hoddedo42

I just had my rear end go on a stock trd 2005 truck. Not even doing anything crazy. 80000 miles on the truck and the dealership is denying that there is an issue with the truck. Weak! Any idea if they will refund any money if a recall is initiated? Also Toyota OEM is the only supplier of the stock 3.73 gears so they toally have me bent over for this one.

hytenor

you probably won't have any luck with that many miles but contact the DSM and see if you can get anywhere...since Toyota knows full well that a certain # of these things were bad...they might do something. Just don't hold your breath. If you get nothing try seeing if Toyota will split the difference or you pay labor and they pay parts, something like that. I've done that in the past on Toyotas that were out of warranty.

If that all fails contact East Coast Gear Supply (Perry) as they have been taking a lot of new OE diffs as cores and may have some gearsets they can sell you for cheap. ...

http://www.eastcoastgearsupply.com/

good luck.

tacomafrank

i must be wearing a mountme hat

i bought a 2008 tacoma 4wd v6 auto with trd pkg and vsc in october of 2007. invoice 29k. severely rearended that same month vehicle had 2500miles on it. pushed about 5 feet into chevy pickup in front of me. recieved following too close ticket. 3rd party ins co claimed fault. truck towed to same dealer for repairs. 10k in damage with 12hrs of frame straightening labor. ins co would not total. dealer would not give loaner. in shop for 3 weeks with me checking progress of repairs 5-6 times and demanding "adjustments" to bed alignment,alignment of rearbumper, hood and frontgrill and headlight assembly, replacement of interior panels damaged by shop during removal of rearwindow for painting, (financial manager canceled these orders saying i was going to trade the truck in, the previous day i had refused to take a loss on trade-in his office for 3rd time). when i asked for further adjustments to be made to headlight assembly, the shop manager told me the only adjustment option was to reem out the plastic holes and try to pull it a little. recieved truck and told shop i was unhappy with repairs and was considering using different shop. had vehicle for about 500 miles and rearend popped and seized in my driveway and driveline sheared and dropped. truck towed back to dealer. collision shop recieved truck and expressed their greatfulness for oppourtunity to warrant their workmanship, made further adjustments to bed and painting where the wraparound rear bumper scraped a baseball sized section of paint off the corner of the bed.,from road vibration. and i told them that is not why i had it towed there. they moved it to service shop, paint drying and rearbumper still in bed. ring gear broken, warranty replaced gears only, rear wheel alignment was admittedly never checked because neither ins co nor warranty would pay for alignment procedure. took truck and immediately called service shop to report truck seemed to be hopping at rear wheels slightly while braking. got some bs excuse. 800 miles later rearend popped and seized again in about 8 inches of snow on interstate offramp. truck towed again to dealer and service shop claimed customer abuse or negligence and said warranty would never have replaced dif if they had known about accident. i left truck at dealer for 18 months and pursued legal action, was suggested to pursue lemonlaw claim, and truck found not to have a manufacturer defect but likely caused by abuse or faulty repairs or the accident. had dimminished value assesed, and towed to alignment shop where frame was found to be bent, rearaxle housing bent, and rearwheels out of alignment(LR farther forward and RR towed out). warranty rep and dealer stating that spinning tires is considered abuse or negligence.

Have filed lawsuit against dealer, TMSCUSA, and driver. dealer sent its engineering firm to plug into the Electronic Data Recorder(without permission) truck has been in storage at alignment shop for 21 months. spoke with jimmy nortz regional customer support manager several times til he retired then his replacement Lepin would not take my calls or awnser my emails. Have emailed several offroad specialists and have recieved lots of comments about the qulity of a batch of 8620 steel used for gears in combination with RC60 heattreating producing a brittle gear. Truck has 4200miles on it. no modifications and has never been offroaded.

toyota is stating that they have never claimed the specific toughness or capabilities of tacoma trucks and all adverising is and has been only general and what they call in legal terms "puffery"
an example of puffery: they never claimed the pizza has 70 slices of pepperoni, one pound of cheese, 8 out of 10 prefer it.. they just said the pizza was yummy- you would really like it.

vital22re

iTrader: (2)

wow, I really hope this is not something I have to look out for in my 2011 trd

tacomafrank

i dont know if this thread is still going but it should be.. im not gonna get bent over on this
there is obviouly a problem with these rearends and the customer should not get blamed and treated like there trying to get somthing for nothing. i need some expert opinions. some evidence of a weak gear. some numbers. some backme ups. Toyota would rather put this away quietly than get it taken in front of a judge and jury

MudHippy

Then it occured to me. This thread, and the one on TTORA, basically died ~5 years ago. How big a deal was/is it?

I'm not going to claim to be an expert. I do fully understand how differentials, R&P gears, 3rd members, and/or axle assemblies operate. I see no evidence of a weak gear. I have no numbers, or backme ups. My opinion is that when a part on a vehicle is replaced and either doesn't fix the problem, or needs replaced again soon after, then that part is probably not the underlying issue. Meaning something else is likely causing it to need replaced.

What something else might that be in this case?

You could have the ring gear analyzed. A simple Rockwell(hardness) test would reveal if it was as hard as what it should be for RC60 heat treated steel of the same type. Hardness directly correlates to tensile strength so that'd be pretty damning evidence.

Other than that I've got nothin'.

Good luck!

tacomafrank

yea i sure hope the accident is the cause. cuz other than that, it sure is an impressive truck.

thanks