News

Toyota Innova: Insurance denied after gearbox oil leak

28th April 2021, 17:11 by Chirag Moro

My 2016 Innova Crysta GX 2.8 AT met with a strange accident in January 2021.

BHPian Mail.atyagi recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I hope none of the other members have to face a similar problem with the AT transmission / Torque Converter of Innova Crysta.

My 2016 Innova Crysta GX 2.8 AT met with a strange accident in January 2021. I ran it over a small rod-like metal object while driving. The underbody got scraped by the metal object which unfortunately hit exactly on the Automatic Transmission pan and seems like it removed the nut which led to transmission oil drainage. This led to the automatic transmission behaving erratically. The rpm surged abnormally during gearshifts and reverse gear wasn't engaging easily.

Toyota assessed the damages to be accidental in nature and hence warranty claim was rejected (I had opted for 5 year, 1 lakh km Extended warranty and it still had 9 months and 17K km left). Insurer assessed that the accident couldn't remove the nut and it could be loose/worn out and hence accidental claim was rejected. Upon escalations to top management, they also did a so-called forensic analysis through an independent expert flown from Hyderabad who also validated their finding that the nut could not be removed from the impact. This went on for almost 2.5 months and I had made up my mind to go for a legal case against both.

Eventually Toyota customer care team from Head Office in Bengaluru flew to Delhi to meet me and suggested a goodwill gesture which meant all 3 parties (Toyota, insurer, customer) would bear 1/3rd of the repair cost. The insurer didn't come on board and insisted their stand is final.

Finally, it was decided to share approx. 50% each by Toyota and myself to get the vehicle back on the road. Initially, Toyota assessed only transmission assembly to be replaced since it can't be repaired. However, during the final repair work, they found some metal particles in the torque converter assembly and replaced that as well. I didn't pay more than 50% of the earlier assessed cost of approx Rs. 6 lakhs and the rest Toyota adjusted between themselves and the dealer.

Transmission Assembly cost is Rs 4,72,834. Torque converter assembly cost is 81,014. Add 28% GST over this. The replacement was done around 10 days back.

I have driven around 500 km after the repair work and it drives like a breeze.

I am still contemplating filing a case against the insurer and waiting for a final closure from their side as someone from their side suggested they were having internal discussions on paying 1/3 of the costs.

Someone told me that this is the first Crysta which has faced this particular problem (not sure though).

Attaching few pictures from the forensic analysis report along with some of the comments. They are screenshots from the pdf report and hence the image quality may not be great. Could not find how to attach the pictures in order as in the report for better understanding, apologies for the same.