Welcome to the second stage of AllTrac ownership! ; )
BLUF: I am very directive with shops now. I tell them what I want done after I’ve diagnosed the issue. Long winded version follows.
Shops are useful once you have narrowed it down a bit. I try and do whatever I can first, which is limited but I have found discussing and diagnosing here to be useful as hell. I source the parts and I direct the work. I don’t go in and essentially say “I don’t know what’s wrong.” Because techs these days are OBD2 dependent and their fundamental diagnostic skills are atrophied (I’m generalizing).
Here I’ll share some stories.
It took one shop 14 days to change out a timing belt, water pump, and alternator. Good guys and an honest shop but they were freaked out a little by my non standard VIN left hand drive JDM weird Celica, and they screwed up the parts order thinking it was a GT. Then when I clarified and they couldn’t GET parts off their little parts ordering drop down, they told me I’d have to source them. I did, which was nervy work for a rookie GT-Four owner, and I brought a set of Big Green Books for them to use and it helped. I won Sweetest Import at a Cars and Coffee that shop ran, won a $100 gift certificate, and haven’t taken it in because I’m like “well, what could they do?” Maybe an oil change.
On the advice of a Toyota Tech friend I took it to a dealership to get the AC converted and filled. That went without problems but the shop rate was high.
Then one day it wouldn’t start and I had it towed to that same dealership and they sold me a battery and replaced a battery terminal. I told them to put my old battery in a box so I could return it for a refund. I went home and was going to check my new Interstate they said was bad. But I fumbled and dropped it like a clod cracking the case. I wiped it off, Gorilla taped it, put it in and it started the car right up. But driving around with a taped up battery is not the way of my people. So I was stuck with the new Toyota Truestart. I told them “Hey let’s not do that again.”
I took it to the same dealership to look into an intermittent stumbling problem. I got a call from the service writer saying “This car is modded we can’t work on it.” This was after I’d had a dual temp and air-fuel gauge installed as diagnostic tools. My GT-Four is very lightly modded from what I have seen. I told them “Look, just have the techs run down the checklist in the Big Green Book I left on the passenger side seat.” They came back with a fuel pump and fuel filter replace estimate at close to $2000, with them quoting the fuel pump PART at $600. Because the 1992 GT-Four is OBD1, they had to resort to taking the hood off, attaching a fuel pressure gauge, and rigging it so they could see it as they test drove it. Sheesh. To even GET that diagnosis and estimate was $150, which I consider legit but…
As it turned out changing the distributor cap, rotor, ignition wires, and plugs has pretty much solved the problem. I’ll do the fuel pump eventually myself when I work up the courage to drop the tank.
Best thing I did when I started here was post a thread about my car, its condition, its mods, and then set out aggressively to learn and own this semi-exotic. Reading, studying, buying a set of Big Green Books and making it my hobby to know as much about it as possible.
AllTrac/GT-Four ownership is a matter of time, skill, effort, and money. Worth it? Yes, but man it has taught me a lot. I could have a Challenger SXT, fully loaded, for what I’ve spent on getting and improving my GT-Four. But it wouldn’t be as good.