2010 Toyota Corolla S - Less than a month old; had to replace ECM

[electricrelish]

My family has owned a total of five Toyota Corollas (1981, 1991, 1995 and now 2010). My mother purchased a brand new 2010 Toyota Corolla S in the month of April 2011. Yes, believe it or not we found a dealership that still had two 2010 Toyota Corolla S's on their lot. They had a lot more a couple of weeks earlier, but we knew they would eventually get sold. I had hoped that it would drive the price down the longer they stayed on the lot, but once gas prices started going up and the tsunami in Japan hit, my mom decided to go ahead and buy now before prices went up. We were very pleased when we test drove the Corolla S as we found it to be a much better ride than the LE. I know it's the same specs, but I guess it's the larger wheels that made the ride smoother.

We were happy to get a brand new 2010 that late in the year considering that the 2011's were higher and we could still get a $1500 rebate on the 2010.

Anyways, my seventy-two year old mother has hardly driven the car. She had not even used up the full tank of gas that the car came with. I borrowed the car cause my 1991 Toyota Corolla had a flat tire and the spare was flat too. Yeah, it's twenty years old, I should have checked that spare a while ago.

So I borrowed my mom's brand new car and the Check Light and VCS off light came on. In addition, I had trouble starting the car. Considering that we hadn't even gone through one tank of gas, I was less than thrilled.

I took it to the dealership and waited about 3 hours to find out that they had to replace the Engine Control Module (ECM). Of course, it was covered under the warranty, but had it not, the bill would have almost been $7,000.

Should I be overly concerned that a brand new car had major work done on it already or is this issue not that big of a deal?

Thanks for reading.

[Bwilson818]

I say that Its not a big deal that the warranty thankfully covered it, however. It is a big deal that a car THAT NEW had such a big issue...sounds to me like someone on the assembly line didnt do their job right....

just a thought...

[HarleyCVO]

Vendor supplied a bad part. Usually with a new car these parts show up fairly quickly like what has happened here. I wouldn't read much into it.
But who told you 7K for an ecm?

[blb]

There is no way an ECM swap would have cost anywhere near $7000 out of warranty.

[SuperchargedMR2]

Electronic parts like the ECM will work fine 99.9% of the time, but when there is a defective one it tends to show up quickly as yours did. I wouldn't worry about it for a second.

[electricrelish]

Good to know. Maybe I misread the invoice. I'll look at it again.

[electricrelish]

Thanks for everyone's responses. This info makes me feel better.

[Billiam]

Nobody's fault on the assembly line. That part is supplied by an outside vendor and is no indication of the overall quality and long-term reliability of the car. It was a freak thing and rarely occurs.

As for the $7000? I'd say to the dealer ------>

[flamedrgn]

like everyone else says, the part is supplied by an outside vendor. I see about 1 corolla every few months with that problem (enterprise buys about 100 new corollas a month for all 3 brands) its actually more common in the 9th gen corolla.

[ToxicBanana]

whats the normal cost to replace the ECM is $7000 is wrong?

[cabur]

Originally Posted by ToxicBanana

whats the normal cost to replace the ECM is $7000 is wrong?

I don't know the exact price for the ECM. But the whole car cost from only USD15-16,000 in the US.

[ToxicBanana]

That's why I am curious, I had a friend mess his chair up to his driver side XRS and to replace it Toyota quoted $4000.00 USD for the chair before labor. He wasn't going to replace it he was just curious.

[electricrelish]

I double-checked the invoice, and it reads, "6972", but I realized that it may be a code or something and not for the actual part. I scanned it in. You can see it at the link below.

http://i665.photobucket.com/albums/v..._20110523b.gif

[SpaceCowboy]

I install $50k-100k printers that fail shortly out of the box. In electronics there is a 3 and 3 rule. Failure in the first 3 months or after 3 years. No big deal and possible on absolutely any electronic product unless the mfg runs/uses them for the 3 months. All the components for all mfg's boards are made in the same cheap factories in China.