In Toyota We Rust?

William C Montgomery
by William C Montgomery

On the day that The General announces involuntary gastric bypass surgery at the hands of Dr. O and while Crash Cart Chrysler waltzes with the Grim Reaper, not all is well with Toyota. The nosy newsmen at Boston’s ABC affiliate exposed a nasty little secret hiding under Toyota’s hospital gown. Yesterday, Team 5 divulged “more than two dozen complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Administration” regarding 2001 and 2002 model year Tundra frames that are rusting and blowing away. Today Toyota implied responsibility when they offered to buy back the rust buckets at full retail value. Keep in mind that this issue is limited to certain areas of the USA and Canada where salt is used as the predominant ice melting material.

William C Montgomery
William C Montgomery

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  • Jason801 Jason801 on Apr 29, 2009

    "A well maintained FWD GM will run forever and repair costs are a fraction of the imports." My FWD GM ('97 Grand Prix) was a hunk of fragile excrement and tried to bankrupt my young family. I parked it in the yard and refused to drive it (used my wife's car exclusively) until someone finally took it off my hands, and I went running back to Nissan, which had been my pre-GM vehicle.

  • KixStart KixStart on Apr 30, 2009

    ohsnapback: "Toyota probably had one of the worst, all time responses to hundreds of thousands valid customer complaints of engine sludge in a wide variety of Toyota vehicles utilizing mainly their 3.0 liter V6 (and to a lesser degree, their 4 pot)." The Internet has a tendency to magnify crap entirely out of proportion. Somehow, in spite of this massive sludging problem, Toyota maintains a long history of red bulls-eyes in CR and a very, very high customer rentention rate. If your story is true, then it's a sad commentary on GM because they're still worse. As it happens, I know at least 8 people with the Slugdgemaster V6 and the only one whose Toyota has a problem - and I mean any problem, not just an engine sludging problem - is me. A week ago, the interior latch release on the passenger side sliding door stopped working. It's an '01 with 85K miles and this is the first problem of any kind. If my GMs and Fords had behaved like this, I wouldn't be driving Toyotas. Nor would a lot of other people.

  • Ohsnapback Ohsnapback on Apr 30, 2009

    KixStart, for your reference (if you want data on how terribly Toyota treated problem plagued customers for almost a decade, Google is there): http://www.wired.com/autopia/2007/01/toyota_settles_/ Toyota Settles in Sludge-Damage Suit * By Mark Durham Email Author * January 30, 2007 | * 11:03 am | Toyota has agreed to settle with thousands of Toyota and Lexus owners who claimed their engines were ruined by oil sludge build-up even though they followed maintenance guidelines. The agreement covers eight Toyota and Lexus models sold in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including the Camry sedan, Sienna minivan, Highlander SUV, and Lexus ES 300. The number of covered vehicles could reach 3.5 million. The case began when a Lexus RX 300 SUV bought by a New Orleans stockbroker in late 1998 had its engine fail due to sludge damage after just two years and 42,468 miles. The settlement comes as Toyota struggles to cope with a wave of recalls that has hurt the company’s reputation for rigorous quality control. Toyota is not the only carmaker with sludge issues — DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, and Saab have all fielded numerous complaints from consumers about sludge-damaged engines. Those companies now have to worry that the precedent set by this settlement could put them next in line. [Source: Reuters]

  • KixStart KixStart on Apr 30, 2009

    ohsnapback, Color me unimpressed. That article has no quotable sources and few details. And in 2007, "thousands" out of 3.5 million engines that had by then been on the road for up to 9 years? And, in spite of their protestations, you know some fraction of those "thousands" (I'm calling it 1.5 thousands - feel free to find a better number) of owners failed to change their oil on schedule or Insty-Loob incompetently filled them up with 10W30 instead of 5W30, which is spec. Moreover, the contrast with GM couldn't be starker... at the same time that Toyota was quite sure that proper engine maintenance prevented the problem, they tore down a lot of engines and ended up changing the parts to allow for the freer flow of oil. That's not an admission of a problem, that's Toyota acting to make the engine more robust and more resistant to damage from neglect. How long did GM stonewall on DexCool? How many years of engines got plastic intake manifolds? Crap gaskets? GM knew they had a problem - and this wasn't in the shady area between owner neglect and manufacturing defects - this was pure GM got it wrong. And the customers got the shaft. Bash away. Enjoy the moment. But don’t be surprised when this Toyota problem doesn’t win any new customers for Detroit.

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