This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
Once opened, the vehicle door would not close. I had to use excessive force to get it to close & the only way it did so was after the power sliding door cable had snapped. Had this happened while away from home, I may have had to drive home with the door open.
Passenger side power door cable snapped and the door wouldn't close nor open. Tried to open it manually, no luck unless you use enormous amount of power which might do damage to some other parts of the vehicle. Even if door managed to get open it won't close, which is a safety issue.
Toyota Sienna's equipped with power sliding doors use a plastic coated steel wire to operate the door via a wheel and motor. This plastic deteriorates over time and the steel wire corrodes and fails leading to the inoperable ability of the door in the power mode. In power mode: The door will remain closed if attempted to be opened while the vehicle is in a motion gear. It also allows the controlled open and closure of the door with an automatic reversal if the door detects obstruction. Disengaging this power mode allows the door to be opened when in motion. It also allows the door to slam closed if vehicle is parked on an incline and could injure a person not expecting the closure or opening. Toyota has offered a "service extension", not a recall, for a part that is integral for the safe operation of the sliding doors. This extension will only cover a small percentage of vehicles in their allotted time frame. The actual failed part is not available for replacement and a whole door actuator must be purchased and installed at $1100 per door.
I have 2004 Toyota Sienna minivan le model. 2 years ago trying to get out of drivers seat, as I tried to open the door I heard a motorized clicking sound and the door wouldn't open from inside. I took to a mechanic and he found that the metal wire that connects to the latch had broken. I called Toyota and they said it will cost $250 for the assembly that controls the latch to open the door. Last year my power sliding door (passenger side) started acting up. Sometimes the door would open and sometimes it won't when I press the power door button located on the ceiling close to driver's side. Then it would only open from outside if I pull the latch from outside. Then one day when I pulled the door latch from outside to open it, I heard a loud noise and the metal cable that the door slides on snapped! I received an"enhancement recall" letter from Toyota just after the warranty expired. I searched the web and saw complaints that Toyota does this on purpose last minute expecting that customers won't see it in time. I called the Scion dealership in palatine, il and they said that it will cost me $120 to inspect what's wrong with the power door and there are 4 to 5 parts where 1 or more could have gone bad. Some parts are covered and others are not covered by the warran ty. This should be safety recall and could kill a small kid. A class action suit must be filed against Toyota for ripping off customers. They should be fixing it for free since its a design flaw. I would expect an engine to fail at 96000 miles but not the 2 doors (front manual door and power sliding door). Big companies like Toyota needs to cut off bonus form CEO and board of director's paycheck and use the money to correct their design flaws. I paid $32,000 and expect Toyota to return the cost of repair which is $1800+tax or fix it for free and thank me that I did not file a suit against them.
- Lake Zurich, IL, USA
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I tool my car last April to get my recall done on my lift gate and ever since that my lift gate is not working.. I have called them several times and have filed a complaint with Toyota as well but it seems no one is listening to me. Please help.
Manufacturer design flaw leads to jammed sliding doors, possibly locking passengers inside. Numerous complaints online. Toyota apparently acknowledges the problem as it has extended warranty on those parts to 9 yrs or 120K miles. Mailing letters earlier this year. I received notice from them when my car had 7 yrs / 130K miles. I think they are not being proactive enough with an issue that rendered one of my doors inoperational. It is not that I can't use the electric door opening mechanism, the defect also impedes the door from opening at all. I think it becomes a safety hazard and should be covered no matter when. It is not my fault it took them several years to acknowledge the problem - my car would be covered had them mailed the letter one year before.
Power sliding door cable broke. Confirmed with Toyota dealer that breaking cable caused power door motor to fail. Toyota has warranty enhancement to cover cable, but will not cover motor.
Sienna 2004 has had a defective door from about 40-45,000miles. It was intermittent for years until on 3/30/11 it totally quit working. I could never diagnose the reason why it would only work sometimes. Was it related to heat, moisture.... there was no correlation. It quit working. There needs to be a recall not an "extended warranty campaign" but a recall. Also my hatch rear struts that hold up the rear hatch have failed. Hit me in the head failed. I did get those fixed and again there was an extended warranty "campaign" which means select vans are repaired but not all of them. If you look through the complaints that have come in (and can you imagine all that have not even been documented?) then you will see that those Sienna 2004S that have the VIN # that begins: 5tdza23C... have numerous complaints on the same issues that being the electric door assembly and/or the rear struts on the hatch. Now instead of an "extended warranty campaign" Toyota needs to recall and open up the repair to all vehicles. I was told that I should get a new vehicle because they didn't want to repair my old one or deal with the van. My van lies outside of the warranty by 11,000 miles that is it. Even though I have documentation that the door was not working at 126,000 miles they will not repair because it is over 120,000 miles. Today my van has 131,000 and they will not consider unless it is a recall. Please review and categorize these complaints. If you need me to analyze them I will. Contact me. Toyota has unsafe vehicles.
