundra, has introduced us to a new “category” of recall – they type that sends you into a rather nonsensical limbo.

Over the past couple of months, we’ve received three or four notices that we we need to call and schedule a recall service on our Tundra. However, the notice provides no information a to what the recall is for. Since Kenn now uses the Tundra as his primary vehicle, I nudged him into calling the dealership to find out more about the recall and scheduling the service. This is where the “fun” began.

Kenn called the dealership and gave them the Tundra’s VIN number. After an extended delay, the service manager said that their system couldn’t locate that VIN. Kenn pointed out that some Toyota database somewhere recognizes the VIN since we keep getting the recall notices. The service manager promised to keep researching the issue and would let us know what she found. True to her word, the service manager called a few days later to report that she had learned that the VIN number is Canadian. Who knew that our truck is an immigrant?

Now that we know our truck originated in Canada, we can get it scheduled for the recall service, right? Wrong. Another day, another call. The service manager has learned that there is an outstanding recall associated with our vehicle. So, did she finally locate our vehicle in their system? No. The service manager found the information about the recall by searching for the VIN on CARFAX.🤦‍♀️ Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up.

At some point, Kenn was able to learn that the recall has something to do with the halogen headlights, but we still haven’t been able to schedule anything with the dealership and are once again waiting on another call. At this point, Kenn is going to see if he can schedule the service via Toyota’s national website.

As a former IT person, I’m baffled as to how a service manager at a local Toyota dealership can’t log into some sort of over-arching Toyota database and see any/all information on any Toyota vehicle. I’m beginning to hum the Jeopardy theme any time this topic comes up.

Wish us luck as we attempt to navigate the most convoluted recall process ever. At this rate, it might be easier to agree on what color we want to paint our shutters and deck. Then again, maybe not. Maybe that will be the topic for my next post…