[Anton]

I think I'd politely let Safeco (decent company, btw) know in no uncertain terms that your van had NONE of these problems with the MIL or this actuator before the collision, regardless of whether your wife backed into somebody, lightning struck the car, or whatever. The point is, the vehicle has not worked properly since the collision, and "I'm paying you my hard earned $$ in premiums. This is one of the reasons we carry insurance" is pretty much how I'd word it to them, calmly of course.

Reading his initial timeline, the vehicle DID work properly after the collision. I get what you're saying, but there's no causality shown here. It could be water damage but no one has shown any kind of likelihood for that. It could be that the windshield installer screwed something up under the hood. It could be a rodent. It could be just random deterioration of something. If I were the insurance company I would want to establish that this was covered damage before I paid.

I repair motorcycles. If I flush someone's brakes and an ABS sensor fails while the bike is in my shop it's awkward but it's not anything I did. Even if I flush the brakes and a hose goes bad or debris clogs the ABS module it's not on me; it's a pre-existing fault rooted in lack of previous maintenance. And if I flush those brakes and a fork seal starts leaking on the test ride, it's completely unrelated.

If I saw communication issues between many different modules, I wouldn't be assuming that replacing a certain module would fix the issue unless the issues all went away when that one module was removed.

1) Skid control actuator won't function. A new one is 1 thousand.
2) Can’t run tests.

Does that mean he can't run tests on the skid module? If the skid control module isn't working because (for instance) it's not receiving steering angle info from the BCM, then it's not a bad skid module. I don't know these particular systems so I can't say.

 

[Anton]

Yesterday a customer brought a motorcycle in for some brake work. Lever was very soft and he had an ABS light on the dash. I went for a spin, sure enough there's the light, bled the brakes (which resolved the soft lever) and codes showed a bad ABS pump motor. I can fix that in the future for him but not before a trip he's making, so he takes it back. Just called me wondering what the ABS light was about. I explained. He said he'd never seen that before; the light he saw was a pad wear indicator.

So, between him dropping it off and me going for a pre-service test ride, this new problem (which is not unusual for this year) popped up. Nothing I did, nothing he did, nothing anyone can either cause or prevent. But his experience is undeniably that he brought it to me and it developed this new problem.

 

[Anton]

Interesting. Can you get a recall number from him? My van had the windshield replaced before we bought it and the wires at the bottom are broken. However, I don't see FUYAO markings on it. We do have a FUYAO windshield in our Jetta; it's not optically great at all but it doesn't have embedded wires.

 

[Anton]

Looks like you do not have a qualifying FW number or bottom sequence.

 

[Anton]

Here are pictures from our Sienna I don't see the things you have on your Sienna Therbi.

The wires would all be behind the plastic cover with the square holes, which is still in place in your photos. Behind it, there's a bracket right on the centerline of the car, even with the edge of the engine cover, which holds the connectors where the windshield plugs into the vehicle wiring harness.