I had the front sturts on rav4 replaced on Thursday. The model is the Sport, which came factory with Tokico's, which are blue high performance (ironically with a lifetime warrenty if you buy them from dealer, not with a car). I went in and asked my dealer about replacements, and if they would be the same Tokico blues. The service writer said yes they would be the same oem struts.
I asked because I couldn't not find them online for a price to compare to say Les Schwabs (whk offers KYB). The Tokico struts are all but elusive to the lamen.
Off from the dealer I go, after 3 hours turned into 6, and I called them because it had been way longer than I expected. Not a huge deal, I know proceedures like that take time.
Now I am looking at the receipt, and at the strut. It isn't blue, and it is a cheap FCS $100 strut I paid $250 for... I could have got KYB with the factory springs swapped over for about 2/3 the price or less at Les Schwab. (KYB is superior). The Sport spring is stiffer, so that would be my only option to get near factory. I have yet to go back to see if I can get my factory springs, and/or factory struts they said were leaking, put back on/money refunded, so I can go elsewhere and get this fixed. Who knows the ending of the story...
Moral here however is that maybe all these special versions of everything are bullshit. Long term support will suffer unless there is a real calling for aftermarket parts from day 1 from tuners. And loyalty to a dealer for everything may not get you the right treatment in this situation. Up until now it has been 9 great years...
The service writer should have made a note to the mechanic/parts department that they were suppose to be Tokicos. They should have called me when they were not. But I got reassurance from dude who simply didn't take me seriously at all. The GM is known to reply to all bad feedback on Google, so something will come of it... dunno what.
****Update****
Looks like someone ordered the wrong part, not the service guy. We'll see what comes out of it, as they're going to change them. Spoke to the GM, very nice guy, he had a little meeting because these types of mistakes regularly will ruin a place.