A little research goes a long way…

Recently, my check engine light came on in my 1998 Toyota Camry. After taking it to the shop, I was notified that there was a problem with my evaporative emissions system (code: PO441) and that the repairs were going to cost me close to $500 (mostly because the parts themselves were so expensive).

As always, I like to do a little research on my own before making any decisions about any car repairs. So, I searched the internet for any useful information on evaporative emissions systems. During my research, I stumbled upon a webpage on which someone had posted information about an Environmental Protection Agency settlement against Toyota Motor Corporation (settlement: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/cases/civil/caa/toyota.html). The settlement “involves model year 1996 through 1998 vehicles, including some Cambry, Avalon, Corolla, Tercel, Paseo, Lexus, Sienna minivans, 4Runner, RAV4, Tacoma and T100 models.” As a result of this Toyota Clean Air Act Settlement, there are certain vehicles that qualifying for an extended evaporative emission control system warranty (list of vehicles provided as a link on the page linked above). Things that are covered under this warranty: “evaporative storage canister, evaporative system pressure sensor, fuel cap, fuel tank, fuel tank filler neck, purge valve, tank vapor vent line, three-way valve, and any other part or component, excluding any maintenance parts, between the fuel tank and the intake manifold (but not including the intake manifold) designed to contain or conduct fuel vapor from the fuel system.” Read all information provided at the above link for more details.

HOW TO FOLLOW THROUGH

If, after looking at the list of vehicles, your model year, model name, engine family name and evaporative family name are on the list you are off to a good start. For model years 1996 and 1997 there is no need to identify when your vehicle was built, so as long as your car has less than 150,000 miles you should be covered under the extended warranty – next step would be to contact a certified Toyota dealer. If however, your vehicle is a 1998, there are build date restrictions that you further need to cross check. Only if your build date was on or prior to the build dates listed next to your vehicle then you qualify. The list of vehicles qualifying for the extended warranty provides a helpful guide to finding all of these things on your car on the second page. You may have to contact Toyota costumer service (number listed in above link) if you cannot find your build date. All they need is your VIN and they can look it up for you.

Identifying your car on that list is the easy part of this journey it seems. The next part is contacting a certified Toyota dealer and making sure that you don’t get told that you aren’t actually covered when you are. After contacting Toyota customer service, I proceeded to ask if they could tell me whether I would be covered under this extended warranty…BAD IDEA, don’t do that!! They were very helpful, but they concluded that my car is not covered, when in fact it is. Only after contacting the VERY HELPFUL and kind, David Alexander at the U.S. EPA (202-564-2109 or alexander.david@epa.gov) was I given correct information.

I will now lay out what his advice was for me in hopes that it will help others who might be in a similar situation. First, you must contact a Toyota dealer. Ultimately, they will be the one to tell you whether or not you are covered. (Might be better to do it in person – bring your VIN). They will hopefully take out their warranty or technical procedures manual to check this (they might have it all online rather than as a hard copy...but either way they should have something along these lines). Tell them to turn to Bulletin #PRO 03-13 (or PRO 03-24), issued on November 06, 2003. Once they have, there will be pages of tables. They will need to find the table that correlates to your vehicles model and engine type (easily identified based on your VIN). Once your table is identified, reading it has tripped many up and this is the root of most problems.

Sometimes people read the tables from left to right, following only one row all the way across, but that is not how the table was designed to be read. If done this way, it is possible that your VIN will look as though it is not covered under the extended warranty. Take the TMMK Camry (1 MZ-FE) table for example at the top of page 3 of 6. Let’s say your VIN is 4T 1BF22K_WU923541 (just made that up). If you were to read the table by rows, you would find your BF22K row and follow it across and notice that only those VINs falling between U024472 – U069710 qualify…WRONG! All the U numbers in that box qualify no matter the BF number…this is the important part!

You may need to prove your point and this is how I was instructed to do so: use the other tables to your benefit! For example if the tables were meant to be read row by row all the way across only, then why do some tables (like the TMC Camry (1 MZ-FE) also on page 3 of 6) not have information in the bottom row correlating to the BF28K numbers! It’s because they were actually meant to be read as boxes rather than strictly by rows! So, hold your ground because if you met all the criteria on the EPA list you are most likely covered! If you are confused about your particular case or are having a hard time with a Toyota dealer, I would again urge you to contact David Alexander and say you have a few questions about the Toyota Motor Corporation Settlement of 2003.

Additionally, please keep in mind that your situation will probably differ from the one described above (as that was a fictional example) but my hope is that this will be of some use as a guide for people in similar situations. Most likely, the Toyota dealer will have no idea what you are talking about, as this is apparently not a well known thing. It helped me to actually bring the bulletin (emailed to me by David Alexander) to the dealer so that they could read it and understand what they are looking for and what you are talking about. GOOD LUCK!