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.
The plastic housing/plastic lens covering the amber daytime running lights and the clear fog lights are burned, melted, cracked and broken. This is not due to any front end collision but due to the extreme heat generated by the original factory-installed light bulbs. The lights are generating so much heat that they are melting, burning and cracking the plastic housing which then breaks under driving stress. Compounding the problem is that there is no way to turn off the daytime running lights when the vehicle is in operation. Either the daytime running lights must be on or the headlights must be on. Therefore, the lights continue to burn the plastic housing. Toyota will not completely cover the cost to repair and replace these defective light systems stating that the vehicle is out of the 3 year warranty. Although the vehicle is one year out of the 3 years manufacturer's warranty this problem did not occur overnight but is the result of 4 years of use. The lens have been progressively getting worse over time. Because the lens are burned, we are concerned that a fire could occur.
Inside the front left and right headlight assembly is a combination turn signal indicator/ emergency flash indicator/daytime running light. The lense for this combination indicator inside the headlight assembly has melted and affected the integrity of the component. I contacted my local dealership twice and Toyota customer satisfaction by telephone. But they did not offer any additional information for correcting the problem, except for total replacement of the complete assembly at my expense. By the regulations of the federal government with the dot Toyota should comply with part 564 of the safety regulation requirements, and by this should notify owners of the optional replacement parts as a service bullitin with a mailed notification letter. Because of this oversight Toyota has chosen to adapt a stratagy to use an exception to their warranty contract by limiting their responsibility in effect of component exclusions I.e. light bulbs because of Toyota's inabillity to recognise and address this issue with a notification. Many of the dealers and owners who could have corrected the improper matching of the assemblies, before damage to the integrity of the signal indicators required safe operation was lost and Toyota gained considerable financial advantage at the expense of safety.
I have a 09 Tacoma and the drl's have actually burned, melted and popped the lens in front of them. Also, the bulbs themselves, upon examination, have burned the socket in which they are held. You can see black around the base of them. Took it to Toyota at 59K miles and I have the platinum 7year/100000mi warranty and was told it would cost me 1100 for parts alone to fix, offered no help and lied to me and said they have had no other incidents of this nature and its a rare problem never before seen. I have removed my drl bulbs out of concern of a fire starting and then I probably get stuck with that bill of a burnt front end. I should not have to pay because Toyota put in a bulb that's too hot or because Toyota decided to make a cheap plastic cover for the bulbs. I had zero influence on this failure. There are countless posts on all kinds of websites concerning this problem. I can track down over 1000 in less than 30 min. Please help. When I call Toyota I just get bullied around and talked to like I'm dumb or don't know what I'm talking about.
The daytime running lights have melted and cracked the lens/plastic. These are also used as front end turn signals. If these fail, it could be a major safety hazard. While there is a tsb, the dealership denied to pay for replacements since my 36K warranty has now expired. This is not something that just started to happen and Toyota is aware of the problem.
On the headlight assembly of my vehicle both of the running light lenses are melting. They first started to bubble and I noticed it at approximately 40,000 miles. I took it into the dealership to have it checked out and they said that the warranty would not cover it and offered no fix. Recently, I looked at the lenses again and they are now cracked and burnt. The plugs that the bulbs are in are burnt as well. Toyota told me they would pay half of the damages, but not the whole thing. In Toyota's service bulletin that they published in 2011, it states that the 2005-2011 vehicles have defective headlights and came out with a new designed headlight for them. With that said, my Tacoma is a 2009 model. One of my biggest worries regarding this defect is the fact that I like to go on road-trips in my vehicle which sometimes requires me to drive for long periods of time. I am concerned that over time the lenses will melt completely and cause a fire or short in the wires. I have three small children and I should not have to worry about defected headlights catching fire and endangering them. The last time I went to the Toyota dealership, I walked around and looked at the used Tacoma's and found the same issues on almost all of vehicles. Like I said my biggest thing is my safety and Toyota knows that they manufactured a defective headlight and refuse complete responsibility for it.
- Orangevale, CA, USA
Search CarComplaints.com for these popular complaint phrases...
My trucks headlight unit has daytime running lights "amber turn signal lighting" and its continued to cause melting around the housing. This has been going on for a year now and the dealership has been informed on more than one occasion and they refuse replacement because its not a declared recall from Toyota. The light issue continues to get worse and is almost completely melted around the turn area.
Electrically issue, highly distracting to driver. While radio malfunction is not a "safety issue" per sea, the manor in which the Tacoma radios malfunction is highly distracting to the driver. Radio changes station by itself, turns itself off, displays strange text characters on the dash and does not respond to dash controls, it is highly distracting when driving. (google Tacoma radio problems).
The contact owns a 2009 Toyota Tacoma. While driving the radio will suddenly turn off without warning. The vehicle was taken to the dealership for inspection. The technician stated that radio needed to be replaced. The current and failure mileages were 3000. Updated 01/26/10 the radio would come on and go off various times with no warning. The dash and head lights flickered. Updated 01/26/10.
