We bought this car about 1 1/2 years ago. After having it for a bit we learned of the problem. You will be driving down the road (dry, sunny day) and all of a sudden the car will start beeping, the traction control will kick in and start pressure braking the car. The car thinks it pulling you out of a skid, so you have to strongly hold the steering wheel. It's terrifying! I feel like the car is going to pull me off the road. I won't drive the car in rain because of this and honestly don't feel comfortable even driving it most the time. You never know when it is going to happen and it typically happens while you are driving high speeds on the highway.
This is a known problem with Toyota - they have a technical service bulletin BR008-04 (ABS& traction control intermediate VSC system), which shows they have replaced the defective part. However since the car is old, they won't replace it anymore. It is the companies defect part! How many people have gotten into accidents and/ or died from this?
And just to say it - the 2004 version doesn't have a way to manually just turn off the traction control. We have tried everything!
I took it to a Toyota dealership and they agreed this is what is wrong with the car, but said they won't fix it for free - they wanted $800. I contacted Toyota customer and they basically told me they don't care if people die from this, because the car is old and they don't have any responsibility after a certain age of the car. We have 3 kids and this is not an acceptable answer! My whole family has Toyota vehicles and if they don't make things like this right, we will not be anymore!
The car is new to us and is frankly unsafe. This is Toyota's faulty part. I have seen several message boards with the same issue. How can a deadly issue expire?
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
We bought this car about 1 1/2 years ago. After having it for a bit we learned of the problem. You will be driving down the road (dry, sunny day) and all of a sudden the car will start beeping, the traction control will kick in and start pressure braking the car. The car thinks it pulling you out of a skid, so you have to strongly hold the steering wheel. It's terrifying! I feel like the car is going to pull me off the road. I won't drive the car in rain because of this and honestly don't feel comfortable even driving it most the time. You never know when it is going to happen and it typically happens while you are driving high speeds on the highway.
This is a known problem with Toyota - they have a technical service bulletin BR008-04 (ABS& traction control intermediate VSC system), which shows they have replaced the defective part. However since the car is old, they won't replace it anymore. It is the companies defect part! How many people have gotten into accidents and/ or died from this?
And just to say it - the 2004 version doesn't have a way to manually just turn off the traction control. We have tried everything!
I took it to a Toyota dealership and they agreed this is what is wrong with the car, but said they won't fix it for free - they wanted $800. I contacted Toyota customer and they basically told me they don't care if people die from this, because the car is old and they don't have any responsibility after a certain age of the car. We have 3 kids and this is not an acceptable answer! My whole family has Toyota vehicles and if they don't make things like this right, we will not be anymore!
The car is new to us and is frankly unsafe. This is Toyota's faulty part. I have seen several message boards with the same issue. How can a deadly issue expire?
- Jenny L., Bedford, nh, US