Quoted $1200 for a back hatch
I don’t know why I’m posting this but recently my girlfriend bought a 2021 Toyota RAV4 XLE and within 6 months the power liftgate stopped opening which was a huge reason we went for that car. I’m in sales and helped her navigate the dealership process and we decided against any warranty. The dealership we took it to for diagnosis basically said they could save us on the diagnostics fee and just replace the struts as it was likely the issue, they quoted $1,200, about $550 each strut and $100 labor.
After around 20m of watching DIY tutorials and buying an aftermarket strut and 1.5 hours of labor later, the liftgate is working perfectly. The hardest part was unplugging the old struts as I don’t have the smallest hands and I didn’t want to pull the trim back.
$217 diagnostic fee, $170 for the new struts. Fixed problem. I wish I didn’t have to pay the fee but I am not good with vehicles and didn’t want to attempt fixing a part that might not even be the cause of the problem. Now I realize how simple the entire system really is but it’s a cheap price to pay to learn something useful. I bought a listing off Amazon that had video reviews so I could make sure it wasn’t loud or the incorrect length and prayed for the best.
Toyota and Honda have always been easy to save money with the older models just fixing it yourself.