1. was parking Tacoma in garage at about 5 mph or less; when I applied the brakes, the vehicle accelerated. Put gear into neutral to avoid crash. (Sept 2009; about 1500 miles on vehicle) 2. was slowing down; at a speed of approximately 20 mph I applied the brakes and the vehicle accelerated. Put gear into neutral to avoid crash. (Nov 25, 2009; about 2500 miles on vehicle) ---->>> drivers side floor mat removed on Nov 26, 2009. <<----- 3. was slowing down; at a speed of approximately 20 mpr I applied the brakes and the vehicle accelerated. Put gear into neutral to avoid crash. (Dec 2, 2009; about 3000 miles on vehicle) this happened even though the driver side floor mat had been removed. Additional info: Received a telephone call from jennette at (rosville, ca ??) Toyota on Dec 14, 2009. I explained the 3 incidences to jennette. She gave me Toyota case number 0912121226. Jennette told me to take vehicle to Toyota. Took vehicle to Toyota dealership in chico, ca on December 16, 2009 and provided extensive details about the problem to service advisor gary swietanski. They now have the vehicle and are going to check it out. However, he said that Toyota told him that they still have no "fix" or campaign to repair this defect.
The contact owns a 2009 Toyota Tacoma. The contact stated that while driving 65 mph, the vehicle accelerated to 95 mph without intention. He had to shift the vehicle into neutral to decelerate. He then restarted the vehicle and resumed normal operation.the vehicle was taken to a dealer for inspection. A technician speculated that the cause of the failure was either a computerized system reset or a floor mat interference. The vehicle was returned to the dealer. The failure and current mileages were 3,100. The vehicle identification number was unavailable.
Like a great many other people, I am experiencing major problems with the radio in my 2009 Toyota Tacoma. The radio turns on and off randomly with no input from me. It also switches bands (FM1 to FM2, etc.) of its own volition. Sometimes it refuses to turn on at all. Judging from the other complaints scattered around various forum sites on the internet, this problem seems particularly prevalent in the "access cab, " which is the model I recently purchased. This bizarre behavior has been happening from the day I drove the car off the dealers lot: The radio--which I thought was off-- suddenly began blaring at high volume. After about one second, it. Turned itself off again. It was startling to say the least, and I'm glad it didn't happen in heavy traffic. The radio exhibits some kind of "poltergeist" manifestation almost every time I drive the vehicle. So far Toyota's response to my problem also seems typical of what others are reporting. The company (and the dealer) appear to be stonewalling and stalling. The internet is rife with complaints about the radio yet there is no service bulletin (presumably because there is only an indirect connection to safety issues and the lawsuits they can bring). The service writer at my dealership stoutly maintained that he had never heard of the problem. When I told him that I had found complaints all over the internet, he attempted to convince me that I was the victim of internet hysteria--as if I couldn't tell when my radio was turning on and off without human input. In spite of the fact that Toyota has known about the problem for the better part of a year, the service writer tells me that "a technician will have to examine the radio for defects and get part numbers and so forth before he can make repairs." In other words, I have to make at least two trips to the dealer (25 miles away) to solve what should be a simple recall issue, and I have to hope an electrical gremlin appears on demand when the technician checks it.
The radio on my 2009 Toyota Tacoma access cab 4 cyl pick up randomly turns off and back on. It also randomly changes channel frequency from set position, and the lcd display screen is filled with unreadable characters.I was told by the dealership that this has been a problem on all Toyota models and Toyota does not have any fix as of yet. I wanted them to install a new unit and the dealership refused, stating that all of the radios were defective and I would just be installing another defective unit. They advised me to call them back 4 weeks later to see if Toyota had a fix yet. It has been 3 months now and no fix.
Radio turns off on its own. Display sometimes does not work while radio is on. Display sometimes is erratic. Toyota of saint croix, us virgin islands removed it. Will put in a new one by 6/8/09. I'm driving without a radio for now! after slowing down to enter a sharp turn, when trying to accelerate out of the turn the vehicle's RPM raises to 2000 but only revs. No output is achieved. To correct this I let go of the accelerator pedal and depress a second time. Output is achieved this time. Acceleration occurs. Informed Toyota of saint croix. No technical service bulletin addresses this...yet! was advised to keep filing complaints with Toyota.
Vic. 2009 Toyota Tacoma pu, jbl radio factory sys. Radio comes on and off at will, shakes you up to the point all most rear ended traffic in front, first time to dealer with no response, second time sunshine treatment but told one on order. Maybe fix on 4/15/2009.
My one week old 2009 Toyota Tacoma truck's blue tooth function is defective. It will not read contacts from cell phone. I am supposed to enter my 500 ever changing contacts one by one into the truck's blue tooth system. Otherwise, I will have to look at my cell phone while driving, dial the number, then talk on the blue tooth. Toyota E-mailed that I should have known my cell phone is not compatible with their system. There is no where in Toyota Tacoma manual or else where specifying the necessity for specific make, model, and carrier of cell phone to be compatible with the Toyota blue tooth. My cell phone is an lg, VX8300 model purchased about a year ago. My carrier is verizon wireless. After asking for my cell phone make, model, and carrier, Toyota E-mailed to me that my cell phone is not compatible with their vehicle blue tooth system. Toyota did not mention what carrier, cell phone make, and model I should have to be able to work it. They are ignoring the issue. Please help.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Kenner, LA, USA