I have a 2004 Toyota Sienna xle. Late last year, both of my power sliding doors broke within a week of each other. The cable that operates the doors frayed and snapped apart. I was able to force the doors closed but have not been able to open them since. My kids have had to climb thru the front seats until we could figure out how to fix them. I talked to my local Toyota dealership and was told to fix them the cost of the parts only would be $1200 a door. This cost included a new motor and cable because Toyota does not replace just the cable. I believe this cable issue should of been upgraded to a recall many years ago and is very discomforting to us who are loyal Toyota drivers. We as drivers have paid $30K+ for our vehicles and believe that we should not have to deal with this type of problem on a feature that we paid for as an upgrade to the original package. This is a wide spread problem nationwide from what I have read on several websites and blogs and includes several different year models from what I understand. Thank you for allowing me to share my story and I look forward to hearing about this issue in the near future.
The doors on our 2004 Sienna frequently "freeze" shut and we are unable to open them automatically or manually. This happens routinely when the temperatures are at or below freezing and are not resolved with turning off the power, doors, lubricating the tracks or warming up the car. The doors spontaneously unlock when we have been driving the car for 15min-1hour. The unlocking occurs while driving and bells sound, dash lights come on. We've taken it to the dealer, but they are not able to replicate the problem, because the issue is intermittent and temperature and time dependent. This is a tremendous inconvenience as we have a newborn, toddler and two school children and a serious safety issue.
The power sliding door on the passenger side stopped working. The buttons do not open or close the door. The door is so heavy that it cannot be opened or closed easily. The cable that moves the door snapped and visible (hanging outside the body). We had the extended warranty for 7 years and the car was serviced regularly, but this problem occurred after the extended warranty expired. The dealer says the whole motor, not just the cable, should be replaced, asking for more than $1500 for parts and repair. Snapped cable, loose and visible moving parts outside the body of the van, and a heavy and hard to operate "power" door present a safety problem, especially with the kids going in and out of the passenger side sliding door. I would appreciate it if you could take a closer look at the issue and have Toyota own up to its design problems. This issue has its own forums online, has its own facebook page and it seems that Toyota will not listen one customer at a time.
2004 driver's side sliding door cable broke, causing the door to be unable to close. Due to severely cold weather in Iowa, the door was forced shut to allow the vehicle to be operable. Door motor replacement cost estimates range from $1300-1500. A few months later the passenger side door started exhibiting problems opening and closing. Turned off the motors from the inside compartment. One time when the drivers side door was opened, a piece of the door assembly shattered the rear 3/4 glass panel.
The left power sliding door on my Sienna failed. While out on errand with a friend's child, I could not shut the power sliding door. Had to drive to my home with the child strapped into their carseat in the back and the door open. Took it to dealership and they said the motor failed and it would cost $1900+ to fix the power or $300 to turn in into manual door. Husband looked on internet, found instructions to take door apart and fixed himself as this was a very, very common problem. Sure enough, the problem was not the motor, you can hear it run to this day, and it was the cable used to slide the door - there was stripped plastic shielding bunched up on the cable which kept the door from running on the cable. This is very dangerous as the door did not respond to the power button and would trap a child in it. Second issue is the weld on the driver's side door making popping sounds. My husband looked and the weld was coming off and the metal underneath the weld had actually torn!! he took the welded piece off so that the door would be operational. Once again, the door can close unexpectedly on a small child without warning without door being replaced. Third issue is the sonar which comes and goes without warning. I try to leave my sonar on all the time, but in process of backing up, will realize the sonar has turned itself off. It comes and goes-sometimes will just beep on and off and on and off while driving down the street without anyone else around the car. Fourth issue is when the car is cold, the back hatch door will rise and then immediately come down forcefully on your head (it runs with a motor). All of these issues are listed all over the internet as problems with this car and everyone is told by Toyota that is you don't have a current warranty, they will not fix it for free. These are design flaws and safety issues!!!!
The electrical doors fail due to cable issues. The repair estimates exceed $1500. We fixed one door only to have the second door fail and jam close completely. Now we only have one sliding door that can open which seems very unsafe. After looking on line to see more than 900 complaints for this item, thought I would report. Customers are frustrated with the lack of help from dealers and Toyota.
The electric door (passenger side) intermittently worked for years, sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Finally it quit working. The rear fan goes on and off at will. There is an electrical short. My rear tail light on driver's side is always out, even after replacing it multiple times. The trunk door lost all its hydraulic lift and actually hit me in the head. It has no hydraulics left now and is very hard to lift. The lighted buttons by the front windshield where you operate the garage door, electric door - burnt out at probably 37,000 miles and were ridiculous to replace. The door locks are all screwed up. Hard to unlock the driver's door manually with a key, have to unlock from passenger side. The door clicker does not work. Batteries have been replaced multiple times and the clicker quit working shortly after, again an electrical short of some sort"?" so no clicker, no electric door, no trunk lift, no dome lighting, no tail light, not to mention all the recalls that van had (extra tire, seatbelts, door issues). I had to replace my radiator?? cause it was leaking. Van currently has 126,000 miles on it. It is by far the worst quality vehicle I have ever owned. I have owned an 80S Toyota corolla which was fine, Saturn, Acura integra, Ford Explorer, also Mazda, 2001 Chrysler 300M (horrible also), there is no doubt that after reading all the posts on the edmunds site about this 2004 Sienna van, it should be recalled for electric door problems and all door problems.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- St. Louis, MO, USA