Raymond, you may possibly be THE person we have been searching for! Someone who actually had a VVTi trashed due to timing belt.
Can you give us more details? Year, mileage? We are ready for a good old horror story.
I have a 1996 ls400 , the miles at the time 130k . Sorry to say I had the belt replaced 5 years ago ....or so I thought , I guess paying for service and getting said service are 2 different things .
I was doing about 60 when I heard a clunk , lucky to get off the road to the shoulder. I was screwed .The Lexus dealer tracked down an engine with 80k miles as a replacement .The engine was 2000 and the service run 3500, sure glad Lexus only charges 120.00 per hour or it really would of sucked .
Thats what its like to be screwed over big time by a mechanic ...anyway that was 2 years ago and my car is still running .
PS I needed to replace my hood strut shocks ,dealer estimate 450 ,I found them online for 27.00 for the pair . Dodged another bullet