Would wait until 60k and perform a drain and fill.

Nope, I’ve been at my dealer for 2 years, own 4 cars, about to close on a house, and I am 21. Great benefits, annual bonus, it’s all about finding the right dealership and having the right work ethic.

It is very possible you had both tire noise and wheel bearing noise at the same time, you could try rotating the tires and test driving to see if the noise follows. I would visually inspect the rear struts to see if they are leaking, and spin the rear tires in the air and listen to the hubs with a stethoscope.

I would clean the maf (with the correct cleaner!) and inspect all vacuum hoses, especially pcv. You could also swap the coil and plug to different cylinders so if a misfire code comes back you can usually tell what caused it. I think these have the coils that go to two cylinders. Probably not a transmission issue and more likely a limp home mode.

While pulling the hood release latch, strike the corner of the hood where the hinge is repeatedly, if the hood opens, lube the latch, and adjust your hood stops. Common problem on toyotas.

Unfortunately, the shop is probably putting cheap aftermarket cats on. We regularly see aftermarket cats lasting about a year. The real fix to this would be to get a genuine honda part. They are typically so expensive that companies like geico will not cover replacement of factory parts, and will opt for brands like walker and magnaflow. They are all junk.

I work at a Toyota dealership and we have quite a few 18 year old technicians that are doing the T-Ten program, where they work for about 6 weeks and then go to school for about 6 weeks. I think the program is about 2 years, and you come out of it with some certifications. I believe our dealership also helps with the cost of the program. I did a different program so I can’t speak on specifics, but if it interests you, you could do some research on what it’s like working in a dealership setting or maybe even ask to shadow someone for a day. I had one recently. You could also see if your local community College offers any automotive programs. We have a technician who did an automotive program at our local community College and now he is more of a manager over all of our lube techs. It’s also very possible that you end up finding out this line of work isn’t for you, I’ve seen multiple people quit very early on. It definitely isn’t for everybody.

I am fairly confident that those model year camrys have seperate bulbs for high and low beams, do you have any pictures?

Since I’ve started working at my dealer as a tech, (about 2 years) we’ve had one female technician and she was one of the best. Moved out of state though. Our advisors are split about 50/50, and I think we might actually have more male advisors. There is plenty of money at the right dealership. I’ll admit though, I definitely work on my own stuff much less now.

It is very possible for tire noise and vibration in the front end to become more apparent when braking as the front is weighted down, and I’ve seen that even on smaller toyotas before, but this definitely sounds like warped rotors.

I would start with verifying cleanliness and tightness of the battery terminals, as well as condition of the wires. If you have a loose battery hold down as well, it could cause the hold down to short against the positive terminal and make the car stall. We see that pretty often.

Use a multimeter to check powers and grounds, follow a wiring diagram. I would bet there’s some kind of rodent damage going on.