My local dealership is trying to screw me over

I have a 2017 IS200t with 35k miles.
I brought my car in to my local dealership to have antifungal flushed thru the A/C because it was getting a mildew smell at startup

This will be important later but I had a dashcam professionally installed about 4 months ago / 5k miles ago

Lexus told me to leave it overnight and they would check it again in the morning to make sure the smell was gone


I arrive the next day and the tech takes about 30 minutes to find it. When they finally pull it around, he says it wouldnt beep when he locked it so he couldnt find it.
I thought that was strange but whatever.
My service advisor walks out and tells me the nav wouldnt turn off last night and they replaced the battery for free for me.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with my car prior to bringing it in (besides the smell)


I get home and my keys dont work. not even the spare. car wont lock and the car constantly thinks theres a key inside so the nav stayed on

I drive back to lexus, leave it with them and the service advisor calls and tells me my dashcam blew my Main Body ECU and because an aftermarket part caused it, it wouldnt be covered by warranty

The guy who installed the dashcam assured me theres no way thats possible. The dashcam was hardwired thru a fuse piggy back, onto the accessory fuse.

My service advisor told me they had unplugged the dashcam at some point the night before but that didnt fix it.

They quoted me $2k to replace the ECU

I brought my car in for a $200 AC refresh and now my cars broken with $2k in repairs
Please can someone offer any advise or help in this situation,

 

Sucks. Dealers are absolute scum and the industry should be heavily regulated to prevent this. Best advice is remove anything they might claim is aftermarket. I remove my dash cam from the piggy back fuse when I bring it in.

 

Was your dashcam on at the time? If it was, did it record anything while the dealer had the car?

That is the main reason why i still have not bought my car to the dealer to have the recall done because of **** like this. I had some similar experience like this while i bought my benz to have some recall done and ended up with a headache. When ever i need to bring my car to the dealer I will always have the SA walk with me around the car outside and inside and note everything. If anything goes wrong after i will have proof.

 

Ya im gonna have to grab some spare fuses to do this moving forward. Just ridiculous that i went in for an AC issue and the ECU is fried

There is an SD card on the dash cam but my car is still at lexus


my theory is either

A) someone took it home that night and drove it around and unplugged the dashcam either prior or after their joy ride
or
B) my dashcam recorded the service techs doing some thing sketchy and they unplugged it

When i got the car back the dash cam was plugged in

So I know at one point it was unplugged and then plugged back in. My guess is whoever unplugged it, for whatever reason, plugged it back in while the car was on and blew the fuse

 

pure BS, contact lexus

 

I recognize this is a frustrating situation, but maybe you can clarify a couple things.

When you said the keys don't work, what exactly on the key is not working?
Since you drove the vehicle home, then at least the immobiliser portion of the key is working...cause the vehicle started.

You mentioned they said "the nav wouldnt turn off last night"...that one doesn't make much sense.
If the car is off, then everything is off. If the Nav was on, then in some way the car was on.

Do you know what fuse the dashcam is connected to?
There is no Accessory fuse per say, there is a 7.5A ECU-ACC fuse and a 7.5A Meter fuse...that would be the closest things to an Accessory fuse by name and function.
Knowing what fuse the dashcam was connected to might help to sort out if it could have blown the Body ECU.

 

I mean it’s at a Lexus dealership

who should I contact?

 

I believe he meant Lexus Corporate...the head office for your area.

 

the keys won’t lock the car. They won’t pop the trunk.

I mean the nav won’t turn off because the car thinks there’s a key inside the vehicle at all times. That’s why I was able to drive it.

and i don’t have the fuse box diagram on me atm, I’ll try to search around.
but I was told it was hooked up to the accessory fuse.
In my old car, the Dashcam was hooked up to the cigarette lighter port which I was told is far riskier and this hard wire was the safest alternative.

to add to this, the likelihood that my dash cam which has been rock solid for 4 months, conveniently blew my ecu 2 hours with Lexus, is highly unlikely. There must have been some input on their behalf

 

Ok...so the remote transmitter buttons don't work then.
Let's say there was a key in the car, if you tried to lock the door with another key, then the doors would lock and unlock right away...but you would see the lights flash and here the beep.
If there was a key in the car, then you would be able to start the car without having another key with you.

Going back to the Nav, if there was a key in the car and you turned the car off, the Nav, like everything else in the car, would be off.
I realize this was the information they provided you, and likely you didn't witness this firsthand, but it makes absolutely no sense.
I'm thinking they meant to say the dashcam was on all night and it killed the battery...which brings us back to which fuse it's connected to. That's more likely than the Nav being on all night.

There is obviously something strange going on with the vehicle.
If I had to guess, I would say that while the vehicle was parked at the dealer overnight that someone tried to break into the vehicle...possibly steal the vehicle.
That would explain the issue with your keys and why the vehicle may have be "on" when they went out to it in the morning.

I think there is information that either they don't know or aren't telling you.
I'm not saying it's time to get the pitchforks and torches out to march on the dealer, but there is obviously critical information that you are missing here.

 

Its extremely suspicious.
- The car constantly beeps when the doors open because it thinks theres keys inside.
- i have unplugged the fuses that "apparently blew the main body ECU" and nothing changes
- the nav will not turn off at all so the battery is constantly being drained.

None of this makes any sense. And the fact lexus is trying to pin me with the bill makes even less sense.
Like i just brought it in for the antifungal AC refresh. How did they manage to do all this

 

If the above is really happening then something has gone horribly wrong inside the Body ECU or the junction block that it is apart of.
As all the fuses under the driver's dash are part of the junction block that houses the Body ECU, it's fair to say that all the fuses are connected to the Body ECU.
Even if you don't know which one the dashcam was connected, the reality is it doesn't really matter cause they are all connected to the Body ECU is some way.
The difference would be if the dashcam did cause the issue, determining which fuse it's connected to will help explain if it was the cause, and depending on the fuse it would also explain the extent of the damage.

For instance, I mentioned the ECU-ACC fuse above...if I was connecting a dashcam I definitely would not use this fuse...reason being the risk of tapping into a circuit that goes to an ECU.
I would use something like a Power Outlet circuit if I wanted the dashcam to operate only when the vehicle is on, or some other non-essential circuit if I needed the dashcam to operate 24/7.

The fact the issue arose when the vehicle was at the dealer appears to be more than coincidental.

 

So now the Service Manager just called to "assure me because he checked himself" that the dash cam was plugged directly into the OBD fuse

They are adamant this was all due to the dashcam and i need to pursue him for remedy. and because this was "caused" by a third party part, they cant just throw it under warranty.

 

The OBD fuse only powers the OBD II connector...if that was the fuse they used it should not have caused an issue with the Body ECU.
The fuse is only 7.5Amps, so if something did go wrong it should have blown fairly easily.

I'm certainly not convinced the the dashcam caused this.

 

Im 100% in agreement with you. the only thing i can hope for is the SD card picked up something suspicious.

Lexus scoffed at the idea that the dash cam was unplugged and plugged back in while the car was on.