One day in the summer of 2007, I parked outside a convenience store. When I came back out and started the engine, it began making a faint whining noise which got higher-pitched at high speeds. After a couple of months I took it to the Toyota dealer, and the mechanic determined that the problem was in the transmission. (He tested this by putting it into Neutral while driving, and it very clearly only whined while in gear.)
Toyota told me my options were 1. buy a new transmission for $3000 which would have a one-year parts-only warranty; or 2. replace it with a used transmission from another 1999 Sienna with 105K miles on it, with a 90-day warranty, for $2000. I opted to go with a third choice: have a transmission specialist do a build from a kit for the 99 Sienna, for $2000, with a three-year parts and labor warranty. (Once I got my head around needing to do it at all, the choice really wasn't very difficult.)
I later found out that Camrys of this vintage have had a much higher-than-average failure rate on the transmission. The Sienna is based on the Camry chassis and engine; in fact, that's one of the reasons we chose a Sienna over an Odyssey. Didn't help us much here.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
One day in the summer of 2007, I parked outside a convenience store. When I came back out and started the engine, it began making a faint whining noise which got higher-pitched at high speeds. After a couple of months I took it to the Toyota dealer, and the mechanic determined that the problem was in the transmission. (He tested this by putting it into Neutral while driving, and it very clearly only whined while in gear.)
Toyota told me my options were 1. buy a new transmission for $3000 which would have a one-year parts-only warranty; or 2. replace it with a used transmission from another 1999 Sienna with 105K miles on it, with a 90-day warranty, for $2000. I opted to go with a third choice: have a transmission specialist do a build from a kit for the 99 Sienna, for $2000, with a three-year parts and labor warranty. (Once I got my head around needing to do it at all, the choice really wasn't very difficult.)
I later found out that Camrys of this vintage have had a much higher-than-average failure rate on the transmission. The Sienna is based on the Camry chassis and engine; in fact, that's one of the reasons we chose a Sienna over an Odyssey. Didn't help us much here.
- nmgyrl, Albuquerque, NM, US